America's debt downgrade is a damning indictment of President Obama's Big Government disaster

The Telegraph ^ | Aug 6, 2011 | Nile Gardiner

[Clairity]

The decision by credit agency Standard and Poor’s to downgrade America’s AAA credit rating for the first time in 70 years is a massive blow to the credibility of the Obama administration, and a damning indictment of its handling of the economy. No doubt the White House will pathetically try to blame the Bush Administration, Republicans in Congress, and of course its favourite target, the Tea Party, for the move by S&P.

But without a shadow of a doubt, responsibility for the country’s financial mess and staggering levels of debt lie with the current US president and his administration. They have been in charge of running the economy for over 30 months, during which time the United States has witnessed an unprecedented increase in government spending and borrowing.

[rabscuttle385]

That’s an anarchist thing isn’t it?

Just because I'm not a fan of being ruled by kings, princes, dictators, and other "strong leaders" does not imply that I favor no government at all - that is what anarchy is.

[rabscuttle385]

You really make no sense.

Speak for yourself.

The President is the Leader of United States Policy.

Laws are made by Congress, a bicameral representative assembly. These laws are executed by the President.

I passed my high-school civics course. Did you?

[marshmallow]

Obama has done nothing to help the US financial mess but this has been a long time in the making and indeed gained considerable impetus under his illustrious predecessor George Dubya Bush who spent like a drunken sailor........excuse me.......a compassionate conservative and on whose watch Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers both vaporised.

Easy money......easy credit.........it has been the death of America and has been a consistent policy through several administrations. Obama simply gets to deliver the coup de gras. Now our orgy of borrowing and spending has come to a sudden end, we find ourselves $14 trillion in the hole. Well, it was fun while it lasted, I guess.

This downgrade is long overdue because it has been very clear for quite some time that we are financially irresponsible and the fiasco with the debt ceiling last week was embarrassing proof of that.

The real worry now, is where we go from here. Is this the wake-up call that we need which will turn things around or is it simply another red light which we run on our way to an almighty and catastrophic wreck??

[Senator_Blutarski]

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the United States has embarked on the most ambitious failed experiment in Washington meddling in US history. Huge increases in government spending, massive federal bailouts, growing regulations on businesses, thinly veiled protectionism, and the launch of a vastly expensive and deeply unpopular health care reform plan, have all combined to instill fear and uncertainty in the markets. Free enterprise has taken a backseat to continental European-style interventionism, as an intensely ideological left wing administration has sought to dramatically increase the role of the state in shaping the US economy. The end result has been a dramatic fall in economic freedom, sluggish growth, poor consumer confidence, high unemployment, a collapsing housing market, and an overall decline in US prosperity, with more than 45 million Americans now reliant on food stamps – that’s over one seventh of the entire country.

Great paragraph, great summary. That paragraph should be the basis of every Republican's 2012 campaign.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Ronald Reagan: “ Government IS the problem! “

[stephenjohnbanker]

LOL!

[Norm Lenhart]

If you are no fan of strong leaders, than do you prefer weak ones? Oh that’s right. We have gone down this road before. Nevermind. You do. My mistake in forgetting your political preferences.

[rabscuttle385]

If you are no fan of strong leaders, than do you prefer weak ones?

No, I prefer ones who do their Constitutional jobs, nothing more and nothing less, and go home at the end of the day instead of staying up late, dreaming up more ways in which they can intrude into the lives of their fellow citizens.

[Norm Lenhart]

You mean like Ronald Reagan... but he was a strong leader and you don’t like those...oh this is all so confusing when you insist on contradicting yourself in just about every thread you post in. Hard to make sense of your ‘wisdom’ so I guess it’s best to not even try. Your turn. Have the last word Rabs. Nonsensical though it may be.

[opentalk]

[RetiredArmy]

Our media is laying awake at night trying to figure out how to protect the made for television president they have created. Their dilemma is when and how to start moving away from him ...BUT, they can't! He is theirs just like the economy is his, the wars are his, the unemployment is his, the chasm separating the races is his, the class warfare is his, the price of gas is his, the rising cost of utilities is his, the problem on the border is his, the inept justice department is his. And to the media; by association, it's all THEIR'S!

The MSM NEVER can turn on Obama. The day they turn on him, even to promote another commie like maybe the Beast, they will lose it forever for the socialists. Simply, BECAUSE THE TRUTH WOULD BE OUT!

[CommieCutter]

That may be what their standard MO is...but will their liberal-white guilt let them do it??

[loveliberty2]

"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39

"I deem [this one of] the essential principles of our government and consequently [one] which ought to shape its administration:... The honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:322

"I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23

"[With the decline of society] begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia [war of all against all], which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:40

[ripley]

“They have moved on to the “Tea Party” now.”

They’ll eventually blame Mr. Bush for the Tea Party also.

IMHO

[Baynative]

“Made for television president”. Never heard that one.

I've been using it for some time...kinda hoped it would catch on, but it hasn't. Still, I think it's a fitting description.

[dcwusmc]

What’s wrong with a fedgov that’s ABSOLUTELY no bigger than its constitutional size and does NOTHING but what’s permitted it by that same Constitution? That is what YOU want, isn’t it?

[Oceander]

Actually, neither statement is necessarily true. In fact, with Obamacare, the second statement is in fact false. GIGO.

[4woodenboats]

And that’s the short list!

[eyedigress]

You let me know when Congress can pass executive orders.

[eyedigress]

You attacked “Strong Leaders” explain........