How is it a reach? Perhaps you need to read what Obama was saying. In context.

It is academic to discuss what should have been.

I have been criticizing Obama.

Keep whacking away at that strawman you've built there. I'm sure you'll beat it sometime.

You're starting to get mean. Can you calm down a bit?

Your first objection isn't based on anything other than your opinion of the man. If Obama offers this as a goal, and the Republicans are in control of the House, why are you just going to dismiss it? The Republicans need to take him at his word and get to work making this happen.

I have no idea what you're talking about with your last paragraph. Can you provide me with links so I can look it up? I would appreciate that. It sounds pretty terrible.

What I mean, however, is that they're wasting time with partisan politics instead of actually working on the situation. This whole repeal legislation is not going to go anywhere, not when Obama has the veto pen. They should work on something that will actually happen. Reduce government spending, return education control back to the states, reduce the number of abortions, and pull back from foreign entanglements. These are things I think the Republicans can and should do.

What happened to your pleasant demeanor? You're stating to get rude.

I can read, it's obvious. But you have only listed a bunch of current and future programs that you are saying inhibit growth but there is no evidence they have nor that they will. And you dismiss anything I say about historical facts regarding growth.

I never said you can't criticize Obama. In our discussion between you and me, I have criticized him myself. You're starting to get into the strawman area where you are applying some fabricated idea of that a liberal is to me and then getting rude. Why? I thought we were having a nice conversation.

I don't think deficits are always bad, but they do need to be maintained. I completely agree with you here. But let's get real about present deficits. The majority of the current deficits we're facing (if you exclude the wars and tax cuts) is reduction in revenue. A recession will do that. TARP wasn't Obama's plan, and the auto bailouts started under Bush as well. They're Obama's now, and he takes responsibility for them, but they most certainly are temporary deficits. TARP, bailouts, and stimulus are temporary spending plans. Current spending isn't sustainable, and current spending isn't going to be current because these programs are ended/ending. Future deficits will be high due to the interest payments to service the debt.

There isn't a silver bullet here. We can't just swing on in here and kill the deficit tomorrow because most of it is interest on pass debt, incurred through two wars, tax cuts, recession-caused revenue reduction, and bail-out stimulus spending.

If we put everything on the table to fix the deficits, we should look at health care again. David Frum recently wrote that the US government (state and federal combined) spends more on health care per person than any other country on earth, and doesn't cover everybody. The next country on that list is Switzerland. If we went to a Swiss-style system of health care, and cut that spending back to the per-capita spending the Swiss have, it would save us the equivalent per year of the federal military budget (excluding wars and veterans benefits). That's coming from David Frum, George W Bush's speech writer. It wouldn't solve the whole problem, but it would help.

I wasn't a fan of the stimulus. They did put money into shovel-ready projects, but those apparently took two-years to get the shovel ready. It was also less than half of the stimulus.

We have had recessions before, but nothing at this scale since the Great Depression. Wall Street lost a third of its value in the course of a few days.

What do you think would have been a better way to stimulate the economy? Or do you think the economy needed stimulating at all?

I was against the bailouts, and the stimulus. But I haven't really decided if there should have been some other form of stimulus. At this point it's just academic anyway.

You are grossly mistaken if you think disagreeing with somebody is an insult to that person.

But you've made it perfectly clear that you don't care to have a real conversation, you'd rather focus on being hostile to anyone you disagree with.

Instead of insulting me, maybe you can contradict my statement that Nolte is in fact libeling Jon Stewart. He is saying that Jon Stewart is participating in character assassination because he made a joke about her. He made a claim that Jon Stewart thought Mrs. Palin was wrong about Soviet debt when he wasn't talking about Soviet debt but about her mis-characterization of Obama's speech.

Can you explain how Mr. Nolte is right and I am wrong? Or would you rather just be rude?

You are misrepresenting my point with the tax rates. My point is that we don't know with certainty that anything will directly influence economic growth, because we're dealing with millions of individual agents who all have different opinions and goals.

My point with the tax rates was that you can't just point to tax cuts and say that will spur job growth. And you can't just point to government spending either. It's too complicated for our silly political back and forth.

The debts in WW2 aren't what I'm saying we should emulate, I'm saying there isn't anything apocalyptic about it because we can beat it, just like we beat it before. I sense a lack of optimism in the American spirit. Our currency is backed by the faith and credit of the USA government, and this faith isn't going anywhere. People and governments are still willing to buy US debt because we still have the world's largest economy, by far (like three times the size of China). Nobody fears for Japan's debt even though they have deficits far greater than ours as a percent of GDP because Japan has the ability to service those debts.

How do we get back to surplus? That's a good question. In 2001, Bush thought our surpluses were stupid, and paying our debts was foolish, so he said we should take those surpluses and pay them back to the people in tax credits and cuts. And then two wars later, we really could have used those surpluses because we didn't have the money to pay for the wars.

Like I said before, I really hope the current Republican majorities takes the leadership they showed in the 1990s to return to these surpluses, and maintain the surpluses instead of using it as short-term political points. Right now the Republican leadership is really failing in this regard by focusing on culture wars, and tokenism.

