monkeyblossom wrote:
I think it's a testament to the job Obama's done in office that the criticisms of him always center around personal issues. His faith, his place of birth, his personal finances, his appearances at social events, etc. That means two things: (A) he hasn't made that many mistakes, and (B) the ones he has made are on matters far too complex for his detractors to be able to make coherent comments about them.
Personally I think he has disappointed by caving in to the sabotage of the GOP far too much instead of simply overriding them by playing the executive privilege card that Cheney's lawyers so graciously carved out for him. I hope he'll do better on that in his second term.
Far too complex? Here's some big numbers, but they're really not that hard to understand.
Current Budget
Federal Budget......$3,820,000,000,000
US Tax Revenue......$2,170,000,000,000
New Debt............$1,650,000,000,000
National Debt.......$14,271,000,000,000
Recent Budget Cuts..$38,500,000,000
Still too complex?
Say you're a distance runner just out of college working in a shoe store. That would explain why you have so much time to post on LetsRun during the day. Take away 8 zeroes and pretend this is your personal household budget.
Money you're spending....................$38,200
Annual income............................$21,700
New debt on the credit card..............$16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card...$142,710
Total Budget Cuts........................$385
Here's an explanation of those complex numbers. When a budget has nearly as much new debt every year as income, and the INTEREST on your debt becomes a huge chunk of your income, that is a case of inevitable financial suicide.