Well, the main reason for the Democrats is the whole taxes thing: lower taxes for the middle and lower class, and raise taxes for the upper class and the rich.  If you have lots of money, you can pay some more of it, right? I'd you don't, then you can't really pay a huge amount. Now to side with the Republicans, the issue with troops in the middle-east is definitely a big problem: HOWEVER, for Obama to send home all of the troops could end up in more problems for the countries that we are sending our troops into.  So, I do sort of agree with Romney because he is saying that sending home troops might not end up very well.  What I think they should REALLY do is allow the troops that have been there for a very long time to come home, an the newer members to stay a little longer.  I think spending too much time away from home could really get to somebody... I think both parties have very specific ideas for what they want to do, but some ideas are definitely faulty, or at least not sufficient for the current problems that have been aroused.

Fairly sure this is already happening.

And what you're saying is that Romney would oppose military intervention in other countries - I do not think that's true. Romney has, if anything, a more aggressive foreign policy versus Iran, Syria etc.

Do you think that continued American presence in Foreign countries will improve the country they're in?

Was there a "start" of the decline? The way I remember it, it all happened in a very short period of time after the banks had time to take on tons and tons of high risk mortgages (which the government had ordered them to) and then traded them around for a while to fight off losses. Bush popped the bubble early so that the crash wouldn't be as bad.


4 years =\= instantly. Our economy is doing better than Europe despite Obama, not because of him. Our economy was doing better than yours before the crash as well. The fact that we arn't recovering even faster is due to massive increases in regulations and tax codes.
And your last claim is simply wrong. If you add "and maintain the same spending levels", then I could agree. The problem is that we now have three different national healthcare systems, and it's not always clear which does what. We already had Medicare and Medicaid, we didn't really need another. 10% of our population was uninsured, but does it really cost a trillion dollars a year to cover them? That's about $33000 per person per year. So cut that, and that a trillion dollars of taxes that don't need to be raised. Now that our wars are ending (unless Iran doesn't get smart), there's another couple billion. You could even take some of that money and do something "Keynesian inspired" like upgrading our highways and rails, or offering rewards for new technologies (instead of just giving money away).


That only applies to people that don't exist, like spies and black ops. Ordinarily, no we never leave our people behind. There are case where americans get "arrested" by foreign powers, but that's different from leaving people in protracted combat.

Where did you get te figure that it would cost $1 trillion dollars a year? Fox news?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-now-estimated-cost-26-trillion-first-decade_648413.html

Apparently, it's common to talk about a decade's worth of spending now, even though no one does that. But even so, that still $6000 per year per person which is insanely high.

I doubt it. The NHS which is far more extensive than Obamacare costs £1500 per person.

Also, that Source is crap and biased as hell from a glance

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43471

Using your terminology, when Clinton signed his Bill. hurr see what I did there

I have VERY strong doubts that Bush popped the bubble EARLY. Please get a source on this claim.

Then their estimate is a load of crap. What are they saying all the money is being spent on?

Also:

Why Are These Estimates Uncertain?

Projections of the budgetary impact of H.R. 6079 are quite uncertain because they are based, in large part, on projections of the effects of the ACA, which are themselves highly uncertain. Assessing the effects of making broad changes in the nation’s health care and health insurance systems requires estimates of a broad array of technical, behavioral, and economic factors. Separating the incremental effects of the provisions in the ACA that affect spending for ongoing programs and revenue streams becomes more uncertain as the time since enactment grows. The recent Supreme Court decision that essentially made the expansion of the Medicaid program a state option has also increased the uncertainty of the estimates. However, CBO and JCT, in consultation with outside experts, have devoted a great deal of care and effort to the analysis of health care legislation in the past few years, and the agencies have strived to develop estimates that are in the middle of the distribution of possible outcomes.

@isa
http://tjhancock.wordpress.com/housing-bubble-financial-crisis-detailed-comprehensive-assessment/

“The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios. The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken.”

@flash
So the Congressional Budget Office is full of crap, eh?
"CBO and JCT, in consultation with outside experts, have devoted a great deal of care and effort to the analysis of health care legislation in the past few years, and the agencies have strived to develop estimates that are in the middle of the distribution of possible outcomes."

They seem confident that things will definitely happen then? And that their estimates are right? It'll be another bloody IMF disaster wig the effect of Austerity. The figure is absolutely bonkers.

So what makes you think you know better?

@isa
Here's another quote from there which is probably more enlightening:
With such fervent Democrat resistance, the Bush Administration continued to do what it could within the Executive Branch. In February 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) tried to strengthen its GSE oversight. The Democrat party and its allies, such as ACORN, moved swiftly and strongly. In a March press conference, Barney Frank (D-MA) stated, “We cannot accept and leave alone this sweeping decision by a federal regulator to substantially diminish the role state-elected and appointed officials have in protecting their economies and their consumers.” On April 7, Senator John Edwards (D-NC) introduced legislation to quietly nullify the OCC regulations. On April 30, 32 House Democrats and three Republicans co-sponsored a bill to do the same. In a May 3 letter to Congress, ACORN strongly supported the effort to nullify the regulations, arguing, “the OCC has shut down the laboratories of democracy and its actions place citizens around the nation at risk of becoming victims of predatory lending or other unfair practices.” On September 15, Democrats went after the OCC directly, introducing legislation that would have given Congress stronger power over the bureau. With Republicans holding a majority in Congress, the bill never had a chance of passing, but the move provided a forum for Democrats to reshape the issue from being about Fannie Mae to being about anyone who suggested Fannie be effectively regulated.

