http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22990613/

-Increases spending on military.
-Keeps tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
-Cuts Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid along with a host of other domestic programs.
-Forcasts budget deficits of $410 billion for 2008 and $407 billion for 2009. These deficits do not take into account spending for the Iraq war or the issue of the AMT that will need to be addressed.

Bush will add close to another $1 trillion to the debt before he's done, and may be in the ballpark to DOUBLE our debt load in just 8 years.

Amazing!
He drove an Oil company into Bankruptcy and a baseball team into the cellar.
Now he's killing the dream for my children's children.
Thanks DUHbya!!!!!

See now this is a huge problem I have with many currently sitting Democrats;

They are all too comfortable with not presenting any substantial resistance to any of Bush's ideas or plans. They talk about it, then fold. Not out of " Well, we tried." But out of " We'll let the Republicans have their day and hopefully we'll get the chance to clean up any messes they have created come November." They aren't DOING enough. If what it takes to motivate them is to have a Democrat in the White House before they can get things done, then so be it. But frankly, it's not enough to make me all happy about how, why or when they are going to act. Otherwise, they may as well just not ever show up for work until Inaguration Day 2009.

And even then, I'll still remember it. They may have good ideas ( they may not ) but to just sit on their hands until they create an environment in which they aren't challenged is more than a little infuriating. And it doesn't feel very American to me.

Assholes.

Yep.

I think it's a cop out big time. If they wanted to, right now, today, they could make a LOT OF NOISE and DENY a lot of stuff.

Might not get progressive legislation passed, but they could damn well keep things from getting worse.

The whole bi-partisan, "make nice with the GOP nasties" bit essentially means nothing changes, but somehow we are supposed to feel better about it.

Been calling each day on this FISA, telecom immunity matter. It's just frustrating to hear all the excuses as to why we need to grant this and give W a pass on the lies and spies.

It's almost as if they think there are no choices, so all they have to do is pose a bit for us and that's that.

Remember, primary politics. Every one of those jokers is coming up for election at some point. I'm hoping we see solid primary challengers.

If we can put the seats at risk, I think things will be better for everyone. (And that goes for GOP side of things too.)

It's all just a bit too comfortable. Sick comfortable, like that family reunion, where everybody plays nice and ignores the ugly secrets.

I am glad you brought this up. I believe that in 2006, we were suspicious, emotionally raw and hopeful at the same time. Still, we did our due diligence, studied the issues, picked our people and went to the polls. We voted for folks we thought would cinch up their belts and serve us in the traditional American way. What did our votes get us?

Much more of the same obfuscation, much more of the same partisan impasse, much more of the same fears that erode our civil rights, much more of the same damn war, much more of the same joblessness, much more of the same corruption in contracts, much more of the same trade imbalance, much more of the same injustice, and much more of the same empty wait 'til 2009 rhetoric.

I see a group of lousy actors, going through the motions for an audience that only gets to see fifteen second chunks of a twenty minute performance. Watch C-Span almost anytime, and you will feel your blood pressure go up and your eyes start to bug out of your head.

What in the holy name of Thomas Jefferson is going on??!!

I'm still sore about the Democratic Congress not holding Bush responsible for his WMD lie. It would have been nice if congress scrunized the Iraq lie with the same gutso they went about the clinton sex lie.

YEAH!

I am beginning to seriously consider the more substantial people among us hold too much power. Media is corporate, many laws are corporate, our government is just totally big ass corporate.

There just isn't enough churn in the system. Well trodden paths remain out of view to be exploited.

People are numb too. Busy enough to not care so much, as long as they have their house and the electronic goodies. Lots of other distractions too.

Like that task you know you will be better off for having completed, but it's a bitch, so you just don't. You do other things, simple things, easy things.

Really, I think it's just easier and more cost effective to make us feel good about things than it is to actually deal with them.

Customer service government syndrome maybe.

Primary politics is the answer --I'm sure of it.

I think it gets down to what you can control and what you have no control over. Pretty basic concept, but hard to grasp when the above mentioned injustices continue.

One of my "sit back and watch what happens" kind of take was when I changed my party affiliation to Independent. This will be my first Presidential election with my new party.

I think we got screwed by the dems, not necessarily all their fault, the walls the GOP put up are simply to high to overcome. With Bush's ultimate veto power and the dems and GOP not really attempting to come together in a bi-partisan manner on key legislation.....well....I sit back and wait and watch.

Not apathetically, but with keen interest. Right now the bullets are flying in all directions in the race for President and it's only going to get worse.

Being an independent never felt so ......weird.

I changed my affiliation several years ago... to nonpartisan. The only reason I signed up with one was because I was originally given bad information - that you can't vote at all in the primary elections without picking one or the other. Wrong, I can still vote for nonpartisan positions and ballot measures.

Honestly, I don't give a crap about any of the Republican or Democratic candidates. Both parties and the people behind them are making too much money under the Bush Administration and its policies. Show anyone the money, and they'll forget how disgusting it was for them to get it.

Being a member of a political party was the most boring party I was never invited to. I have a much better time at the PDXradio get-togethers!

