Between Obamacare and the EPA, the US is now being run (over) by the Executive Branch's Federal Regulation Orgy.

Prentiss, the "recovery" that was brought to us by our current administration was caused by nothing other than spending. In fact, the "force behind most of the recovery" is Keynesian spending, all paid for by the tax payers. Government spending has done anything but been cut. The reason why cutting hasn't worked is because it hasn't occurred. You've been mislead to your notion of "uncertainty" seeing as the instability of our financial markets is in fact derived from the crumbling Euro Zone. With the Euro on the brink of collapse, there is no reason for any rational investor to actually invest their money.

Al, getting mad at you would be like getting mad at a door you stub your toe on. He is only polarizing to the extent that the hate of the Republicans is vocalized. Actually many of his ideas are Republican Ideas from a more reasonable Republican time. Yes he was President when the DEMOCRATIC party had a majority but they never had control thanks to the super majority the Republics always had the 41 votes to stop everything he wanted to do. You blame him for $5 trillion. Be honest now, how much would he have had to cut to fund Bush's wars and Bush's Tax cuts which make up $3.5 Trillion of that $5 Trillion

Wrong . . . again. From July '09 through February '10 the Dems held 58 seats plus two Independents that caucused with them, thus a super majority of 60 votes.

Al, you are NOT wrong, we are in debt by another $5 trillion dollars, and Dan Grant you are wrong, they were NOT Pres.Bush's wars, they were America's wars. If you remember correctly after 9-11 happened, ALL OF AMERICA was after George W. Bush to go after the bastards who knocked those building down, or do you believe that we did that on our own, just for the heck of it. The WHOLE COUNTRY was behind us and wanted us to go get the pigs, and when President Bush told America we are going to war, everybody was behind him and he said that these were NOT going to be a quick in and out war, but everybody wanted us to go and get them and NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

Al I went to Church with Dan Grant at least when he did go, and I don't care who gets mad at me. This moronic muslim pig thief in wash. has got to GO NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i agree. skin in the game is always good, but then some would complain about bonuses and stock options.

The President has proposed budgets, and every single one has been voted down by the entire Congress in unanimous, or virtual unanimous fashion. The Dems in the Senate, however, have refused to put forth a budget for the past few years.

Bush [brilliantly] left the wars "off the books" for much of his presidency. Obama took them out of whatever special category they were in and put them on the books. The right thing to do, especially from an accounting perspective, but politically dumb as ****.

And it's hysterical to see people "blame" the EPA on Obama. Nixon created it and 300+ million Americans depend on it to TRY to keep air, water, and land as non-toxic as possible, despite the power and influence of polluters. Oh, wait...let the free market sort it out. Yeah, that's the ticket!

TARP actually pulled us back from the cliff. The Obama stimulus package has provided anemic growth, and now we are likely to get sucked into the European recession. And no, they haven't been following the "Republican Plan," but nice try. They are suffering from decades of socialism and refusing to believe that ever increasing debt to pay for it would never come back to haunt them, which sounds eerily like the Dem's Plan for the US.

Austerity is what will save Europe. Each and every country in the Euro zone that is moaning and groaning about having to cut back spending has a public sector that is simply too large to support itself. When the Public sector becomes large enough that tax receipts cannot fund it, debt is incurred to finance the deficit. As is the case with Ireland, Spain, Portugal, etc. the amount of debt that has been incurred is equal to, if not surpassed their own respective GDPs. When this occurs, there is virtually no way to avoid default. The ONLY remedy is to cut costs. As to the top 500 corporations experiencing 16% higher profits, they have cut costs too and look where its gotten them...

Don't pretend you know my to make a false case. And what would you choose that the guy shouold die before being given healthcare because he didn't make the right choices?

Dan, We are all given the freedom to choose to cover ourselves with healthcare insurance or not. Granted in some cases it can bring a large burden in terms of costs, then again it may save your life. But, at the end of the day, at least in my book, if you elect to buy Cable TV, Internet Services, Computers, Cell Phones, Ipods...... in lieu of healthcare, well then as the old saying goes. You've picked your bed, now don't ask me to come wash your sheets.