The fact that the US is the only country that is going to suddenly implode due to free healthcare, and the fact that US politics is so corrupt hat these no-partisan groups aren't always as non-partisan as they seem.

Who said "suddenly implode"? The problem is that we'll hit our max debt limit (again), which isn't sudden at all since we can see it coming. And, once again, it isn't "free healthcare" because nothing is free. You've already said that Europe's economies are much worse than the US's, so you aren't making any sense when you say something like that.

They aren't much worse because of healthcare. It's been in place for so long that it cannot possibly be the cause. I can't even believe you sai something so stupid.

The Euro is much worse due to the collapse of banks, the common currency dragging everyone in and the fact that stronger economies (Germany) have to pay for weaker economies (Greece, Italy, Spain). Overspending is a factor, but healthcare isn't the area which pushed it over the edge.

We Brits are laughing at your fear of healthcare right now. We all regard it as free because it's just added onto our taxes, however we all know somebody who's ill who's spending our money, and we're happy for it go somewhere like that. Meanwhile, you're perfectly happy spending your defence budget, which is mainly wasted on unsinkable wars which end up murdering thousands of civilians. To put it in perspective how out of touch you are, our NHS was implemented in the 1950s by a Conservative government. The Republican party has strayed so far to te right it's absurd.

Killing people or saving some bodies life. We all know what a gun-toting republican like you would choose.

Oh wow just looked at your budget. To be fair, your Medicare is absurdly inefficient when it comes to spending, and U have no idea how it's physically possible to wate that much money. Your defence is 3x bigger percentage than us.

isn't it "we don't negotiate with terrorists"? comparing your kidnapped soldiers and ours, well, you don't give a shizzle and they are either killed or released, and well we buy them back ><

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_hostages_in_Iraq#United_States

Only in South and East Europe. In West, Central and especially North Europe the economies are generally as strong, if not stronger than the US's. There are some exceptions, such as Ireland and Iceland, but generally the more socialistic countries are the stronger ones.

The reason of the terrible state of Europe's economy isn't its social welfare. It is Europe.
The South European countries have relatively little trade and is full of corruption. Especially Greece is filled with tax evasion or fraudulent deals companies have made with the government. They also produce less than the northern countries, so their incomes are generally lower. Normally this would result in their currency becoming worth less, making it better to trade with. However, they share a currency with the other Euro countries. And several of these, such as Germany and France, are economic powerhouses. As a result, the Euro only kept rising in value. So trade with the South European countries kept becoming less and less attractive. To keep up the social policies their populations became dependent on, these countries had to keep borrowing more money than they could pay back.

So basically, the wealthy European countries forced the Euro to increase far faster in value than the poorer European countries could handle. So they were forced to go deeper in debts than they could handle.

It is worth noting that the North/West European countries are only benefiting from the crisis in the South. Because nobody has any faith in the financial situation of these countries, the wealthy European countries have become far more popular investments. State loan interests in Germany and the Netherlands have been about 0% for the past year, occasionally even becoming negative. People are willing to pay Germany and the Netherlands to be allowed to loan them money, just because it is the safest place to store their money for a few months.
So while the South European countries are struggling to stay afloat, the North European countries are cashing in and are now stronger than they were before the crisis started.


Also something else I want to bring into discussion. Some of you might be aware that there is discussion of Scotland gaining independence. Less of you probably know that there are similar discussions of Catalonia becoming independent from Spain and Flanders becoming independent from Belgium.
Historically Wallonia was the wealthier and more powerful part of Belgium. It is also where the Belgian royal family is from. Today Flanders is far wealthier and stronger, but because of the all regulations set in the past, Wallonia still holds most of the control in Belgium. As a result the Flemish are required to speak French, while the Wallonians are not required to speak Dutch. Flanders is also forced to invest much of its money into Wallonia without gaining much in return. Especially in the current crisis this has caused a lot of hostility in around the border of the two areas. The Wallonians refuse to learn Dutch while the Flemish refuse to speak French. So the people from two cities at opposite sides of this border can't communicate despite being removed only a few minutes.
During recent local elections, the Flemish Nationalists have had a landslide victory. So it is clear that a very large part of Flanders wants to split up from Wallonia.
As for Catalonia, they have been opposed to Spain ever since the unification. They are the wealthiest part of Spain but are still forced to cut their expenses are much as the other regions. In a recent poll it became clear that 53% of the Catalonians want independence of Spain while only 35% want to remain part of it.

So out of Scotland, Flanders and Catalonia, do you think any of them will secede and how soon?

What's the approximate Democrats to Republicans ratio on the Interguild

1 or 2 republicans to everyone else is a democrat.

Ok... That's extremely uneven

It's.... the Internet. The internet is usually, if not always, left-leaning.