IMHO, the growing frustration in America is about MORE than.....

saitou,

You have brought up few good questions. I was burned out with original volley of posts and needed to take a break. Also, I started out on the wrong foot with some of senior members here. I wanted to take a break for a little while. But, I will spend a few minutes to address you questions.

I belive the Independent voters, which make up 40+% of the voters are center right. See the following Gallop Poll and article for more details:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/conservatives-maintain-edge-top-ideological-group.aspx

Remember, Progressives are a very small, but powerful, group in Congress. As to their take on government, don't want to take my word, hear it from one of there leading spokesman, Michael Parenti:

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Some of the main political agendas of Progressives are for a "Single Payer Health Care System", "Labor Union" control of America, and redistribution of wealth--which is basically "Socialism."

Here is Obama in his own words:

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First, you have to understand that elections in the US are really decided by the Independent voters. That group is now about 42%-47% of the voters--these are considered "swing" voters.

Bush was seen as too far right by some Independents due to the Iraq war and a little left because of the deficit he was increasing and his stance on immigration. So Independents felt a change was required.

Bush really upset a lot of Americans on the left and right. I was upset with him also. How he upset the left is obvious--the main issue, IMO, the Iraq War. How he upset the right can be Goggled on the Web, here is just one Poll/article.:

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/5/92432.shtml

Notice, when McCain ran against Obama, Bush was nowhere to be seen to try and support him. Combine this with the fact that McCain was the opposite "personality" of Obama. When Sara came to the scene, conservative got excited--then she started doing interviews that she was not prepared for--and the excitement when away. So what ended up happening what that a lot of conservatives basically stayed home and did not go to vote--they were basically not "energized."

One of Obama's main selling points as a new era of "transparency" and would change how things were going to be done in Washington. Republicans and Democrats wanted HCR. It was just a matter of how to go about it. With a Congress approval rate of 17%, this was a main promise that has been broken.

Now, Independents are distancing themselves from Obama. The proof of this is that Democrats' have lost Massachusetts Senator, Ted Kennedy's, "seat" to a Republican (Democrats kept that seat for about 40 years)--because their State has a similar health care system--that they are not happy with because of the rising costs and they did not think it was good for America. Read for your self at the following link from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/us/politics/20election.html

So, this election result, along with New York, Virginia and New Jersey elections confirms that Obama was not keeping his promises of transparency and the Independent voters across the country are realizing that a small group of Progressives in Congress led by Nancy Pelosi is directing the course of America.
What everyone seems to keep forgetting is that its Obama's own "non-progressive" democratic members in the House and Senate kept delaying the HCB from passing. The Republicans had no voice in Congress--until Scott Brown won.


On a side note, Progressives want to turn this country into a Democracy.

This is why Independent votors are starting to get nervous about Obama's statement "I am going to push for a Fundamental Transformation of America". If first everyone thought it meant "transparency" and "bringing together" both parties.

It is important to understand that American is not a Democracy, its a Republic. See the following link for the difference :

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html

California has a lot of Progressive influence -the most famous of which is Nancy Peloci. So, they tend to vote for referendums on laws--which is "democratic".

Our Founding Fathers wanted to make sure we never became a Democracy--but stayed a Republic.

Remember, Venezuela is a Democracy.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/10/opinion/ed-venezuela10

 

No one disagrees that our HCS needs overhaul. But HCR, that overally taxes one class to provide health care for all is a "form of" redistribution of wealth.

Here is Howard Dean admitting that ObamaCare is redistribution of wealth:

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/howard-dean-obamacare-is-redistribution-of-wealth/

There are other ways to do HCR and Republican have laid out that plan. Google it.

I am saying Labor Unions getting control of all industries are a Progressive agenda. I am referring to redistribution of wealth as socialism. No conflict here.

Unions are one of the main reason California and New York economies are such bad shape. Now with Progressive supporting Card Check for Unions--its going to get worse.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/card_check_good_for_unions_bad.html

Is the "horse's mouth" good enough for you?