Curt, you are right but as the democraps have said we need then to make choices for us, because we are all stupid{Their words not mine}. Well I may be a senior but I'm not stupid and I don't need advice from a democrap trying to rape our country. I would like to know from Dan or Tom Wyka, at what age am I supposed to say ooops I hit that age, from now on I have to be stupid, because when I get close I want to avoid it. This is not the country that I went to war and risked my life for, at least then we had a choice and a say in things, NOW the dems say you have no choice and no say, you have to vote the way we do, for an illegal alien muslim pig, and NO he is not my pres. I didn't elect him, I voted for the Hero in the election, the one that had the guts not an idiot.

Paul Brown: At first I thought you were senior citizen, but after reading your post you sound more like a [5th-year] senior in high school. Your hero's choice of VP alone disqualified Him from the highest office in the land. That said, I'm sure if President McCain were in office, unemployment would be at 4% and the Raritan River would flow rich with milk and honey.

Prentiss, not sure what you are referring to as I dont see that in my blog entry.

Mike, you will never know, but I can tell you that this country is going in the wrong direction, but people like you and Dan and Tom are so full of yourselves, that you 3 probably believe in Santa Claus as well. This moron that you and Dan think is a pres. is nothing, in order to be a President you have to be a leader, and this jerk has yet to show any leadership in the last 4 years. So as Dan said I have no respect for him as a pres., you are right, first to get respect you must give respect and he has done nothing to warrant that from me or most of this country. I fought for this country and today it is a disgrace, you I can imagine ran to Canada or dodged the draft or you just a young punk who hasn't gt the guts to risk your life for the country you love, if you even do, I doubt it...

Paul: thank you for proving the hypocrisy of your "side."

1) While I commend and respect that you served in the military, that alone is not sufficient to warrant leading it.

2) I wasn't yet a teenager when Nixon resigned. Then again, your side would probably get aroused at the thought of 10-yr-old lib'ruhls being sent to war (see #4 below). Iran (Khomeini ) sent children across mine fields to clear them. I'll bet that gave you joy.

3) Your heroes Bush (AWOL) and Cheney (Mr Five Deferments) are notorious draft-dodgers, as is my avatar, El Rushbo (pilonidal cyst).

4) Your current champion, Willard Mitt Romney, took it a step further: "In 1966 during the Viet Nam war, Romney attended Stanford University in California and while hundreds-of-thousands of young Americans across the nation were protesting the war and the ever-expanding military draft, Willard was participating in a PRO-draft demonstration to support sending young Americans to fight and die in South East Asia. While Romney’s classmates were protesting a test designed to help authorities decide who was eligible for the draft, he joined 150 other conservatives to show their SUPPORT for expanding the draft. Willard did not just join demonstrators, he told a protest leader that “he had some experience with the press, and that he would handle the press for him if he wanted him to.”

To return to the blog topic, jobs: tax cuts for the rich do not spawn demand. No demand = no new jobs.

Calling Obama a "Leader" is the funniest thing I heard all week. Instead of working on the economy, he shot his wad on Obamacare. As for Public Works projects, even Obama had to admit that all the "Shovel Ready" stuff he was shoveling was all BS.

Liberals have erected such a bureaucracy that no infrastructure project can happen in less than half a decade. And when something does get built, it requires "Prevailing Wage," aka Overpriced Union Labor and Union Work Rules.

Back in FDR's day he was able to put a lot of people to work quickly because projects could get green-lighted, and wages were reasonable, so an $800B stimulus package would have put a lot of people to work.

Nowadays, that money will pay for three union plumbers, two iron workers and a partridge in a pear tree. But you'll have to wait until the EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, Transportation Dept, State Dept and the Man in the Moon do exhaustive studies and hopefully say "Ok."

Even a private project, like the Keystone Pipeline, gets delayed and delayed and delayed. It's Exhibit #1 as to why Obama doesn't have a clue how make things happen that would be good for the economy.

