Well, that's one vote.

Anybody got Obama remorse yet?
Double digit unemployment, one year after the TARP bailout that "we had to do now or else the sky will fall" the economy is still tanking hard. Where are the saved and/or created jobs...in the govt sector? Follow the money, 2 billion to help Brazil drill for offshore oil. Who is the largest investor in Brazil oil - you guessed it - George Soros. George Soros, who needs a free 2 billion bullshit. 25(?) White House appointed Czars who are unelected and not checked by Congress or the American people. A major attempt to marginalize Congress and center power at the executive level vis a vis budget machinations, census, and bizarro healthcare reform. How can you add 40 million people to the healthcare rolls immediately (these people need coverage now! is the cry) while not adding any more nurses, doctors or hospitals in to the equation and assume the system will not have to ration care, at the very least until the system absorbs them and is brought up to speed with more personnel, is ludicrous.

Are you kidding?

I agree with much of Obamas direction.
There are a few things I am on the fence about.

In any case I see little government wise that I do not consider an improvement. In itself that is still saying pathetically little since I disagreed with the last administration so much before 911 almost completley after.

In short though, I never thought of Obama as a saviour who would or could perform miracles. Did I miss a candindte who could and would?

That's why, Alice, the guy voted for Kodos. All would have gone well under his administration.

Well, Kodos couldn't do any worse.

Quick quiz: who was president a year ago?

Who elected Karl Rove, who singlehandedly tried to dismantle an entire branch of government? Who checked Cheney?

Stop right there. Stop. Think about this statement.

You're absolutely right: the public demand for healthcare will be overwhelming no matter how it's implemented. It will be an worldwide embarrassment to the American public and way of life, that will absolutely trivialize Katrina.

I am dumbfounded, wordless, for how horrifying it is that we've deprived so many people of care, ruined lives and families, and yes, killed people: all in the name of "free market" corporate profit.

That very fact ALONE is why we need to enact healthcare reform YESTERDAY. It's proof beyond any kind of denial.

No matter what - we'll be underprepared and overwhelmed. Yep, absolutely. And if you think for one second that that's any kind of a reason to hold off or to vote it down, your tail is wagging your a@@ so hard you can't see straight. Quit your whining and go volunteer to help.

Blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.

alice you are forgetting that Republicans are the biggest wreckonomic stimulators in the known universe (except for Kodos, to keep this on topic.) I'm pretty sure McCain would have made many of the same unpopular moves.

Basically we as Americans do not know what we want. We get stimulus, we say we don't want all this stimulus because it's just going to bail out wall street. If we weren't getting free money for clunkers, though, we'd be complaining about the vanishing value of our retirement portfolios and saying the government should be "doing something, anything." The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and people just like to b!tch.

WTF exactly does this mean? "Volunteer" to "help solve the health crisis?" Are you advocating taking a rotation as a volunteer EMS? Or maybe volunteer to play fake unqualified doctor for a day? I just can't parse it.

Not me.



That conflates two issues: TARP, and the stimulus. But most people, including most conservatives, believe that the infusion of money into the banks kept the national if not the world economy from complete collapse. And most people, including many conservatives, think that the stimulus has done some good and that things would be even worse without it, even if not all the money has been used as efficiently as it could (there's a tradeoff between efficiency and immediacy).

Yes, some of those saved jobs are in the government sector. With state governments reeling, ask governors where they'd be without the money they got from the feds. Consumer spending would be worse than it is now; people don't realize it because the money comes from reduced withholding in their paychecks rather than in an easily visible lump sum. And the infrastructure money is only starting to flow. Many if not most economists say the recession is ending, though it will take more time for jobs to recover.



As for the "car czar," he said the government may start selling its GM stock sometime next year--hardly support for long term government management of industry. It's not as if this administration wanted to get involved in autos; it wanted to try to save a major manufacturing base while not losing all of the taxpayer investment.

Budget machinations? Obama's put forward the most honest budget in eight years. He's not hiding the costs of the wars in "supplementals." He's not pretending that we won't have an AMT patch year after year. These are light years ahead of the prior administration.

And I don't see how health care can be "marginalizing" Congress when the administration has given Congress the lead in developing the bill. That assertion to me seems factually challenged.

As for rationing care, we already do. We just do it really, really badly: we do it by income, which is tremendously inefficient. See this David Leonhardt article for more.

Yeah, the economy isn't great. But I find it hard to believe that it would be any better with anyone else in charge. I see no scenario where McCain would have been an improvement. Hence no buyer's remorse.