Obama '08?

That's not further than me. That's right there with me.

I've voiced my opposition to just about everything the government has done starting back to last summer when this whole shitstorm started.

Agreed, but this is exactly why I don't take too much stock in the 60% approval ratings (or Bush's 27% in 2008, or his 70% in 2001). I mean, who care's if you approve of a guy if you really don't understand what he's doing, or how stuff in DC works.

The informed opinions I hear on this site are much more indicitive of how well a policitican is doing than these "approval" ratings.

But that's life isn't it? We pick a spouse "for life" and many end up with a divorce. Our judgment about many important things in life may be wrong, but it's still us making those decisions.

I don't doubt the truth of that, at all. Furthermore, I wouldn't say all earmarks are bad. But where is the change you thought you were voting for? MA is entitled to a certain disillusionment, on this.

personally I am far more alarmed by (all politics are local) corruption ranging from zoning regs to despotism in my own community and wonder why people in general ignore such extreme violations of personal liberty.

I try not to ignore these things, but it's rare that these things are publicized.

I think eliminating earmarks could only help with this local corruption though.

really?

The real problem here is that the federal government is involved in local affairs far more than the constitution mandates that they should. Earmark spending should not be on the federal level much of the time, it should be done locally, either state, county, or city. A parallel issue here is lobbyists. The reason lobbysists exist, or the reason they are so numerous, is the fact that the government is involved in far more than they should be, thus lobbyists and the money they spend simply represents protection money, to keep the feds at bay, or to keep them from passing stupid legislation that is very bad for various industries. Also, lobbyists are there to obtain favors, but those favors would not be available if the government was not overly involved or wrongly involved in industry policies they have no business in. If alot of the government was returned to state and local authorities, the lobbying could be much closer to the people, the actual users of the things, like roads, dams, bike paths, parks, etc.

I for one would not have an objection to paying higher local taxes, to build highways, etc. Anytime Washington collects the money, and sends it back to the states, a goodly percentage of the money is gone, and the decisions of how to do something are so far removed from the reality of the project, that alot of stuff is done wrong, or not prioritized properly.

When a politician makes promises during their campaign, not many keep them.
If were going to score who kept most of their campaign promises, I'm sure there's something out in web-land that shows counts or percentages of promises kept by candidate. Does it really matter? Those promises are forgotten, and historians base the president's performance years after they leave office.

We must learn to live in the real world of politics.

It's not so much how many promises were made during the campaign, but how they are running our country. They have bailed out AIG to the tune of almost $200 billion dollars, and the honchos at AIG will be giving out about $185 million in bonuses to the very people who got them into hot water.

This is an outrage that can be blamed on Obama and his financial advisers who have failed to provide the necessary controls on that money.

They should have let AIG sink; it'll have been much cheaper to let them go broke and started a new organization to ensure the viability of some assets to prop up those that have value.

It angers me that the bailout money given to AIG will also help foreign countries paid for by US taxpayers.

They now have the chutzpah to give themselves a bonus.

I don't know why you're pissed about AIG's bonuses. You're not upset about 5 billion in earmarks (because it's only 1.00% of the spending bill), why should you be pissed about AIG 0.09% of the $200 billion being misspent?

Yeah, I recognize that a campaign promise is just a campaign promise, but it's fun to watch and see how they spin it. I recall a recent brief note that Obama was getting tired of hearing about thousands of earmarks. We should button our lips. (He didn't say "button our lips" I made that part up).

AIG. Well, I didn't, and don't like it. Still, I'm in no real position to judge the necessity. We, and I mean the entire world absolutely have to have a functioning financial system. I think that end justifies a certain amount of government intervention. Beyond that, I think we should limit our involvement to projects that really enhance our productive ability. Highways are an example, but not just for the sake of pouring concrete and spending money.

I was very accepting of the idea that the government would buy "troubled assets" when necessary. It took about two days for that idea to fall by the wayside, and morph into taking ownership positions in financial entities. Now, we're in the position of the US Government being in the business of allocating credit. This is not what I think Congress and our bureaucracies should be doing.

Now, I also don't thing the government has any business determining compensation, to include bonuses, of executives in private business. Still, when the government becomes an owner, it happens. This is a function of ownership, alright, and all shareholders should have this right. Of course, they don't, but regulations can change.

That is silly. The bill was critically needed for the country, and it would make no sense to veto for some small dollar earmarks, many of which are valid. You can't say the same for the bonuses.

maporsche, If you can't figure out the difference between the earmarks and the bonus', there's not much I can do about that.

In my business world, we have never rewarded failure.

You prob don't want to talk about all of the CEO's who basically fucked up their firms and who where thus forced out......and where handed a multi million (or tens of million) dollar exit package on the way out.

They would have passed a bill (and they would have) that kept the government running if Obama chose to veto this bill. It probably would have been smaller (only enough to keep the government running for a few months), and then they would have reworked whatever Obama had demanded.

You're being silly.

I know the difference, and we ARE rewarding failure in our government. How many of these congresspersons demanded additional regulation of the financial sector?

The congress has been working against OUR interest for decades, we just allowed them to reward themselves for their corruption. Obama allowed them to reward themselves.

You must learn to live in the real world when it's about our government and what they do and don't do.

As you've admitted "congress has been working against OUR interest for decades." We have found the enemy, and it's us. We continue to vote the same people in, so who else can we blame?

A lot of Dems demanded regulation, but the majority Reps consistently shot them down. For example, in the mid-90's, Greenspan was told to crack down on sub-prime mortgages. He refused and cited the free-market as a cure. The Dems begged the SEC to crackdown on derivatives and other abuses, and Pitt and Cox refused in favor of the so-called free market.

See the link below for a great Krugman piece, in which he goes after Obama for being too halfhearted, and Reps for effectively offering no valid plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1