Mike, yes I went to war, I served 2 tours in Viet Nam because I wanted to. I enlisted in the Army and I volunteered to go to Viet Nam and after I came back from Nam, I was here for a few months and decided to go back, and after that I tried for the third time, and No I was not into drugs, never took them or smoked them in my life. As for jobs you explain just how many ligitimate jobs this idiot has actually created. I'm not talking the ones he talks about each month, which is a crock, because these are jobs people who came off of unemployment because their benefits have run out.

@Paul Brown: You're statement, "...and No I was not into drugs, never took them or smoked them in my life." is awfully defensive. No one here said or suggested you were on drugs.

Jobs are created by DEMAND for goods and services, not presidents (though their influence on policy has an indirect effect). Starving the middle class and reducing their real income REDUCES that demand. Give a big tax cut (say, $1 million) to a very wealthy person and what will he do with it? Put it into the stock market*, which creates NO jobs (at least not in the US). Now, put the same $1M into the hands of, say, 1000 middle class people, and they will buy a LOT of goods and services, which = demand which = more jobs. Multiply this by thousands or millions to get the jist of how tax cuts work. And before you can say "austerity," how's that working out in Greece, Spain, etc.??

Trickle-down is warm, yellow, and untrue.

*it is oft-repeated that this money builds factories. Baloney! If I buy 100 shares of Exxon-Mobil stock, that money goes to a person or mutual fund (the seller), NOT Exxon-Mobil! The ONLY time that money goes to the actual employer is at IPO.

Mike, you are right on the money and under this reduction in public jobs and incomes we have stepped down demand dramatically. Christie and the municipalities have taken up to $6000.00 from tens of thosands of public workers from their take home pay and directed that toward the pension system for investment and the Heralthcare industry. That means those people cut down on buying products and services from NJ business. Not as many dinners out, hold off on a car purchase or a home improvement all of which effect our ecconomy more than little Stevie Forbes getting a tax cut. Forbes has claimed credit for designing the Whitman Tax cuts of the 90's which are in fact where the pension debacle and excellerated property taxes began.

I was referring to your comment about skin in the game. By doing so you may be compensated by a bonus or options and that can be view negatively by some. That’s all.

Good point, incentives like profit sharing have to be applied across the board or there will be a lot of disenfranchised feelings. Beyond that, to your point compensation information is always kept private in private companies because releasing that kind of information is the fastest way to cause dissatisfaction.

That's really not very smart. When I was last hiring I always (possibly unfairly) looked for older more experienced workers. They got things done without having every detail explained to them, communicated well, weren't clock watchers and were generally more professional. I got less resistance, had to deal with less problems personally and could mostly let them run with a project and have to check in less frequently.

Dan, as a politician you haven't worked a day in your life or you would know what its like and you wouldn't be out to stick it to ALL AMERICANS by voting for an idiot who's only is to destroy this country. He has plenty of chances to put people back to work and all he has managed to do is lie and put people on welfare and food stamps. Not one of his polices has worked, no matter who's polices they were they didn't work then so why does he think they are going to work now. You will just go back to what politicians do best, lie to the American people who were stupid enough to put you guys there so you can. Why don't you just admit this jerk is an idiot and do what you were supposed to do for the people who put you there. I went to a business meeting one time and a politician from the Florio admin. was there and he was ask a question and he said to us " If we told you what he was really going to do, would you have voted for him" Politicians lie so much everyday they start to believe their own lies.

I think it's fairer to look at why RBS had to be taken over, which is starting the story a little earlier than your narrative. RBS was clearly acting in irresponsible ways with it's clients funds, suffered huge losses and had to be taken over and re-capitalized to prevent the financial devastation of thousands upon thousands of businesses and depositors. Yes, the agency that took over RBS had to make changes and very likely that had a direct effect on Dan's job. Like so many Americans, his employment was crushed under the ripples from ungoverned speculations and bad financial policy that caused the recession.