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Greece's economy is collapsing before our eyes. Google it.

Also, more and more Americans are starting to see what I am seeing in America.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...crats-loss-of-supermajority/?fbid=bhsbPCo0c-o

 

Unfortunately, for Obama, it's only getting WORSE.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001629-503544.html

April 2, 2010 7:01 AM
Obama's Approval Rating Hits New Low
Posted by Tucker Reals 481 comments Share2803
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CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.


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"Last week, President Obama signed historic health care reform legislation into law -- but his legislative success doesn't seem to have helped his image with the American public.


The latest CBS News Poll, conducted between March 29 and April 1, found Americans unhappier than ever with Mr. Obama's handling of health care - and still worried about the state of the economy.

President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent, down five points from late March, just before the health bill's passage in the House of Representatives. It's down 24 points since his all-time high last April. Forty-one percent of those polled said they disapproved of the president's performance.

More results from this CBS News Poll will be released in Friday's broadcast of the Evening News with Katie Couric, which airs at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

When it comes to health care, the President's approval rating is even lower -- and is also a new all-time low. Only 34 percent approved, while 55 percent said they disapproved.
Americans are still worried about the economy, with 84 percent telling CBS they thought it was still in bad condition. However, even that high number represents an improvement: nine in ten thought the economy was bad during the last half of 2008 and at the beginning of 2009, when Mr. Obama assumed the Presidency.

Concern about job loss remains high; slightly more Americans now (35 percent) than in February (31 percent) were "very concerned" that someone in their household would lose a job. Nearly six in ten Americans said they were at least "somewhat concerned" about a job loss.

As has often been the case, lower-income Americans tend to be the most concerned about job loss.

This concern is reflected in yet another low approval rating -- this time for the President's handling of the economy. Just 42 percent said they approved of how President Obama is handling the economy, only one point above January's all-time low. Half of the public disapproves."
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Of course, no need to discuss America's feelings toward Congress--its at a ALL TIME LOW of 17% approval.

Normally, you have to cut off the head of the snake, but in November's election-- voters will settle for the body and sweep the head away in 2012. Bush deserved to go, and now, so does Obama.

If Obama would have just listened to the public and kept his promise of transparency and "true change" in Washington, I would have been the first one to vote him back into office.

IMO:

However, this time, the center-right Independents voters (aka, the decision makers) DO NOT want another Bush/McCain.

They want a fresh face, someone like a Scott Brown or Bobby Gindal--someone more center-right that will get the deficit down and take more "moderate steps" on issues like HCR, immigration reform, world climate issues and deforestation. And NO, I am not saying these are the canadiates that I want running or will be running--just someone similar.

Also, IMO, the world economy is headed into collapse and when that happens America must be ready to be the "Noah's Ark"--where other nations can turn to relocate their assets and businesses. We cannot do this if we are in "worse financial condition" than the other nations. Just Google what's going on with the declining credit rating of California and America as a whole.

As I have stated throughout this thread, this time voters WILL be looking at both sides and selecting candidates on their core principals and values.

 

It's more than tort reform... From GOP website:

Republicans’ Common-Sense Reforms Will LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS
Americans want a step-by-step, common-sense approach to health care reform, not Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s costly, 1,990-page government takeover of our nation’s health care system. Republicans’ alternative solution focuses on lowering health care premiums for families and small businesses, increasing access to affordable, high-quality care, and promoting healthier lifestyles – without adding to the crushing debt Washington has placed on our children and grandchildren. Following are the key elements of Republicans’ alternative plan:

• Lowering health care premiums. The GOP plan will lower health care premiums for American families and small businesses, addressing Americans’ number-one priority for health care reform.

• Establishing Universal Access Programs to guarantee access to affordable health care for those with pre-existing conditions. The GOP plan creates Universal Access Programs that expand and reform high-risk pools and reinsurance programs to guarantee that all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses, have access to affordable care – while lowering costs for all Americans.

• Ending junk lawsuits. The GOP plan would help end costly junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine by enacting medical liability reforms modeled after the successful state laws of California and Texas.

