Sometimes I think our tattered safety net is preventing more serious actions to get the economy back on track and create jobs. If the populace was hurting as badly as it was in the 30's, there would be a loud clamoring for the government to do more. Without Social Security, there would be no tea party to rail against the government---they would be camped in Hoovervilles and dying for lack of Medicare.

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You know Luntz's Dial-A-Word is cringing a little bit over that one.

So, while we're at it why is a running a federal budget different from running a family budget?

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"First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves."

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"So, while we're at it why is a running a federal budget different from running a family budget?"

You and I can't push some buttons and create an extra trillion dollars.

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Only a corrupt government would assist in sending good American jobs overseas. What more do you need to know that both parties are on the take? Who wins when jobs go off our soil? The rich owners & stockholders, that's who. No one else wins, not even the little brown guy who works in sweatshop conditions for under 2 bucks an hour.

We can solve this problem in only 2 ways. Either we rise up and stop the hemorrhaging of decent jobs or we must agree to work for under 2 dollars per hour no matter how badly we're abused at work. If you're willing to work for near nothing to bring back the Whirlpool refrigerator line to Fort Baptist, please let someone know today. Otherwise get ready to watch your precious precious children spend a lifetime cutting up dead, bloody, chicken parts.

Wal-Mart's low low prices comes with the human price of low low wages for all. Our endless desire to pay nothing for the products we buy has ensured good American jobs will go missing in the future. We are equally to blame for the mess we're in because a cheap flat screen TV is apparently of more interest to us than decent American jobs.

President Obama nor President Romney will have the power to bring good American jobs back to our soil....assuming they even want to. But this must be done or we'll all be living in grass huts dining on dead rat, but only on good days. Seal our borders alright, not from dusty Mexicans, but to protect the few good jobs we have left. We're bleeding to death!

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I am pretty sure all of the 1% who run this country have jobs, so what is the big problem? The higher the unemployment rate in the 99%, the more money they save in operating expenses, and they pay all the taxes anyway.

It's their country, they own it lock, stock and barrel, fair and square, and they can do what they want with it. I feel lucky they don't make us move out if we lose our job.

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Max, you would take us to Greece if you could. http://haltingarkansasliberalswithtruth.co…

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Totally inaccurate statement SR. This economy runs on jobs and anything less is irresponsible and stupid. This economy has survived, nay even prospered, with higher taxes. It hasn't done as well when unemployment is high and jobs are low.

You would have us go to hell despite all your "good" intentions.

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"U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves."

Imagine a bill is passed that takes one billion dollars from tax payers and gives it to me. Is the cost of this program zero since it is money that Americans owe to Americans?

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Can you imagine how far we would be along with the recovery if we didn't have the small-brained Tea Party trying to destroy the country by stopping a large scale stimulus. Large construction projects gets steel, concrete, and supporting industries working (good paying jobs) and their suppliers need to start producing and their workers buy.

But no, that is too simple-minded for those of small intellects who can be led by the nose by right-wing corporate socialists who don't give a s--t about the countyry as long as they make their bonus and the stock numbers stay up.

We have made making the 1% live better at the expense of the rest of the country and the middle class the primary goal of the country.

When I am made king of the world, no deduction on bonuses for executives OR STOCK OPTIONS. A 18% tariff on all imported goods and no deduction for cost-of-goods produced overseas. Let them be taxable on their full value since they didn't contribute to the good of the country when they were manufactured.

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Actually, CBB, if you had ever bothered about the facts of why the Tea Party started, it was against the very corporate loopholes that the Fleabaggers claim to care about. The difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy is that the Tea Party had a desire and goal to make changes. Nothing that Occupy, or in NYC, L.A., or Oakland, the Fleabaggers, have done is geared towards accomplishing anything. I guess that is why they have marginalized themselves, even their little lie about some supposed 99% has failed to gain ground as most folks scratch at the surface of that lie and see it for the grand deceit that it is.

Krugman has always been a hack for bad history. He ignores other countries, besides Greece, that are having problems. He ignores how FDR created an 11 year mess with expanded spending. GOvt is part of the problem, particularly with its collusion with some of the corporations that escape their taxes. The Fleabaggers make the claim that taxes are not high enough, yet they know nothing of how those corporation avoid paying the taxes that are currently levied. The way things stand, right now, you could make the fleabaggers happy, levy a 99% tax against the biggest corporations and they would decamp thinking they have accomplished something. Meanwhile, the legislators have left intact the current loopholes that would mean thay actually pay less than 1%, and in some instances get moeny back.

That is why the Tea Party wanted fiscal conservatives, to remove most of the loopholes so that you wouldn't have to raise any taxes, just collect on what we are losing.

The problem IS debt, and will always be so, and the only way to get some of the jobs back is to kill most of the unions that have inflated wages for many job sectors that could be easily repleaced by lower wage paying countries. You oculd look to success and survival of various states to see how well govt support of jobs helps, or deson't help, an economy. My kids and I escaped the looney bin known as Kali because there was far too much govt interferance. The reality was higher wage did not equal surviving better in these states. I made less in AR and NV, yet I am able to buy more because cost of living is far less. So, I guess right to work does work, in the long run. My daughter, who has settled her family in TX cannot crow enough about how much better things are for her family since they escaped Kali, and I can't blame her. Jobs are plentiful, and she needs less money to keep more food on the table.

Part of the other equation Krugman and his ilk hate is that sure, you can stimulate the ecoonomy with certain curges in spending, but the best place for that spending is in defense, where you are actually building a product, and not wasting so much on the black hole of social spending.

Fact of the matter is, we have too much govt in our economy, and the best way to survive, and not become an Ireland or Greece, or Kalifornia is to severely cut back on the govt spending, and severely cut back on the loopholes through which corporations get away with paying less. The other ting is to get rid of at least 50% of the uinions in this country and try and get back some of the jobs that we lost to overseas markets.

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Conservatives and those of the Tea Party pay NO attention to what Krugman says. He has no credibility and is viewed as highly partisan. If anyone doubts that debt is a significant factor in economic well being then they should look to Europe and Greece in particular for confirmation of its importance. If interest rates start going up again then you will see just how significant that huge debt is when the Service on that debt increases substantially. If China decides not to loan us money then it also will become apparent. However, if your ideology requires such homage that you must put your proverbial head in the sand then just continue to ignore it. Eventually the reality will be so deafening that you won't be able to do even that.

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Conservatives and the Tea Party pay little attention to reality and continue to insist on doubling down on a failed strategy.

The current recession and our deficit are both direct results of the work by conservatives to kill government.

Had we left taxes at Clinton levels, and not started a war to consciously load ourselves with debt, this country would be fine.

If we really cared about the deficit, we'd raise taxes on billionaires. But it is not really about debt. It is about hating government, especially one with the black guy at the top.

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Ever notice how the R's don't want to talk about 2001-2008 (The Lost* Years)?

http://www.longislandpress.com/2012/01/03/…

And remember how the small business is so important to creating jobs and the R's (read Wall Street Thieves) want to protect them?

"Bank of America Corp., under pressure to raise capital and cut risks, is severing lines of credit to some small-business owners who have used them to stay afloat.

The Charlotte, N.C., bank is demanding that these customers pay off their credit line balances all at once instead of making monthly payments. If they can't pay in full, they are being offered new repayment plans for as long as five years, but with far higher interest rates than their original credit lines had."

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ban…

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