Here is what I don't get Curtis and that is blaming the victims for the Criminal Behavior of the banks and Wall St. Every President for decades has bragged about increasing homeownership including Bush. You give the banks and mortgage people to little blame and their customers to much sophistication in these transactions. Millions of these people who are in trouble now would not be in trouble were it not for the housing bubble. That doesn't make the bulk of them irresponsible. You had a whole system of crooked appraisors, mortgage companies and banks convincing people that they could afford these mortgages and a rising tide on values to support it. None of them got punished. Your closing slogan could well be reversed in that If Government isn't vigilent the "Industrious would rob the pants off the poor."

Dan is right. While the consumers made bad decisions (out of ignorance or lack of due diligence), the PROFESSIONALS who HAD to know better, knowingly made bad calls. Excellent explanation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_LWm6_6tA

Mike -- Bingo, wasn't that what the OWSers were all about? We are so twisted, people actually expect to get rich in the market, or whatever, and when they do they run off with their profits -- I say Good for them.

However, on the other hand, when they lose, OMG, they demand Uncle Sam reach into someone else's pocket and give them back their money!

Okay kiddies here's a BIG HINT FOR YOU! People only make money on Wall Street, Because Other People Lose it!

Simple isn't it?

Oh and sadly, many of these people who were "taken advantage of" by Wall Street, or the housing market, walk around carrying $75,000 degrees in they hands that says they are smart. I don't know, but I bet you a high school drop out can figure he can't afford a $700,000 house, on his $23,000/year job, regardless of what the guys in the snappy suits and marble walled offices are telling him!

The 0.1% are very happy with socialism when their ventures lose money; when it benefits the commonfolk, it's anathema.

I was tempted by Facebook myself, but I was saved by the size of the blocks you had to but. So far, it's no apple.

It's easy to forget what 2006 and 2007 were like, heady times with the market continually rising. I'm sure most of the people buying houses during those times felt sure they could afford them, they were easy Pickens. After all, we're all a little frightened when we first buy into a mortgage. But after time we start making more and it becomes less and less burdensome. I can't vilify someone who went for their dream and failed. I think differently about institutions whose business it was to be prudent but acted irresponsibly.

Just like kids who do nothing all school year but expect "extra credit" assignments to enable them to pass. They grow up to lose money on stock and other investments/gambles and expect someone else to make it all better.

Bill Clinton ignored Monica just long enough to do just that. George W Bush had just 8 years to fix the mess, and almost did, but damn those term limits! I heard that since Palin read "everything" (her answer, not mine), she was in an excellent position to draft a plan to finally take care of that mess.

I dare you to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_LWm6_6tA

I'll add that even though I think Paul's posts (I don't know Paul, but I see his posts; don't conflate the two) are asinine drivel and a result of an overdose (of FOX News and NJ 101.5-FM, I will defend is right to do so. I must add, though, that the 2nd Amendment comes after the 1st.

Dan, inspite of what you may think, I knew what I was fighting for, and I actually enjoyed my time in Viet Nam and I was asked today if I had to do it over today, would I go back, and all I could say was when do we leave. I would still go and do what I did again, I enjoyed the people and the country. Thats more than I can say for someone who is trying to sell our country out to the Arabs. If he is so good why won't he approve the Keystone Pipeline, which will create thousands of jobs, the enviroment is not the reason, he is catering to the oil companies to give them just what they want and he promised.... Higher prices. He has already said he didn't care if gas went to $10.00 a gallon... explain that away.

Pipelines to Canada or anywhere else do NOT add to the US oil or gasoline supplies. Refined gasoline is now the top EXPORT of the US. Adding gasoline to the world market does next to nothing to reduce prices here or increase supplies. Oil and gasoline are global commodities. It is a MYTH that drilling in ANWR or these pipelines will decrease US dependence on Middle East oil.

Another reason to be wary of pipelines is stuff like this:
http://www.examiner.com/article/oil-pipeline-bursts-canada-dumping-crude-oil-into-river