US News
Obama warns states of "hard choices" ahead in economic crisis
Dec 2, 2008, 21:17 GMT
Washington - US president-elect Barack Obama warned Tuesday that the country faced 'hard choices' in an economic recession but promised aid to the more than four-fifths of US states facing possible cash shortfalls.
Obama told a gathering of the country's governors in Philadelphia that he would seek their guidance in crafting an economic recovery plan upon entering office on January 20.
'This administration does not intend to delay in getting you the help we need,' Obama said.
Obama has promised a new fiscal stimulus package that could total as much as 700 billion dollars to help raise the world's largest economy out of recession.
'These are difficult times. I don't think anybody here is viewing the situation through rose-coloured glasses,' Obama said. 'We're going to have to make some hard choices in the months ahead.'
A total of 41 of the country's 50 states may suffer from budgetary shortfalls next year. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a fellow Democrat, called for major new investments in infrastructure and energy - two central planks of Obama's stimulus plan.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
...the States have gotten their own tit in a wringer and now Obama thinks, after everything else, he has the $$ to bail them out?
there were elections and now there is a different goverment?
really?
nah.........not really lol.
Sheesh! Why can't you guys figure it out? Deciding to cut any spending by any government agency, no matter how trivial or wasteful it might be, is a 'hard decision.'
California could save millions a year by abandoning its color coding system for its curbs and cutting back on the unnecessarily elaborate signs on its pavement. There are literally thousands of wasteful items like this one in every state of the Union. What do politicians want to cut first? Police forces, firefighting, libraries and school lunches, usually in that order. What they are doing, of course, is punishing the public for trying to reign them in. The are like a mule with the bit in his teeth. You have to be firm with them and demonstrate some resolve or they never get the message.
sp4 is 100% right about Obama .
America made a big mistake electing him as president.
we should have re-elected Bush and given him a 3rd term which could have been leagal that is my opinion and i now i'm also right ...
SP is currently planning to lead his klan of neocon clowns in an insurrection against the govmint, starting in Texass. This will be sort of like a second war of secession, an uprising of the 'base' since they lost the war at the voting booths. If they win the next civil war, they will form a new nation, and install their folk hero bumpkin GWB as the new Amerikan Fuhrer for Life.
...do you think american elections are 'wars'? Besides, we don't need to secede...we have a guy will do all the work for us now, all by himself. Don't you worry, dan, we're going to give this new President every bit of open-mindedness the dems gave Bush! After all, look a the new Sec State:
White Water
Pardon of Puerto Rican Terrorists
Travel Office scandal
Chinese and Russian campaign funds scandal
caulght red handed selling influence to Columbia on the free trade vote...
and much, much more.
Yep, Dan, they're going to do all the work for us. It'll make you beg for Halliburton.
Each state needs to get rid of all that pork barrel spending and monitor more closely the spending and corruption of heads of state programs, and we'd be in a much better place.
Also not counting the mega houses,mega churches, zillions of new golf courses, bigger and better malls/stores, bigger and more expensive vehichles, more expensive electronics and the list goes on and on that the American consumer just had to have whether they had the resources to pay or not - welcome recession.
And again your point idiot stick.
It would be nice with all your ranting if you could come up with a valid point, backed by facts and made sense to someone with more than a 6th grade education.
You lost, live with it idiot stick!
I caught Paul Krugman talking to Chris Matthews on Hardball earlier this evening. Krugman thinks that the US government should try spending money at the same rate it spent money during the prosecution of WWII. I assume that Mister Krugman was here talking about the same amount in real terms, that is to say, in amounts adjusted for inflation. I really should have kept watching he might have answered a few questions that came to my mind, like, Where will we get that kind of money? I can only assume that he means for the Federal Reserve to expand its balance sheet to cover such an eye-popping expenditure. He did have the good sense to say that he did not believe that neither President-elect Obama nor the US Congress was likely to have the courage to take such a course of action.
I do wish I could agree with Mister Krugman on this last point, but I fear I may well be wrong. Stupidity is often mistaken for courage.
this is the problem - everything is hyperinflated - especially the price of housing
our government is incapable of doing even one thing that is not harmful
everything they are doing right now will just keep these housing bubbles and dollar bubbles afloat
these bailouts are really for the class of people who own massive amounts of property and do not want their values to go down
and it is the upper middle class and lower upper class taxpayers who will have to pay for it all, even as they can not afford these exhorbitantly high prices that all these subsidies are creating
it is evil - pure evil
and now the FDIC wants to subsidize mortgages by limiting payments to 1/3 of income - dang - the time to do that was before they bought the house they couldn't afford Sheila - now that is just more hyperinflated housing prices that taxpayers have to pay for
it is evil
what a terrible idea - this will keep prices too high and out of reach for every citizen who did their homework and did not overextend themselves
let the prices fall - let housing prices fall - it is the only way
Shall we just disband the government and let the people run the country then??
bail outs and new regs every where solialism is here with all the bails when will the public figure out the fed reserve is the cause not the cure
page: 1
lanceDec 2nd, 2008 - 21:30:14
'as much as 700 billion dollars to help raise the world's largest economy out of recession.'
This reminds me of the old cliche:
'pull yourself up by your own bootstraps'
which everyone should know is literally impossible as you need something to 'react against' (Newton's law). If you want to help yourself to prosperity the actual phrase is:
'climb over someone's back'
In the case of the Obama providing a 'stimulus package' (debt burden) he actually means:
'Climb over the backs of your future children and leave them in poverty while you prosper'
Sounds pretty bad and more of the same moronic double-talk from a guy that does not know how to balance a budget.
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