TBY quit letting a girl fight your battles. I pointed out the obvious to Chloe, when the President (who sets the agenda) and the congress are of a different ideological nature, she would be right -- nothing gets done or at least nothing of any merit. I would consider our last 2 years generally a success, the dem congress and the dem whitehouse saved us from the biggest recession since the great depression.

And if you are serious about her "statistics" about how Bush and Obama compare this far into their presidency you have to be kidding me. Obama inherited a recession, Bush inherited the strongest economy we had ever had... in history. There's something to be said about the directions both presidents took us.

calm down I'm writing a reply

Um really Yodel?

You are being ignorant if you don't think FoxNews change the dynamic of how cable news is presented.

Bush got hit with 9/11 less than a year into his presidency. That day's events caused a recession from which Bush pulled through just fine. Find a different scapegoat for your woes........Bush has been beaten like a dead horse.

I know really Bush lied people died, but that's par for the course when you are President.

It is all really Reagan's fault for embracing the evangelicals and his hoodoo voodoo economics.

Nice source on that tax rate.

"I honestly don't understand what basis 'fiscal conservatism' has, since by definition that would mean hiking up the tax rate for the wealthy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatism

"But I guess that's not what the Republicans had in mind when they held the START treaty and unemployment benefits hostage this past week. By the way this rate used to be 90% under Eisenhower and Kennedy."
To what rate are you referring? Certainly not the tax rate- not under Kennedy. FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower had the tax rate that high for the top .01% of the nation. JFK takes office and taxes drop 15%.
http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2009/04/16/historical-us-tax-rates/
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/11/03/nytimes-historical-tax-rates-by-income-group/

"My point is this Chloe: Congress is never looked upon favorably, but Congress's agenda is set by the President. The President decides what the issues of our day are, along with the media. Ultimately this results in what laws congress produces or enacts and ultimately this was my qualm with Bush."
The President can't get shit done without Congress enacting and passing laws... The way you state this is as if Mr. President executes mind control over Congress and whatever he wants happens. I understand that the President has a play in things, but it sounds like you think Congress might as well not exist.

"Furthermore if you're going to play the statistics game about who controlled congress as it relates to our prosperity why don't you try looking a little farther back than the joke of an administration we had for the start of this decade."
Furthermore why don't you read what I say. I cited unemployment rates, not 'our prosperity'. I was mostly showing how you played the numbers game first... I'm the stats girl and fact checker. You can't throw numbers out and NOT expect them to get checked with me around.

"And if you didn't realize that the right wing was behind the housing bubble 4 years ago let me be the first to enlighten you as to how election cycles work."
Rather condescending, don't you think? Please keep in mind that other people are intelligent- even if they lean right.

"The Bush administration's economic policies were faltering (or at least they weren't as effective as Clinton and Reagan's)"
Wait so you're a proponent of Clinton's economic policies and Reaganomics?

"TBY quit letting a girl fight your battles."
Excuse me? This isn't a fistfight. I'm just as capable of forming a coherent argument as anyone else with my IQ.

"And if you are serious about her "statistics" about how Bush and Obama compare this far into their presidency you have to be kidding me. Obama inherited a recession, Bush inherited the strongest economy we had ever had... in history. There's something to be said about the directions both presidents took us."
Bush also inherited the dot-com bubble... just as it burst. Bush dealt with 9/11. All my statistics said was actual rates of increasing unemployment under different presidents and congress majorities. The fact is, while Bush held the presidency and the GOP held Congress, unemployment decreased. While Obama held the presidency and Democrats held Congress, unemployment increased.

Obama has been in office for two years now. It's time to stop blaming Bush for anything that is going wrong.

You guys need to do a bit more reading and research. As a PhD candidate in political theory at the UofM, I can tell you that most of your claims that I have read are underdeveloped and need more though. I am not going to delve into all of your arguments, but I can tell you, there is a hysteresis when it comes to understanding what is really happening and the effect our actions have.

