Today, we can all agree, our country is currently in an economic hole.
For a wide variety of reasons we are facing very difficult decisions ahead.
After senselessly wasting trillions of our hard earned money and having nothing to show for it beyond an increased debt load, Mr. Obama recently claimed that he was going to focus on debt and deficit reduction.
If that is true, then why, oh why Mr. President are you leaving on a trip which will cost us $200 million per day?
Mumbai: The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama’s visit to the city.
“The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.
About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.
$200 million per day?
Dozens of aircraft? Hundreds of hotel rooms? Three thousand plus in the traveling entourage? Multiple Marine One helicopters which must be taken apart, flown over to India, and then reassembled?
Mr. President, please allow me to speak for a large portion of the American people for just a moment.
Have you no shame sir? Just stay home.
We work hard for the dollars that you, and your Congress, are frittering away so carelessly and cavalierly.
We the People provide you with some pretty fancy living arrangements there at 1600. You should just stay home.
Stay home and work on what is important.
Better yet, stay home, go play some golf, and save us $200 million per day in the process.
If there’s something really important that you need to discuss with the folks in India, pick up the phone and call them.
@Greg: #97
I find it hard to believe, but I agree with almost everything you said. The republicans are already saying that they won’t get rid of the earmarks. As long as we have a campaign system that requires politicians to use someone else’s money to get elected I don’t see a whole lot of changes. They have to do what the money tells them to do.
We need a system of electing officials where they are not allowed to spend any money. One suggestion was to have the Federal government pay for it, but how do you figure out who qualifies for it and who doesn’t? The money has to be taken out of the equation.
If a system could be set up that takes the money out of elections, then the only people the politicians would have to please are the voters.
Greg, look at the title page of your link at #98.
It is NOT the Debt Commission’s proposal.
It is the proposal of the two co-chairs of the Obama Debt Commission.
(In other words, it was trial balloons.)
Obama has already thrown their recommendations under the bus.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/11/obama_throws_his_fiscal_commis.html
Remember that Obama made an end-run around Congress in even setting up this commission.
According to the US Constitution, Congress has the purse strings, not Obama and the Executive Branch.
Congress will come up with their own proposal.
It is called the budget.
Obama will likely veto it.
@Greg: #98
You and the other liberals haven’t learned that lowering taxes increases revenue. I have lived long enough that I have gone through several recessions. Each time the democrats raised taxes, the economy went down. Each time the republicans lowered taxes, the economy went up.
Many experts now agree that if taxes had been cut during the great depression, it would have been over with sooner. Raising taxes in a recession is like a person who is having a hard time paying off their debts, so they get another credit card. You get out of debt by CUTTING expenses, not INCREASING them.
Look at the chart below and ask yourself where our economy would be right now if we would have kept up the same policies:
http://lgstarr.blogspot.com/2010/09/job-gains-losses-by-congressional.html
Look how quickly the jobs went away after the democrats took office.
@ Nan G, #101:
Yep, you’re correct. It’s a draft document consisting of the co-chairs’ recommendations.
Flowergirl: hi, ThIs must be a first, and the right way of doing was applied to get results,
that’s what I call TRANSPARENT, THE people was handed the truth and they knew what to do,
70% vote for. FANTASTIC, YES people are hopeful now, that things are changing ,
and to the advantages of the PEOPLE who had lost the power to redress the wrong,
NOW a different tune will come about, as clear to see,
I love OKLAHOMA.