Richardr hit the nail right on the head. ALL of congress should be sent to iraq to fight this "war" that they SO believe in and our men and women should be brought home. We should drill and process our own oil for a year or two and let the mid-east and venezuela sell theirs to china. We should DE-elect every over-fed, under-worked fat-cat in congress and start electing people who have more common sense that they have greed, people who are used to, and good at, pinching pennies and getting every cent's worth for every dollar they spend. If any such people even still exist in this "throw-away" society.
Do not buy any JOCKEY underwear products because they are manufactured completely in Honduras by people who make $35 per week instead of being made here, in the US, where people could really use that thousand jobs.
I would say, "don't buy it if it is not manufactured within our borders", but, then, we wou

How much has Bush spent on the war of lies in Iraq?

Perhaps you meant to say that we have a $9 trillion national debt. The deficit is the annual amount that the Congress spends over and above the revenue that is collected for a specific fiscal year. The national debt stood at $5.9 trillion when President Clinton left office in 2001, and contrary to what a lot of folks think, the national debt increased $1.5 trillion during his administration. So if the CBO projected a $1.5 trillion surplus, we'd still in $4.4 trillion in the hole, but then Congress probably would have spent every dime of that surplus on give-aways to grease their reelection.

Rather than, "Is the government doing enough..."? a better question would be, "Is the government doing the right things to address the economy?" Quite frankly, I don't think so. But, since I am not an economist, nor did I ever take an economics coure in college, I can offer no suggestions. I do know, however, that the Congressional Budget Office in 1999 projected a $1.5 trillion Federal budget surplus by this time. Now, given all the tax breaks to the rich guys, subsidies to oil companies and mega-farmers, plus the Iraq war, that projection is now a $9 trillion deficit.

The government can't be bothered with our economic woes. They're too busy throwing away lives and tax dollars for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Well, I'm not Iraqi, don't care if Iraq is ever free and definitely think their freedom isn't worth a single drop of American blood or penny of our tax dollars. I'm concerned about American freedom, which is rapidly becoming a distant memory thanks to the Bush/Cheney regime. At the rate our economy is tanking we'll be a third world country begging for foreign aid before the decade is out.

All the money being wasted on the Iraqi Civil War would go a long way towards developing alternative energy research here at home but Bush could care less. Every time I see him giving us that little smirk of his after dishing out another pack of lies I want to put my foot through the TV. And Congress? So far all they've demonstrated is their inability to do anything at all.

In a word, yes! When did it become the governments' job to bailout people who make stupid or greedy choices? Why do we have the freedom to choose? The answer is, that it is the only real job the government has, to protect our right to make choices.

They're the ones who screwed it up in the first place. Who do you supposed required banking institutions to give loans to poor people???

"The bubble will son pop and oil prices will drop. Which in turn drops gas prices, which then frees up our spending money."

If and that's a big if the gas prices do drop, you will not see a drop in everything else we pay higher prices for like groceries and utilities. Once people get use to paying the higher prices companines will NOT lower their prices.

Heck no! The White House hasn't even wanted to admit there is a problem. According to Bush, "yeah we are in a slow down, but everything is just fine". Maybe with his money everything is fine, but for the rest of us working stiffs, the economy is dire needs to a republican cleansing and remove all of them.

Except facts agree with Bush as made even more apparent by Wells Fargo increasing their dividend today. Unfortunately the religion of political parties trumps facts in many minds.

The fed has to do something. Failure to do anything will mean a total meltdown of the economy. President Hoover also believed that the government had no business getting involved in the country's economic collapse, and the country didn't fully recover from that belief until WWII, b/c unlike what the fed has done today, the fed, back then, did nothing, and millions of people suffered. We don't want to go back to that, I don't think.

The government should do less on the economy not more. Minimize regulations and allow the market to wk. yes some will suffer but the highs will be higher and the lows less severe than a regulated economy where the general population aspires to the US lowest common denominator.

I doubt that those who think the government "should be doing more" ever took a class in economics or at least not in the system we know as capitalism. The government needs to get out of the way not meddle more in the economy. Everytime the govt. meddles in the economy we move more toward socialism, which has been proven to fail time after time.

We are not a socialist society (yet). Sure there is a slowdown, but unemployment is still very low. I think people are upset because they had to cut back on $5 double soy frappachino latte's. Oil prices are the next "bubble" like tech stocks and the housing market. The bubble will son pop and oil prices will drop. Which in turn drops gas prices, which then frees up our spending money, which will then cause the economy to grow.

I think what's happening is due, in large part, to the pervasive greed that many lenders succumbed to in the housing bubble. Banks were being built at a rapid pace, and if you looked around, you had to wonder how so many people who would need all of the banks. Well, they had gotten into the mortgage business. Lenders were giving loans to people who couldn't afford them. Realtors cashed in on the shady lending practiced by over appraising the houses, and the sellers made bank on it, so really, I believe that the economy is now suffering for the actions of the bubble. The fed is creating rules for more transparency in lending practices, and there are still people making a lot of money out there...so I don't know what more they *SHOULD* do.

Let successful businesses succeed, let unsuccessful businesses fail. Stop the bail-outs, stop trying to 'manipulate' the economy.

jmo

When this Congress was running for election/reelection in 2006 they promised when elected they would make BIG changes. The only thing they have done since taking office in 2007 is to receive a lower rating in the polls than President Bush and continue to block any changes which are needed. This Congress should get the more than once used title of,
"The Do Nothing Congress" and they should all be voted out of office this fall for those who are up for reelection, including foremost the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority leader. The only thing these two have done is nothing but run a blockade to anything to help this country. Remember it is Congress who sets the budgets not the president. It is Congress who makes the laws, not the president. What have they done, besides loading up bills they do pass with an overload of Pork Barrel projects, of which some of these bills are vetoed by the president which such bills are passed. They have done NOTHING.

Heck no! The White House hasn't even wanted to admit there is a problem. According to Bush, "yeah we are in a slow down, but everything is just fine". Maybe with his money everything is fine, but for the rest of us working stiffs, the economy is dire needs to a republican cleansing and remove all of them.

For the people that think the government should do more, exactly what do you want them to do? The economy is global and out of their control. Do we want more idiots like Charles Schumer that initiated the run on IndyMac and cost us tax payers a whole lot of money? What are the odds of him being prosecuted like he so often supports for other people?

I'm still waiting for the price drop on the PS3 and on the new iPhone. In all seriousness, I'm confident our gov't is working to balance our economy. C'mon, the stimulus checks weren't good enough?