[Riot]

>> forgive my pessimism, since it's my thinking that the govt got us into this >>morass in the first place. so far be it from me to think they can get us out of it.

You're certainly entitled to feel pessimistic, but who then will get us out? Ourselves? How?

>>i also don't believe that job gains that may result from all this increased >>spending will turn out to be enough to tackle the resulting deficit. i think >>the increased deficit to new record numbers will be worse in the long run >>for us than adding a few jobs here or there, because of the harm it will do >>us overall.

Fair enough. Economists debate the same. But where would we be without this spending? We can't just say "don't spend" and "stop spending and enlarging the deficit" without looking at what the consequences of not spending will do to us, too.

>>legitimate spending where necessary is one thing, coming up with new programs that are tremendously expensive is absolutely ridiculous imo.

I'm furious about Congress wanting to approve additional airplanes over what is being asked for - have you seen this story in the past couple days? I definitely have to start writing my Congressmen on this one. Yes, it's a small part of the budget overall, but it adds up.

The health care reform bills cost (using the current numbers that seem to be out there) is a trillion over 10 years, which is less than 1% of the budget. And the benefits to be derived, the cost savings, for millions of people that currently are an expensive drain on the entire healthcare industry, will help immensely.

And the humanity of the largest country in the world helping all it's own citizens counts for a hell of a lot, too. It has been recognized that this country needs to do something about healthcare for decades.

>>like i said above, getting us out of the two wars that are one of the largest drains on our treasury would be a huge help.

Great strides have been made in Iraq.

>>most economists are saying our deficit is our number one biggest problem. obama is working on making that worse, not better.

The budget deficit doesn't stand alone from the recession-depression-world financial situation, unfortunately. Nobody wants to grow the deficit blindly.