Yes, you may argue, "Obama has had 2years, he has to get over Bush", like superchole may remark, but it’s totally ignorant to push the actions that Bush enacted during his time in his office as POTUS. You can't just say that Obama actions right now, are the actions which are causing the problem in this nation, you have to look at the actions that cause these problems. If you looked at it like this, you will see that many of the problems stem from Clinton and Bush. Again, this highlights an idea of a "hysteresis" effect, the past effecting the future!

Now I just made this statement to highlight something that I feel most look over, who are backing, I feel like, underdeveloped statements.

I agree with Veta, Dem and Rep are basically the same, differ slightly.

But what the real problem is with the citizens of this nation. We have become "Imperial Citizens" to our state. USA is more of a liberal democracy rather than a true democracy, where the people are active in the political arena. The USA is an inverted-totalitarianism, where cooperation and politics are intertwined.

This shouldn't be the case! That isn't true democracy (equal power to each and every individual), but a democracy where certain individuals hold more power than the one (the cooperation that is). As you may now, Obama tried to destroy this power that the cooperation had, but early this year the Supreme Court shot this appeal down, with a 5-4 ruling because of the first amdt. which applies to a body of people...

Anyways, it’s the people that is the problem, if we really argued and struggled and practice true democracy, something that is episodic in the case of America history, where events like equality, emancipation (we fucken had a civil war over this!), and the new deal, were truly argued with a struggle on both sides; but with this came true democracy and the most satisfying resolution.

In the whole of human history, elites have never known what was good for the masses. It has always been the masses which have found the resolution which was needed for peace.

Anyways, the citizens are the problem and the solution, if we truly strive to become politically literate, I believe we will find solution with of course, some compromise, which will allows us to really live out what our Founding Fathers wanted.

A good book on contemporary politics is "Democracy Incorporated" by Wolin.

I could write forever, but I need to get back to grading....

I am a moderate btw, if your interested, but I support Obama and agree with TIG last points.

You must look at historical context. You fail to look at the context that each leader were presented in. Obama, like TIG, did inherit a failing economy, while Bush, did have a booming economy. This creates a dichotomy and really, to say Obama is even comparable to Bush is a shame, in my respect.

Dear world,
My name is Chloe. It's really not that uncommon a name. Can you please let people know how it is normally spelled and pronounced? Oh, and if you could let the kdice community know it's a girl's name, so I could stop being referred to as 'he' that would be great. Thanks.
Love, Chloe

Yes, vash, every single president has had an impact on the country's state. Great insight, that. My point wasn't that Obama is solely responsible for the state of the nation, but rather that people need to stop blaming Bush for Obama's mistakes and thinking of Obama as some sort of godly president, incapable of making errors.

"but rather that people need to stop blaming Bush for Obama's mistakes and thinking of Obama as some sort of godly president, incapable of making errors"

This was my favorite part. Let me know if I'm mistaken but I believe I read someone with your same account name say you would've preferred Bush for another 8 years than Obama. C'mon... I mean seriously come on Chloe you're smarter than that. Republican ideology isn't infallible either, especially when they give their economic stances. The only real Keynesian politicians nowadays are Democrats, do you know what happens to you in a recession when you don't spend large sums of money? The recession gets worse. I'm sorry if I sound condescending (I was working on a Business Law project for most of today so I'm a bit irritable), but my point is we've been is similar positions to now and we know how to get out of them. Or at least we know the tried and true method... we need to reregulate EVERYTHING and we need to spend inordinate sums of money. Until we do that we won't be able to recover -- economically or fiscally. So my question to you is this, Chloe, which of Obama's mistakes are people blaming on Bush anyway? Name 5 'mistakes' and I'll drop my position immediately and cede you victory. But please none of that religious right bullshit or matters of opinion. And by the way even if you do manage to find 5 real 'mistakes' his administration made I still bet you there's 100 things he did right. And that's a standard I would like to hold any President to (i.e. GHWB, GWB).


Oh and one last thing: unlike Bush, Obama isn't spending his first term figuring out how to be reelected. He's been spending it trying to fix our problems. The guy has gray hair now for God's sake, he's aged and worried and stressed over our problems and you right wing fanatics can't at least show him some respect for that? I mean it's not like he's breaking records for vacation days or something or buying ranches the year before the primaries (cough bush cough).