Okay..... the only reason I am responding to this is because of two reasons...... one, I have had a lot to drink tonight; and two, just like Craig Jennings said "these numbers are next to useless". Considering less than 25 hours ago, I was posting on a thread on another board regarding the AP's (that's Associated Press, a known majority liberal 'news' source) report stating that there was 30,000 jobs saved/created due to the 'stimulus' package and their further correction saying they may have overstated it and it was about 5,000 less than they thought..... and Gibbs confirmed their correction. I then went to sleep for about 4 hours, and when I woke up, suddenly that same article turned into 650,000 jobs saved/created, while the same comments about the original article and numbers were still there....... (I leave the tab on my Firefox open and just 'refresh' to get the newer posts). It was an AP article through Yahoo. Here's the Buzz
Stimulus saved, created 650,000 jobs, gov't claims (AP) - Yahoo! News - Yahoo! Buzz
Like I said, it was originally an article and correction confirmed by Gibbs about 30,000 jobs (minus 4-5k) saved or created, at 8:30am when I went to sleep for a few hours, and when I woke up suddenly all the comments were under headline about 650k jobs......
All that did was reconfirm what I have been seeing from this administration; They're trying to control the media and fudge every source of information that they can to make it look like they are accomplishing something. It's not bad enough that they're attacking the only source of 'news' that's critical of them (Fox, Faux, or whatever you wanna call them), but now they're obviously attacking even the so-called 'Mainstream Media' to try and twist it to fit their agenda. I'll try not to even mention the 'bone' they threw out to their other pundits saying it was a million jobs, especially considering the 'independent' (read: known liberal biased) source originally claimed it was only 30,000 jobs. Even if by some strange and twisted mathematics, it was 1 million jobs, that 1 million goes into 787 billion a whole 787 thousand times (for the slow people, that means each of the 1 million jobs got salary of $787,000, even though we know that's also BS).
Yes, I know Kokonut is a strong conservative poster as I have been lurking on some of the political threads here. Yes, I understand that it's the Democrats that pretend to be for the disabled and/or downtrodden. However, I cannot understand how anyone can still be supporting this blatantly socialist administration. While I have no love for the last president, Bush Jr., it was his father that started the ADA. Clinton's surplus was a fudging of numbers (just like the way congress is trying to say that their current healthcare plan is budget neutral). The only thing good about Bush Jr was that he kept us from being attacked for seven and a half years since 9/11 (besides trying to reign in the bank crisis in 2004, which was started by Barney Frank during the Clinton years and even up until July of 2008 Frank still tried to say there was nothing wrong). The Patriot Act (and going to war over faulty info that the whole world believed was true) was a mistake and verging on violating our Constitutional rights, yet the current administration has not only extended the Patriot Act, but they have expanded on it, and are trying to enact far more invasive tactics such as their 'Net Neutrality'.
While I am also Conservative, I am a liberal/moderate Conservative. Basically, I believe in our Constitution in its literal and intended form. I believe our founding fathers were very astute, and in their wisdom allowed for our maturing population. It is not a living and breathing document (which some think wrongly that they can twist to deny us our Rights such as ownership of guns), however, it is a concise document that is open to amendments to adjust it to fit our maturing as a nation under circumstances they couldn't perceive.
Our founding fathers, 235-ish years ago, while not without flaws, were an extremely wise group of people who came up with an incredible yet simple document that formed the basis of all that our country was founded on. All that I am seeing now, as I predicted before our last election almost one year ago, is a malfeasant agenda based on socialism and propaganda which the ignorant/uninformed take as truths. Even though I am not religious (Those that know me here know I am spiritual and hold many more moderate beliefs), I pray that you all question everything that you read, and if you read something political, read even more about it from all sides and try to find the real truths.
All I'm seeing is actually worse than my warnings before the last election, and if you can't see it too, then you must have blinders on. This administration is ignoring the will of the people (most polls show that the majority of the people want nothing to do with the 'healthcare reform' in its current form ie:Baucus Bill, yet the only news articles I see state the results of the most liberal of the polls). The Tea Parties aren't a result of the minority, but are of the people that have never thought they needed to make their voices heard so have never been active before (they're just the ones that haven't totally given up).
This country was founded on and succeeded with capitalism, it's what made us the lone superpower of the planet. Now, through complacency and disillusionment, we have elected an administration that is trying to fundamentally change everything that made us good into yet another socialistic population which has proven time and again to not only fail, but to be unsustainable and hopefully part of a collective to which they can merge with the rest of the world and try to control.
We need less government, not more! You want to know why big government doesn't work? Just look at California. If that's not plain enough, think of it this way...... Take an employee outside of government making $50k per year. The employee pays the government $10k in taxes each year, giving the government a $10k net gain. Now take the same person, same salary, only in a government job. The government employee makes the same $50k per year, pays the same $10k in taxes. Since the government is paying their salary, there is a net loss of $40k per year for that employee ($50k paid in salary - $10k back in taxes = $40k paid out). The whole basis of bigger government is more jobs under government rule, yet the simple math shows that government jobs means more cost to the government, and we all know that the only money the government has comes from the taxpayers. As a taxpayer, I would rather that the government's money comes from non-government jobs because (as in the given example) they make $10k to spend on what they're supposed to, like protection from outside invaders and to provide for the commonwealth (the two main purposes of our government state in the Constitution), instead of spending $40k on another government employee that does nothing but make things more difficult on each and every one of us out of the money we're forced to give to them. It only means that they have to take much more of our money and I don't trust them to use it to mine and others' benefit as well as I would. I understand a fair tax to provide for common defense, but that is all that government is entitled to. A small government with few 'employees' has a net gain and will have a chance to come out of debt. A large and growing government like we are having, will only incur increasing debt, require more funding (higher taxes, payments, fines), and be further 'in the red', just like California.
Read (or reread) the Constitution with these thoughts in mind. It may be a document of 'can't do' but that is by intention to keep government small. The 10th Amendment clearly states 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people'. That means that for most things, such as a provision for healthcare, it is the state's responsibility to provide. What is happening (now even more than in the past) is a clear violation of everything this country was founded on.
I'm sorry this post got REALLY long, but I'm drunk, and got on a roll of venting frustrations.
Drunk alright.
And one's economic or political viewpoint does not make a superpower. Want to know what create superpowers? Power vacuum. United States wasn't really a recognizable world power until WWII, despite their heavy involvement in Treaty of Versailles; and who were the only ones left that didn't collapse or had huge debts at the end of the war? USSR and good ol' USA.