Those who are comparing this election the Reagan/Carter are making a big mistake.

It's not even close to the same. Think rationally.

Whether you like Obama or not...

if the unemployment numbers improve this Friday then you have a pretty damn impressive week for the President.

Chrysler did well. Housing is actually improving. Shocking but the numbers show promise.

Romney is offering a whole lot of nothing. He's extremely unlikeable.

keep hearing about obama being bad, and that things need to get better. but i've yet to see one thing romney's going to do that will improve things. i keep asking, yet i get no answers! what will romney do that will improve things? saying 'well, he's not obama' isn't enough.

Wow.

* * *

Hey Bigs remember how I said I wasn't gonna come down here...:wf :D

* * *

I want to point out one teensy thing.

Aside from the fact that he shouldn't be an issue here Mr.Bush has taken the high road and kept his mouth shut for four years out of respect for the office.

He didn't go to the 2008 convention (wasn't he with Hurricane Gustav victims?) and who know...maybe figured all the way around it's better for him to stay far far away.

Or was he still in Africa? Was that July or August... you know, that third trip?

It didn't get a lot of press of course but that's not why he went so there you go.

Okay I am done.

(Go, Pointman!). :tro:

Oh and for the record if my living room table were running against Obama I'd vote for it.

I'm not voting for Romney... I'm voting for the chance / probability that anyone else will do better and if it means putting my opinion on social issues aside (because really the platform doesn't mean much. Carter was pro life, wasn't he?* It's not like abortion will become illegal etc) for the sake of the economy so be it.

* My point being so what... nothing will change.

Mmsc, what is it that you think romney will do that will improve things?
As for the social issues, altho not perhaps monetarily important, those have a huge impact on peoples lives. And i do think there has been erosion of womens rights, and that it shouldnt continue.

I keep seeing and hearing, from many here and elsewhere, that romney will 'be better'. But not once have i been told how that will be accomplished. What stance has romney taken that is opposite to current policy that will give us this change for the better? And what makes you think his changes will occur?

Romney said he was going to create 11 million jobs.. We have to vote for that right, he said it? I saw it on my Google search so it has to be true. Will he cut corporate taxes to do it because we know this is 1975 and companies will plough that savings into hiring 11 million workers. Will it be 7 million in India and 4 million in China or will they spread the wealth around maybe Phillipines and Cambodia? Or maybe he'll get into another war or 3 and institute a draft which creates instantaneous jobs.. Just sitting here wondering.

Zig - you been watching MSNBC too much. :D Since you have already decided on Obama it's just..... moors - moops- moors - moops

Actually Mitt has been quite specific on the issues have a look. You may not like when his plans are - but you can't say he hasn't spelled them out and shown how they are different than Obama's.

http://www.mittromney.com/issues

Here's just one

Energy

Significant Regulatory Reform

The first step will be a rational and streamlined approach to regulation, which would facilitate rapid progress in the development of our domestic reserves of oil and natural gas and allow for further investment in nuclear power.

Establish fixed timetables for all resource development approvals
Create one-stop shop to streamline permitting process for approval of common activities
Implement fast-track procedures for companies with established safety records to conduct pre-approved activities in pre-approved areas
Ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process
Amend Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview
Expand NRC capabilities for approval of additional nuclear reactor designs
Streamline NRC processes to ensure that licensing decisions for reactors on or adjacent to approved sites, using approved designs, are complete within two years
Increasing Production

The United States is blessed with a cornucopia of carbon-based energy resources. Developing them has been a pathway to prosperity for the nation in the past and offers similar promise for the future.

Conduct comprehensive survey of America’s energy reserves
Open America’s energy reserves for development
Expand opportunities for U.S. resource developers to forge partnerships with neighboring countries
Support construction of pipelines to bring Canadian oil to the United States
Prevent overregulation of shale gas development and extraction
Research and Development

Government has a role to play in innovation in the energy industry. History shows that the United States has moved forward in astonishing ways thanks to national investment in basic research and advanced technology. However, we should not be in the business of steering investment toward particular politically favored approaches. That is a recipe for both time and money wasted on projects that do not bring us dividends. The failure of windmills and solar plants to become economically viable or make a significant contribution to our energy supply is a prime example.

Concentrate alternative energy funding on basic research
Utilize long-term, apolitical funding mechanisms like ARPA-E for basic research

i don't watch msnbc at all. i'm at work, will revisit all this later.

It was a joke :{>:

oh and thanks for working and paying your fair share :)

The funny thing about Romney's claim of magically creating 12 million jobs in 4 years is that the CBO and Labor Board has already predicted that, if we keep going at the slow pace we are now, with no additional improvement, that's exactly how many will be created by Obama's policies currently in place - in other words, that's how much the economy will grow on it's own with no new job creation policies.

Mitt just took that prediction and claimed it for his own - which I find hilarious.

So don't worry - those jobs will appear without Mittens being elected.

I have to mention there is an American Jobs Act sitting there waiting to be passed, that will create several million immediate lower and middle-class jobs (construction, etc), sitting there after being blocked by House Republicans for some long months now - might be a year.

Again, if the Republican Party hadn't chosen to try and destroy this president via total obstruction so they can regain power, if they had done the usual small things required by a government, unemployment would be about 6% right now.