There just isn't enough churn in the system.

Missing, Ed-f'ing-xactly.

What we need are TERM LIMITS.


2 Terms and you are out. Back to the private sector.

I don't care if it's from a city councilman all the way to the president. 2 terms. No more. Goodbye, get the hell out!

IIRC, there was a term limit bill put up but Slick vetoed it. Maybe I'm wrong. I just remember there was some bill that I thought was a good idea and he vetoed it. It was either term limits or line item veto.

Both should be enacted though.

Term limits without lobbying reform would make things far worse than now. Then the lobbyists would have even more power than they do now. Congressman would come and go but the lobbyists would remain entrenched.

The number of lobbyists in Washington has exploded over the last few decades. Their influence in politics is disturbing.

I don't think Clinton vetoed any term limits bill. No doubt no such law would survive a review by the Supreme Court anyway (Clinton did sign the line item veto law but the Court struck it down.). A constitutional amendment would most likely be needed for either.

Andrew

Agreed. Most lobbyists are crooks as far as I'm concerned.

There should be a $1000 donation limit to any candidate from any one source. That would eliminate most lobbyists’ jobs!

No term limits. It punishes everybody, even the Earl Blumenauers and other people working hard on our behalf.

We have a term limiter -- the ballot box. Vote the thugs out! But no, voters keep electing the Tom DeLays over and over again. Blame the voters -- not enact idiot-proof laws.

Term limits do us no good if the voting public won't do the homework that it truly takes to make an educated decision on something as important as our elected officials, at ALL levels. So many people vote straight party lines, or for someone because "he looks cute" or "she's Jewish" or a myriad of other reasons that truly should be absolutely no factor.

For proof of just how ill-advised voters can be, I present the current POTUS as evidence. Yes, I admit, I voted for him in 2000 ... dumbest thing I ever did.

I still remember the headlines of one of the London newspapers after the 2004 election, right under a Bush less-than-flattering mugshot: "HOW CAN 55,000,000 PEOPLE BE SO STUPID?!?"

"I still remember the headlines of one of the London newspapers after the 2004 election, right under a Bush less-than-flattering mugshot: "HOW CAN 55,000,000 PEOPLE BE SO STUPID?!?"

I'd like to hang a copy of that up in my office.

I'm sort of a mixed mind on this. In the US Congress, I think term limits in the House to, say, three terms might be good and two, maybe three terms in the Senate. I think the House should turn over more often, because it's truly supposed to be close to the people, "representing" us. The Senate should be a place where we have more semi-career leaders, as this is it supposed to be a more deliberate body. If a state has good leaders we want to keep in our service, the Senate is the place we should put them.

In most cases, incumbents are really hard to defeat - they have an enormous advantage in terms of name recognition and money. (Years like 1994 and 2006 are rare exceptions.) If there were some other way to limit the advantages of incumbents other than term limits, I'd consider that instead.

Obviously all the money slushing around the political system is a huge problem as well and would have to be addressed realistically before term limits could ever be considered. I'd like to see public financing of campaigns.

Andrew

3 terms in the house is 6 years. 3 terms in the senate is 18 years.

House members are suppossed to represent the people in the states, the Senate is suppossed to represent the states interests.

Maybe the STATES should have their OWN interests???

Nwokie, I see you are showing off your math skills again. But no, the Senate is not supposed to represent the "states[sic] interests." It does give smaller states an equalizing vote vs. the larger states who have a lot of state representatives. But the Senate is supposed to be a more deliberate body and that's why the Senate has more responsibilities than the House in approving treaties, approving presidential appointments, etc.

Andrew

Read the federalist papers, and look at how Senators were elected until about 100 years ago.

They were elected by the state legislatures, not the people.

No, Senators were never intended to represent the interests of the states. The Founding Fathers doubted the ability of the regular citizens to make rational decisions about national policy. That's why they came up with the Electoral College and having state legislators choose US Senators. Only members of the US House were elected directly by the voters.

The Senate with 2 members per state was a compromise to counter-balance the power of the House that was heavily tilted toward states with large populations. The Senate gave a larger voice to the smaller states.

Andrew

Maybe the STATES should have their OWN interests???

I would prefer a one 6 year term presidency. No two terms.

You get one shot and that's it.

House and Senate is 6 and 10 and your done!

I'm personally against term limits. This is what elections are for.

Vitalogy, what do you think about the way incumbents have such an unfair advantage once they become entrenched in office? Do you think voters can really get an accurate picture of a good competitor when the incumbents already have name recognition and lots of money lined up?

Andrew

I'm personally against term limits. This is what elections are for.

But then you get old farts that are there for 70 years because the people voting for him have the IQ of a rock.

Maybe mix the two up.

Lighten up on term limits, and get the money outta the politics.

Get the money outta the politics.

Wont happen in a MILLION years. One of the BIGGEST offenders just had 8 years in the oval office.

Andrew, I believe that if someone is doing a bad job, the voters will remove them. Otherwise, it's up to each candidate to prove their worthiness.