• Prevents insurers from unjustly cancelling a policy. The GOP plan prohibits an insurer from cancelling a policy unless a person commits fraud or conceals material facts about a health condition.

• Encouraging Small Business Health Plans. The GOP plan gives small businesses the power to pool together and offer health care at lower prices, just as corporations and labor unions do.

• Encouraging innovative state programs. The GOP plan rewards innovation by providing incentive payments to states that reduce premiums and the number of uninsured.

• Allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines. The GOP plan allows Americans to shop for coverage from coast to coast by allowing Americans living in one state to purchase insurance in another.

• Promoting healthier lifestyles. The GOP plan promotes prevention & wellness by giving employers greater flexibility to financially reward employees who adopt healthier lifestyles.

• Enhancing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). The GOP plan creates new incentives to save for current and future health care needs by allowing qualified participants to use HSA funds to pay premiums for high deductible health insurance.

• Allowing dependents to remain on their parents’ policies. The GOP plan encourages coverage of young adults on their parents’ insurance through age 25.


Is this compasionate enough without destroying our economy?

http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/...rnative_Health_Care_plan_Updated_11-04-09.pdf

From Obama's own words and its more than 2 minutes.

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Chiang: Worst yet to come for California budget crisis
Rebecca Kimitch, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/29/2010 08:11:56 PM PDT


State Controller John Chiang said Monday the worst of California's budget crisis is still to come.
Although lawmakers are challenged by a nearly $20billion deficit, "the bad year's 2012," Chiang said.

That year, state finances will be hit with a trifecta of pain: The temporary tax hikes approved last year will be over; federal stimulus funds will be gone; and funds that the state "raided" from local governments will come due.

The deficit at that point will be some $25billion, according to Schwarzenegger administration estimates.

And finances in later years aren't great either: Last year, the Legislative Analyst Office released a report projecting a $20billion deficit every year for the next five years.

But not even those highly publicized numbers tell the full story, said Chiang, the chief fiscal officer for the state.

Chiang said California also owes its own "special" state funds some $20billion that it has borrowed in recent years to close deficits, referring to pots of money outside the state's general fund.

And state employee health and pension benefits are not being adequately budgeted, he said.

"(A solution) is going to take a lot of legislators getting off the sidelines," Chiang said.

Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, said lawmakers recognize 2012 will present them with even more challenges than they currently face.

"Yet we haven't solved anything this year," he said.


Lawmakers last week approved a gas-tax maneuver that saves the state $1.1billion.

Still, Hagman blames election year politics for lawmakers' inability to produce any large solutions in the first three months of the year.

That excuse won't last through November, he said.

"I don't think this will be a normal election year. Residents are paying attention. We can't just sweep it under the rug. The whole thing will collapse if we try to push it off another year," Hagman said. "The business community will not get healthy again until it feels like California is stabilized."

Although an improved economy will help, Chiang said state leaders need to think long term when budgeting.

"The state has been operating in a deficit since July 2007. It wasn't the recession that got us into this position, it was bad state budgeting," he said.



Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_14781989#ixzz0k3fDwlPI

"Economic Reasons for the Fall of Rome
Rome suffered at the hands of rapacious emperors and through over-taxation


Ancient Rome History

Fall of Rome

Economic Theory

Economic Inflation
Whether you prefer to say Rome fell (in A.D. 410 when Rome was sacked or in 476 when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus) or simply morphed into the Byzantine Empire and medieval feudalism, economic policies of the emperors had a heavy impact on the lives of the citizens of Rome.

Primary Source Bias
Although they say history is written by the victors, sometimes it's just written by the elites. This is the case with Tacitus (c. A.D.56-c.120) and Suetonius (c.71-c.135), our primary literary sources on the first dozen emperors. Historian Cassius Dio, a contemporary of Emperor Commodus (180-192), was also from a senatorial (which, then as now, meant elite) family. Commodus was one of the emperors who although despised by the senatorial classes was loved by the military and lower classes. The reason is mainly financial. Commodus taxed* the senators and was generous with the others. Likewise, Nero (54-68) was popular with the lower classes, who held him in the kind of reverence reserved in modern times for Elvis Presley -- complete with Nero sightings after his suicide. (Also see Emperor Domitian.)

