Obama: Gov’t working to ease pain of joblessness

Zachary C.
Atwater, MN     11/09/2009 8:57 AM

Kevin you know there would be just as much in there if it were from GWB.

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Mike C.
Willmar, MN     11/09/2009 7:40 AM

Harold have you looked at the historical data? When we were in a similar recession early in President Reagan's Presidency he too increased deficit spending which was historically larger than his predecessor. Where was our deficit spending figure at the end of 2000?

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Mike C.
Willmar, MN     11/08/2009 9:28 PM

Harold again I am not certain where you are getting your information, but using the figures from this webiste, http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway (also used to calculate the debt clock) here is what you find. Just looking at one year to the date. In November 8 2008 the total public outstanding debt was, 10,622,166,941,631.68 just prior to President Obama taking office this figure was, 10,655,601,512,061.19 the figure as of today is 11,990,561,444,829.48 Now Harold if we go back the same number of months in office for President Bush, January 2008 that figure was 9,194,165,780,462.91. So Harold lets do the math. For the similar time frame President Bush saw the debt rise by 1,428,001,161,168.77 For President Obama the figure is, 1,334,959,932,768.29. Harold I just want you to see the acutal figures, I am not blaming President Bush or President Obama, we are all in this mess together and we need to all figure out together how we will get out of this. Again we need only look at our situation back in the early 1980's to see a simiar situation and we came out of that. One thing I know for sure is that misrepresentation, attacking follow Americans and sitting around flinging complaints is not going to help get things right.

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Bob K.
Hopkins, MN     11/08/2009 8:51 PM

"Explain why it isn't Bush's fault for this recession since the recession started in 2007 way before Obama took office" Obama had an elected office in the US Senate in 2007 and 2008(both Houses controlled by Dems) but was too busy to provide any solutions as he was running for President. He did not want to do anything to alleviate the situation as he wanted the worse scenario to happen, so he could make promises to the public into believing he had all the answers - but as we are now finding out - he doesn't. "Explain why Bush was a part and supported a bailout and stimulus package more than once." Explain to me how Tim Geithner was already temporary financing GS and AIG from the Fed Reserve District of NY at the beginning of January, 2007 and how he coordinated with Bernanke and Paulson to do the TARP, relieving the NY Fed Reserve by transferring the debt to the US Treasury. Remove the blinders Zachary, and see the whole picture - why Geithner was needed in this Administration, despite all of his background transgressions, as he designed the elements of the TARP Bailout while presdient of the NY Fed Reserve District. Geithner knew where he created the skeletons and where they could be discovered and wher they could be hidden or covered up. Example - http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/10/tim_geithner_chared_13_billion.html

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Zachary C.
Atwater, MN     11/08/2009 7:19 PM

Here Harold, I brought back some questions that you seem to keep avoiding. Of course I expect you to keep ignoring them because you don't know how to answer them. Explain why when Bush left the unemployment rate was already at 7.3% and rising. Explain why it isn't Bush's fault for this recession since the recession started in 2007 way before Obama took office. Explain how the 1990's were the longest period of growth for our nation. Explain why Bush was a part and supported a bailout and stimulus package more than once. Explain how Bush started us on this increasing budget deficit of going to war in 2 different countries.

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Zachary C.
Atwater, MN     11/08/2009 6:50 PM

Harold, GWB supported a stimulus package and if he would have been in office a little longer we would have either fallen further into a recession with him trying to wait to save things or he would have also put the US a lot farther into debt like President Obama had to, so your whole blaming Obama for everything is a bunch of poo.

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Denise S.
Atwater, MN     11/08/2009 6:48 PM

Oh Harrold, you digress so!

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Zachary C.
Atwater, MN     11/08/2009 6:25 PM

Harold is still avoiding my questions, but that is what I expected.

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dean t.
New London, MN     11/08/2009 5:02 PM

I just heard on Fox news an expert say that if you take in account all the people that are only working part-time , the ones that have given up looking the ones that chose early retirement. then the real unemployment rate is about 16 percent .

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Mike C.
Willmar, MN     11/08/2009 2:08 PM

160%? I don't think that is a correct figure, Harold can you give us a link that shows that please? Duane I found it interesting to look at the historical figures of unemployment from this site: http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000 The figures we see today are nearly identical to those figures that President Reagan dealt with back in the 1980's

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