social security is an insurance program. payroll taxes are the premiums. for years the federal government has taken away a portion of the social security receipts to make the regular budget look closer to balanced. that means the federal budget owes the social security trust fund beaucoup bucks.

the $40 billion that was cut out of aid to states and cities would have kept many of our first responders and teachers working. it is a shame to have to lay them off to satisfy some republican delusion that tax cuts are the only stimulus. all those local road projects around the country are gone unless the conference committee brings them back with a more sensible bill.

so help me to understand here: if you get help from the government but you don’t like welfare, it isn’t welfare? that fertility doctor ought to have to pay support payments for the results of his foolish unwillingness to exercise common sense. i’m not sure if it would help anybody for the mother to be in jail, but she does not see her psychosis as “abuse and neglect.”

here’s one for people who don’t like republicans or democrats: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/09-13

cynthia, do you want to talk about government snooping? because i’ll guarantee you that george w bush and dick cheney do not want the extent of their unwarranted spying on innocent american citizens to be known. as for stimulus, everything the house put into the bill was good, including the famous contraceptives the republicans fought against long after they were removed from the bill. if you’ll check out paul krugman’s article from yesterday, you’ll see there is not nearly enough stimulus in either house’s version of a stimulus bill. this from arianna huffington’s blog today: Let’s take a look at how sweet the fruits of bipartisanship have been so far. The biggest cut to the stimulus bill made by Senate Republicans was the $40 billion in state aid axed out by bipartisan cover girl Susan Collins. According to the LA Times, here are some of the results of this “compromise”: “Parks will close. Environmental programs will be scaled back. Bus and ferry routes will shut down, possibly sending more drivers onto clogged streets and highways. Schools may go without school nurses, and classes may become more crowded. Sick people who rely on state health programs may instead get sicker.” And what will the nearly $90 billion in cuts to the bill mean in terms of jobs? According to Krugman, the upshot will be 600,000 fewer jobs. In fairness, not everyone agrees with that figure. Dean Baker thinks the cuts will mean the loss of only 500,000 jobs.

well, i, for one, am worried that our economy will continue to slide. hopefully the senators and congresspeople can agree enough to get this stimulus plan to obama’s desk before the weekend. as for banks and lending, i frankly do not understand why the banks won’t simply write off their losses and start lending again.

i’m sorry i missed geithner’s announcement, but i caught obama’s great press conference. isn’t it refreshing to have a president again? and a grown-up one at that!

diana, you say: “rather ridiculous to think you can lower the revenue to pay the bills. Try it at home…..” actually, in times like the one we are in now, the central government has options we as individual households don’t have. that is why, as indebted as we are now that bush tripled our national debt, we turn to the central government to create money and apply it to our economy via a stimulus bill. hopefully the hoover republicans will not prevail.

the way benjamin franklin said it when they were working on the declaration of independence was: “if we do not hang together, we will all hang separately.”

how about joe, the government guy?

if you take the spending (stimulus) out of the bill, there is no benefit to the economy left in it. character assassinating senators and congresspeople won’t do any good, either.

When the United States is next attacked will we hear “gosh, I didn’t know they were going to do that?” no, deber, that’s bush’s line. fortunately, we have a president now—one who WORKS.

let’s see…closing guantanamo; changing the way government works so that lobbyists don’t run the place; creating an auditor for government programs so that the ones that don’t do any good will be eliminated; trying, trying and trying again to get republicans to stand up and share the task of getting our country working again; admitting that he was wrong when he made a mistake: so far obama has already done a great deal.

libra, after the last eight years of lies, it was so refreshing to have a president say to the american people: “i screwed up.” as for mistakes, obama has the advantage of being willing to learn from them, unlike what occupied that office since jan. 20, 2001. he also listens to advice instead of firing generals who won’t make demanded rosy predictions.

steve, did you fail arithmetic? in 2006 the democrats took over the house from the republicans. the senate went from republican to evenly split that year. all of bush’s expenditures except the last trillion were done with republicans controlling the house and senate (vice president gets the tie breaking vote). at last count we’re over $10 trillion in debt before obama took office.