Inflation
•Nero and other emperors debased the currency in order to supply a demand for more coins. By debasing the currency is meant that instead of a coin having its own intrinsic value+, it was now only representative of the silver or gold it had once contained. By the time of Claudius II Gothicus (268-270 A.D.) the amount of silver in a supposedly (100%) silver denarius was only .02%.
This led to or was severe inflation, depending on how you define inflation.

See Mapping History's chart of silver content and soldiers' wages.

•Especially luxurious emperors like Commodus, who marked the end of the period of the good emperors, depleted the imperial coffers. By the time of his assassination, the Empire had almost no money left.

The Roman Empire acquired money by taxation or by finding new sources of wealth, like land. However, it had reached its furthest limits by the time of the second good emperor, Trajan, so land acquisition was no longer an option. As Rome lost territory, it also lost its revenue base.

Dates of the So-Called Good Emperors and Commodus
96 - 98 Nerva >>
98 - 117 Trajan >>
117 - 138 Hadrian >>
138 - 161 Antoninus Pius >>
161 - 180 Marcus Aurelius >>
177/180 - 192 Commodus
Land
Rome's wealth was originally in land, but this gave way to wealth through taxation.

The Cato Institute (a modern free-market think tank) says that emperors deliberately overtaxed the senatorial (or ruling) class in order to render it powerless.
To do this, the emperors needed a powerful set of enforcers -- the imperial guard.

Once the wealthy and powerful were no longer either rich or powerful, the poor had to pay the bills of the state.

These bills included the payment of the imperial guard and the military troops at the empire's borders.

"Feudalism"
Since the military and the imperial guard were absolutely essential, taxpayers had to be compelled to produce their pay. Workers had to be tied to their land.

To escape the burden of tax, some small landowners sold themselves into slavery, since slaves didn't have to pay tax and freedom from taxes was more desirable than personal liberty.

Tom Cornell, in The Beginnings of Rome, argues that in the early days of the Roman Republic, debt-bondage (nexum) was acceptable. What wasn't acceptable was usury or outrageous treatment. Nexum, Cornell argues, was better than being sold into foreign slavery or death. It is possible that centuries later, during the Empire, the same sentiments prevailed.
Since the Empire wasn't making money from the slaves, the Emperor Valens (368) declared it illegal to sell oneself into slavery.

The small landowner had become a feudal serf.
By N.S. Gill

Sources:

•The Fall of the Roman Empire, by Peter Heather, 2005.
•"How Excessive Government Killed Rome", by Bruce Bartlett, Cato Institute Volume 14 Number 2, Fall 1994.
•"Imperialism, Empire and the Integration of the Roman Economy," by Greg Woolf. World Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 3, Archaeology of Empires (Feb., 1992), pp. 283-293.
•"The Other Transition: From the Ancient World to Feudalism," Chris Wickham, Past and Present, No. 103. (May, 1984), pp. 3-36.
•"Economic Stagnation in the Early Roman Empire," by Mason Hammond. The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 6, Supplement: The Tasks of Economic History (May, 1946), pp. 63-90.
Read: More on Economic Reasons for the Fall of Rome

*For more on the taxes on senators and their land, see "A Note on the collatio glebalis," by S. J. B. Barnish. Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2nd Qtr., 1989), pp. 254-256.
+ In 1932, Louis C. West wrote that in A.D. 14 (the year of Emperor Augustus' death), the supply of Roman gold and silver amounted to $1,700,000,000. By A.D. 800, this had dwindled to $165,000.[sic]000. Part of the problem was that the government would not permit the melting down of gold and silver for individuals.
From: "The Economic Collapse of the Roman Empire," by Louis C. West. The Classical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 1932), pp. 96-106"
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romefallarticles/a/fallofrome_3.htm

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.