In many ways, we are found with this choice, and a philosophical dilemma.
Either we put The Rep nominee in office, who will cut taxes, especially for the rich, and continue funding war after war, further draining our economy. He will try to make up for this by cutting government spending, which will lead to more job loss, and not come close to paying off the war and tax break expense. The focus is to make thing better right now, with less government.
or
We keep Obama for another 4 years. During his first 4 years, he has been far from perfect, but the recession did stop and there has been some recovery, albeit slow. Our international relations are better than they were when W. was in office (not a difficult feat to accomplish). Perhaps the two best things he did though, amid much conflict and opposition, were finishing off Bin Laden and saving Chrysler and GM. Romney would have let them go bankrupt, and then how many more people would be out of jobs? The focus here is laying the groundwork for a track that will eventually lead us to a much stronger country, with improved education, a stronger economy, and a step ahead in science and energy development. The problem here is that laying the groundwork is one thing, while ensuring it is followed after your term is another.
Regardless, of who gets in office though, the country is so divided that it will be difficult for either to implement everything they wish to.
No, not really. The political *establishment* is center-right, no doubt. You're also underestimating the power of modern media as a propaganda model and think tanks creating their own alternative realities. But only about half of Americans are politically engaged and tend to strongly disagree, in theory, with the political practices of their representatives.
true but Americans are still more conservatively minded then the rest of the Western world.
What is the Centre or Centre right in America is like hard right in Europe...
In many parts of Europe, agreeing with the death penalty makes you barbaric. In North America a majority still agree with it.
In Canada its quite strange... 2/3 support the death penalty but less than half went it re-instated. What has happened is in the past few years there have been many horrific cases and many people think 25 years is not enough as a punishment.
Attitudes shift around in a country over time as well. In America polls show people are actually more liberally minded then politicians about social issues like weed and Same Sex Marriage.
In Canada views have become far more hardened on immigration and Justice in the past decade but support for social issues and health care is still the same as before.
No need to put that in quotes, you guys CANT AFFORD IT.
Taxing the rich is not going to come close to fixing the problem.
It will require likley a sales tax or tax increases on everyone over 70 k or so and massive reductions in expenses.
Over time perhaps we will reach a reasonable level but remember this under Obama's watch he has added already 5-6 trillion dollars to the debt....
He has the European thinking that debt is not a big issue and we can see how that has worked out for our European cousins...
We faced a similar problem in Canada in the 90's and we faced a new 7% sales tax and a huge reduction in spending... It causes a lot of pain but in the Long Term, likley has kept us from becoming like Europe and the US...
Seriousily imagine this... The debt problems stays as it does and in the future, there is a great natural disaster or more economic crisis... What will happen to the US then?
Japan is still, what, 200% in public debt? They haven't sank into the Pacific yet. We can afford it short-term. What we cannot afford is private debt. There needs to be a jubilee.
I'm afraid you don't understand the European crisis, at all.
Most of the debt is owned by domestic hands but ever since 2008, the foreign share has increase dramatically. Historically it has been around 20% but its around 1/3 now and growing.
Quote:
Again, I don't know how this justifies austerity measures. You know it's made things in Greece and Spain worse, right?
No
You keep digging a hole it get to deep to climb back out...
Most of the debt is owned by domestic hands but ever since 2008, the foreign share has increase dramatically. Historically it has been around 20% but its around 1/3 now and growing.
Source?
Quote:
Again, I don't know how this justifies austerity measures. You know it's made things in Greece and Spain worse, right?
No
You keep digging a hole it get to deep to climb back out...
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Jesus christ, how myopic can you get?
It doesn't help they didn't raise taxes on the wealthy in Spain and Greece, only the middle class. You DO know unemployment in both countries is at 25%, right? You DO know Spain was NOT in serious debt before the recession, right? Hey, why does the UK have higher debt than Spain but not forced to have austerity measures? Maybe because Spain isn't a significant financial center and thus the political pressure on them is much worse, but especially because they have NO CONTROL OVER THEIR CURRENCY.
As you can see, the effect of austerity in Greece has done and will do little to fix the deficit...while the country will be mired in a serious depression for years.
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