You can see the effects of the Republican policy of "austerity and budget cuts" on Europe. America is far better off and more stable having followed mild stimulative economic policies.

People scream about the deficit, but if you get the economy going, taxes increased, that is gone very quickly. Obama has cut the size if the federal government, decreased the deficit, and even decreased the debt slightly. And the ACA, health care costs which drive nearly 1/5 of our economy, makes marked increases in decreasing that economic expense (yes, the ACA importance is that of an economic policy, too) - aside from making Medicare more efficient, lasting 10 years longer.

There is zero substance to Romney, either on fiscal, foreign or domestic policy. He's an empty suit. His advisors on fiscal and foreign are all W. Bush guys.

was this written with sarcasm or truth?

I dont believe Bush has been president for the past 4 disasterous years... this dude Big O has been the president.

What a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Congress for those last 2 disasterous years of the Bush Presidency... followed by four years of Obama disaster.

This is a bipartisan recession/depression. It includes republicans, democrats, the rich wall street folks, and the American people who spent way beyond their means and allowed themselves to be duped by the wall street folks and the government. We all helped cause this.

I love the dems disingenuous claim of 4.5 million jobs created in the past 4 years.

Well, yes, you cannot say its a lie, because there have been 4.5 million jobs created. Just happens that 4.2 million jobs were also lost. There has been a net gain of 300,000 jobs... aka 0.1% of the American population.

Way to be dishonest and not lie at the same time. I believe that is what Democrats do best.

I had what I truly believe was a fine meet at Saratoga this year. During the 5th week I made several thousand dollars, far better than I did in the 5th week of 2011. Troughout the meet, I cashed thousands more in winning tickets. I'm so wonderful.

Footnote - total losses significantly exceeded total winnings...

To start climbing out of the disastrous job loss recession/near depression hole Bush put us in, we needed 3.9 million jobs to replace what Bush lost. 800,000 jobs lost alone the month Obama took office.

So denigrating all those jobs created to replace the ones Bush lost is beyond ridiculous. Every single one of those jobs was needed, and yeah, we're 300,000 ahead at this point. Yes, we need more.

You expected a Republican president to create more jobs? Seriously? The party that won't do any job help at all, and fires public workers?

And you might note the majority of those jobs created were private sector jobs, because the Republican Governors were laying off public sector workers left and right, for an overall net LOSS.

Saying everything below the horizontal line of zero - fighting back to zero baseline via job creation - was useless and of no importance and deserves zero credit is false and ridiculous. Of course the Dems get credit for creating those jobs.

This is the politics forum, have you not learned yet that math is unwelcome here.

Yes, well, cute analogy, but the comparison of the jobs numbers we are talking about would indeed be considered the entire meet results, your net, not just a week.

Nice try, but way off on the analogy attempt.

Lori, even a net gain of 300,000 jobs is inaccurate, that is the figure for the private sector. However, when you add in the fact that there has been a loss of over 1 million public sector jobs since Obama took office, the picture becomes clear. There are less people working today than there were when Obama took office. This claim is a total outright lie based upon manipulation of statistics by taking the lowest amount of people working during the Obama administration and comparing it to today and by excluding public sector non-farm jobs.

What else should we expect from an Administration that attempts to claim that unemployment is vastly lower than it actually is (which is still vastly higher than the rate that Obama promised when he shoved his stimulis through a partisan Congress) by refusing to count those people who have run the course of their unemployment benefits and have given up hope looking for work?

I can't wait to hear the Democrat spin on the highest ever amount of American's now on food stamps. The 76 billion spent on food stamps last year is more than double what was spent on the program when Obama took office.

This administration outright lies to the American people and morons like Riot and Big Run fall for it hook, line and sinker. This is a party whose 2016 frontrunner caught on the spot on Sunday honestly answered no to the question "are American's better off today than 4 years ago" only to backpeddal the next day after the Obama's handlers got his hands on him and now claims we are better off. It is the party of lies that only the truly stupid believe.

lol
yeah, gotcha. read it first thing this a.m.

and romney may have some good ideas. but i've keyed on a couple of things, and no one has replied yet with their opinions on those issues: banking regs, tax cuts for the wealthy, and defense spending. the first is what got us into the mess we've been in, and europe has been in, for the last however many years.
rich paying less now than in the last 80 years.
defense already huge budget-wise. how can someone (ostensibly for small govt :rolleyes:_ ) say raise spending and lower taxes, and try to convince people that will help our situation?

Nonsense. Obama promised a recovery with the stimulis and all he did was spend a lot of money for nothing. Most of the jobs lost would have been added without government intervention. Government intervention has done nothing but waste a ton of money, made businessman scared to hire and increased the debt to over 16 trillion. Obama is a disaster and there is no way to spin it.

By the way, Bush did not create the recession, Democrats did. It started with Clinton forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make riskier and riskier loans which Barney Frank made even worse during Bush's term. Bush is at fault for not stopping the Democrats from forcing banks to give loans to people who could never afford them.

No it is not, you are not including the loss in public sector jobs. Stop your consistent lying and attempts to manipulate the statistics in a direction positive for Obama.