Monday, March 16, 2009

Where is the “Change”

"Obama has gone down the exact same road as Bush with his spends more than you bring in mentality. He has presented a budget of over 3.6 trillion dollars and raised taxes with estimates of 3 trillion dollars. Why not come up with a plan of covering the gap of 600 billion? Why plan to be short? If this is right for America, why can’t you create a plan that pays for it? Obama has been a coward at facing this issue. To increase spending by a trillion dollars and not presenting a way of paying for it is truly a tragedy.

"Obama is committing more and more troops to Afghanistan, my question is for what? What is an objective there? How do we know if we are winning? When can we say it was a job well done? What is the plan, any plan other than bomb evil into the ground? How do we know it is going well? Right now it seems our goal in Afghanistan is to bomb it into the ground until every citizen there says they hate terrorism, is that our goal? We must make them all say they love America, and we will by bombing them into the ground. This poor leadership on our budget and our military risks the entire country. First we make us less safe by extending unwinnable wars, and are bankrupting ourselves at the same time.

"China is growing so fast because they get to stand back and watch us waste all of our money on military bases around the world guarding Japan, Germany, and 130 countries that we have bases in. We need this to end today. Mr. Obama we need Change, you promised Change, my question is what has changed. More money spent without paying for it, more Americans at war. Where is the change?"

Obama Continues Bush-Era Extremism on Liberties, Secrecy

"The Obama administration has undone a few of the Bush administration's worst policies, true. Yet when it comes to Obama's increasingly clear disdain for some core civil liberties and his administration's penchant for secrecy despite cheerful rhetoric to the contrary, Salon's Glenn Greenwald arrives at a dismal -- but sadly, logical -- conclusion:

"'After many years of anger and complaint and outrage directed at the Bush administration for its civil liberties assaults and executive power abuses, the last thing most people want to do is conclude that the Obama administration is continuing the core of that extremism. That was why the flurry of executive orders in the first week produced such praise: those who are devoted to civil liberties were, from the start, eager to believe that things would be different, and most want to do everything but conclude that the only improvements that will be made by Obama will be cosmetic ones.

"'But it's becoming increasingly difficult for honest commentators to do anything else but conclude that. After all, these are the exact policies which, when embraced by Bush, produced such intense protest over the last eight years. Nobody is complaining because the Obama administration is acting too slowly in renouncing these policies. The opposite is true: they are rushing to actively embrace them. And while there are still opportunities to meaningfully depart from the extremism of the last eight years, the evidence appears more and more compelling that, at least in these areas, there is little or no real intent on the part of the Obama administration to do so.'"

Hawaii Residents are Drowning in Taxes

"Instead of downsizing government and lowering taxes, the local state government has decided to downsize government yet increase the tax burden. Have we not learned from our past mistakes? Have Americans forgotten what this great country was forged from? Is it time to revolt against bad government and remind them who pays their checks?

"When government does not have my best interests at heart by: not protecting me from crime, jeopardizing my constitutional rights, and deterring me from my pursuit of success, then they have become a hazard to all Americans. We have once again become a people that have lost its representation, yet continue to be taxed. Since when has the foundation of this country been government? The foundation of this country is people working for their own purposes and enriching society as they do."