MarkP said:
This is an amusing poll that can be leveraged by anyone. Which way are we headed? What track? You won't find it in the poll. The Left will try and use the current incumbant as the reference point for why we are headed in the wrong direction. They will say "see, conservativism is the wrong direction" when in fact the ever shifting move towards socialism is the root cause.
...and we're off and running, again, with the cut'n'pastes. Too bad that most or your "wrong track references" originate within this administration.
Government spending...this administration has been spending like a drunken sailor, which should be an insult to inebriated mariners everywhere. (See debt growth below.) And it's not even *our* money they are spending...it's our kid's and grandkid's....
The "nannny state".... Look what happens when you do away with some of the traditional watchdogs, or worse, get industry (logging, oil, coal, pharmaceuticals, financial, etc.) to police itself. As if.... The FDA has been eviscerated, so we get bad or contaminated drugs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been rendered ineffective by the "temporary" appointment of a former lobbyist for the National Manufacturers' Association as the department head. Should lead painted crap for China be a surprise? Neither should oil and gas leases - *our* resources - given away by the Department of the Interior for pennies on the dollar be a surprise. And a lax SEC has allowed a wild west attitude to prevail in the financial markets.
Energy policy...what a laugh. Off-shore or ANWR drilling isn't going to help $4 gasoline one bit. The only thing it 'fuels' is a mad scramble for more oil and gas leases at fire-sale prices. And when it comes in, 10 years from now, ANWR oil *might* reduce the price of oil $0.75 per barrel - and this is from the Department of Energy itself. Corn into fuel? Who got rich on that? Besides a major campaign donor, that is, the Archer Daniels Midland Corp? What a boondoggle....something that 'costs' more in energy than it produces.
Economic state: Show me an economic indicator that is up substantially since Bush took office. And when things looked bad last spring, the administration pulled the plug on public access to the gov't's leading economic indicators web page. Nothing to see here. Move along....
Wage growth is low: hourly wages were 2.5% higher and weekly wages were only 1.6% higher in December of 2007 than in March of 2001. Not per year. Total. Over the past 12 months, real hourly earnings have fallen by 0.7% and weekly wages by 0.9%.
Job growth has weakened substantially, and has averaged an annualized 0.6% since 2000. Benefits are disappearing. Family debt is on the rise while the percentage of mortgages in foreclosure increases. (See "oversight" above.) The housing market is in a slump with home sales/values down significantly. The median sales price of existing homes was 6.0% lower in December 2007 than a year earlier and the median sales price of new homes had dropped 10.4%. The supply of homes for sale is the highest since February 1982. Home equity is declining, even though 60% of the average American's wealth is represented by home equity.
Alarmingly, business investment is low and productivity growth has slowed. Business investment has averaged but 10.4% of the GDP between March 2001 and December 2007, the lowest share since the 1960s. Net investment, after accounting for depreciation of capital goods, averaged only 1.9% of GDP, the lowest share of any business cycle *ever* recorded. Even labor productivity growth fell below 2% in the years 2005 to 2007, for the first time since 1997.
And then there's the deficit - which has increased yet again. In January 2008, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit for 2008 will amount to $219 billion, $56 billion more than in 2007, not including the cost of an economic stimulus or any additional appropriations for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This deficit is being bought up by foreigners, as they bought 77.2% of new treasury debt last year. This share of debt held by foreigners grew to 46% in September of '07 from 31% in March of 2001. Interest payments from the fed to foreigners rose to $39 billion in the second quarter 2007 from $21 billion in the first quarter of 2001. And the trade deficit remains high, growing from 5.0 to 5.2% of GDP between the third and fourth quarters of 2007. I don't know how this nation can survive being a debtor nation...something it has been since 1985 or so. But in the words of Dick Cheney "deficits don't matter."
The dollar is so low trading against foreign currencies that several American "institutions" may be bought up for foreign investors. Like CSX railroad. Or *Budweiser*....
The only place I kinda agree with Mark is on health care. Sort of.... just something has to be done.
Yeah, we're in great shape for the shape we're in....
