You utterly fail to explain how a congressman with exactly one vote (and who is generally ignored by his party) could stop the bailout dead in its tracks. He is not the President (unfortunately) and can't veto legislation.
Good grief. Clinton had the good fortune to be in office during the tech boom so unemployment was low and capital gains tax revenues were high. Hence the surplus. Clinton was no more the cause of the tech boom than were my sister's cats.
As President Ron Paul could: 1. Order all the troops home. 2. Repeal every idiot executive order that was issued by his predecessors. 3. Veto every unbalanced budget and every unconstitutional law passed by congress. (In other words, every single law they pass). Four years with no new laws! That's the best thing that could happen to the economy.
Well, I don't know if this helps at all, but I'm glad there are some people here who can do more than panic and/or bash America. I had the opportunity to meet and even have a quick conversation with Ron Paul at an event for the Mises Institute that took place here in Houston. I asked him what I, as a high school senior who can see generally what's going on (thank you, adults, for fucking us like this) can actually do about the current situation. His answer? Education. Become as educated as you can about these issues, solutions, politics, everything. I've been following Ron Paul since 2008, and I'm happy to see that his movement is gaining steam, and quickly. Even students I know who used to not care for politics at least have an opinion now, and their opinion is generally something along the lines of "our government is corrupt, something needs to change, stop voting for morons, stop voting for policies that defy common sense." Granted, that is generally how students have thought for decades. I've actually been trying to throw together some bullet points about how to fix the country, based on what I know- nothing too complex. The key problem I've run in to is one that has already been addressed in this thread, and that is this: people would be forced to change, and people living off handouts (see: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare checks, unemployment checks) will never support measures to make them actually work. The irony in this is that the situation is a lose-lose for them: if the welfare continues, it will go bankrupt, and they will remain unemployed and uncared for. If the welfare ends, they'll have to (gasp) get a fucking job. The partisan split in this country very accurately represents the split between types of people in this country. My father, for example, probably got 5 hours of sleep per night for a couple years when starting up his own company- and this was after graduating Duke in 3 years, obtaining a masters in engineering from the University of Texas, working for NASA, and then placing in the top 5% of his graduating class from Wharton. Plenty of our family friends are just the same- incredibly hard working, incredibly productive. Plenty of Americans are the same too, which is why Americans are still some of the most productive workers. However, that is assuming that they are working at all. The other half of this country seems to be content on handouts and having easy jobs, if jobs at all. It's very frustrating that they are even allowed to vote. It makes me wish for some type of legislation wherein a recipient of welfare of any kind isn't allowed to vote. Too bad that would be political suicide. Begin vicious cycle here. I have plenty of other opinions, but right now I don't know how to summarize them well enough for them to be of any contribution to this thread. On a final note, is it not ironic to call the country with the most medals (total and gold) in the Olympics fat and lazy? Obviously there is an argumentative fallacy in that point, but I just thought it was somewhat funny.
Ron Paul wants to eliminate the Fed (and hopefully the IRS) and restore the constitution; who else in power is more qualified with these great ideas?
I especially liked his selling missile guidance technology to China; shows how important character is when selecting people for positions of power.
Get a fucking job huh? Obviously you are not aware of the unemployment rate. Your argument may have held water in 1996, but not today. By the way, many people working today in the private sector are working because the US Gov't gives their companies contracts. The US govt spends more on defense than the next ten largest countries combined. I know people that work in the defense industry - how are they different than welfare recipients? I'll answer that - they have a job, they dress better, but in the end, they cost the US taxpayer more than welfare and unemployment does. And where does an 85 yr old get a job to pay for health insurance and substitute social security income? Telling an 80 something yr old to get a fucking job is easy to say when you're still practically a fetus.
He can't explain because it's BS. There were only 12 Senators that voted against the bailout. This thing passed with flying colors. It had strong bipartisan support so nothing was going to stop it.
I don't mean to bash you. But perhaps your views of this world are too simplistic. Telling the elderly to get a job is quite easy. Problem is who would hire them? If you were the ceo of walmart, would you hire the 19 year old or the 63 year old grandmother? And another note, since you are in high school. Please examine carefully what your peers value the most. American Idol, make-up, porn, alcohol/weed, grades, community service, part-time job, sports, video games/tv and SAT's.