The Real Problem!!!

[Jake255]

but if those extra people on unemployment and such are those that have fallen into poverty, not the eligibility requirements being lowered. THen its a good thing we have a safety net or the economic crash could have triggered another depression. It all rolls down hill. If you lose your job and theres no unemployment. You use up your parents/families disposable income. So they as well as you are able to buy less. creating a vicious circle.

That is the total amount the government spent. You can't hold Obama responsible for the money spent in Iraq during his term. You can't count the financial bail out against him either, bush worked the deal it just fell to the new pres. to sign it. Then theres the money lost to the medicare part D that we are still paying for ( that's where the government can't negotiate the price with pharmaceutical companies). All of these things would have counted against the debt after bush left office. Call me crazy, but these things were the major driver of the debt. I would just like to see the real math.

Like I said, I'm not defending either one, but the issue NOW is spending is out of control and the feds need to stop spending it. They haven't even done a budget in 3 years! It's really inexcusable.

I remember when Obama said he would bring the troops home within 6 months of his 1st election, and he sent more troops. He is the commander and chief, he is responsible for to either send more troops or bring them home.

Another thing to consider is that when we went to war with Bush, the dems also voted to go to war. This was not all on Bush's shoulders. They had come here and killed 1,000's of people.

Both Bush and Obama are horrible Presidents, the worst this country has ever seen.

 

[Jake255]

Raising the minimum wage is a horrible idea for a couple of reasons.

1) It causes price increases (if a business costs more to operate, the increased get passed along to the customers)

2) Not all jobs are worth 13/hour. If a 14 year old can do your job, you can't expect big bucks.

3) It screws over people who've worked for 3-4 years to make an increased wage and creates a new realm of "new poor".

If you have a person who's worked for 5 years to make $16/hour and has set their budget accordingly, and then they raised the minimum wage to $16/hour, that person just got sent back to square one, and when market prices adjust to the minimum wage increase, that person essentially just got a pay decrease.

Minimum wage increases help the lower class in the short term, but in the long term, it leaves the lower class right back where they were before, and takes a segment of the middle class and moves them down to the lower class.

Also, the lion's share of people making minimum wage are teenagers (verified with BLS), making such a drastic move for a demographic where only 4% live on their own has some negative impacts. In terms of teenagers (and places that employ them), if you raise the minimum wage, the bosses are likely going to opt for downsizing their staff before they raise prices.

So, for the minimum wage jobs, the ones that employ full time adults are going to raise their prices, and the ones that employ part time teenagers are going to fire some of their staff.

It's just a bad situation all around.

Those are excellent points and I completely agree.

People are way too eager to jump on a band wagon because "it sounds good", but what people don't realize is every decision the government makes has ripple effects that mostly hit us, the small people.

The same with raising taxes on the rich, they think this is a good idea, but those people will raise their prices on their goods and again we get hit with a hefty sticker price. This is why Boehner is fighting against it, but they don't see it. Besides the point, there aren't enough rich people in America to get us out of a 15.5 trillion dollar debt.