You really are assuming a lot about me. I'm glad you can make a straw man out of me that isn't in any way a representation of me so that you can hack away at it with righteous vigor.

No, I know my history. I know that the Federalist Papers were only one side of the multi-faceted arguments at the founding.

I didn't say that education was a right, nor that the constitution guarantees education. No, what I said was that some are arguing the government should not be involved in education because it's not an enumerated power in the Constitution. You asked me if I thought that was a bad idea, and I answered. I didn't say it's a right, I said I thought it was a good idea that we are providing education. Do you disagree that education is a good thing?

I didn't say Franklin was the end-all of the Founders, I only used him as an example to show I know what I'm talking about. He didn't write the Constitution, but he influenced a lot of those who did. He is considered a Founding Father, and I was simply pointing out that your blanket statements about the Founders simply aren't true by virtue of the fact that each of the Founders had different opinions.

I don't get your insistence that the Founders didn't have feelings. I'm sure they did. Every human has feelings. That's just weird.

I'm interested to know how anything I've said could lead you to believe I'm interested in chaos and disorder. I'm really interested in this. I don't know of anything I have said that might lead anyone to believe I want chaos.

You started out being very nice, but you're turning very rude. I haven't ever read Zinn. Most of my historical trainings came from RWS, John Birch Society, Wallbuilders, and the like. I've read all the founding documents, and I'm well aware what the Founders thought. You're just trying to dismiss me because you've built up some zany stereotype of what I'm supposed to believe, and how I'm supposed to act.

I'm sorry that people are mean to you, and I do chastise other people. You don't know me, yet you have the audacity to judge me, and pretend to know what I do or don't do in other places where you haven't been.

What do I propose people who disagree with lefties do? I guess I propose they stand on their principles and be secure in them enough to advance the principles without engaging in schoolyard tactics. All it does is drive people away from you, and shuts their ears off to your ideas.

I guess this is it. You started out being a pleasant conversation partner, but now you're just being mean and instead of talking about issues, history, etc you have devolved into just smearing me with your strawman tactics. Good luck with everything. I hope you have a good day, and you and yoru family remain in good health.

I would say that it is a bad thing. I know many people disagree, but would you really want to give up educating people? Education of the working classes spurred on the industrial revolution. Public university systems spurred on the technology age. Interstate highways aren't in the Constitution, neither is the FCC, telephone, satellite and cable. Trains, planes and automobiles. Just because the Founders didn't have it doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't live int he 21st Century.

The flat tax isn't in the Constitution, only the ability to levy taxes. It doesn't state anywhere how the taxes are levied. Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations argued for a progressive tax system. I think he was a capitalist.

And the Founders certainly didn't oppose European style government, because that kind of government didn't exist until the 20th Century, so they would have had no idea. But Founders like Benjamin Franklin did make arguments about taking Europe's lead in some places, one example being the Pennsylvania Hospital. "But the Good particular Men may do separately, in relieving the Sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively, or by a joint Endeavour and Interest. Hence the Erecting of Hospitals or Infirmaries by Subscription, for the Reception, Entertainment, and Cure of the Sick Poor, has been found by Experience exceedingly beneficial, as they turn out annually great Numbers of Patients perfectly cured, who might otherwise have been lost to their Families, and to Society. Hence Infirmaries spread more and more in Europe, new Ones being continually erected in large Cities and populous Towns, where generally the most skilful Physicians and Surgeons inhabit. " You can read the full text here: http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/hos...

But it would be foolish to ascribe one homogeneous view to all the Founders. They disagreed amongst themselves, and the Constitution itself was called "the great compromise." I think we can take strong stances on this, just like the founders, but I think it's a little silly to call someone "unamerican" because they disagree with the interpretation.

I think it's a cop out to just say you're responding in kind to the insults. That's just a cheap way to justify bad behavior. It's a grade school tactic. Nobody can say anyone started it, certainly Rush Limbaugh and his predecessors have been on AM radio for the past 30-40 years. Even before that, this kind of nonsense was being done in the 1910s, 20s and 30s. Before the radio, it was done in print. So who cares if you think you have the right to insult people because you feel insulted? Don't complain about being insulted if you reserve the right to insult other people.

Here's a copy/paste from your post, modified. Argue with yourself:

we liberals have only committed the sin of giving back what theyve been getting for so long. The old adage applies in this situation: they can dish it out but they can't take it. Try disagreeing with some of your fellow wingnuts on a subject. See how they react. This isnt just tit-for tat, this is putting a mirror to the ugly face of wingnut rhetoric. I dont pity the fools if they turn to stone because of it.

Jefferson himself wasn't sure about the constitutionality. But my point here was that currently there is a movement of people in this country who take such a strict view of the constitution that anything not directly enumerated as powers (Article 1: Section 8) of the government are unconsitutional.

They say that health care and education are unconstitutional because it's not an enumerated power. Neither is driving up debt (which is actually the first power in Section 8).

Stewart may have been taking cheap shots at Palin, but as I recently wrote on here, it's a double standard to play martyr when one of your own is taking shots while you stand by and say nothing as people on your own side deride people all the time.