Quote:
Originally Posted by striperman36
She's a nutjob. but most of them are so detached from their constituency that they have no clue what people really want.
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While I'm not a fan of her personally, one can't deny that on paper she's been a very effective Speaker.
And if you'd care to compare her to her peers, the other note worthy Speakers in the past few administrations, you have Tom Delay who was just convicted of money laundering in a Federal court and Newt Gingrich who was fined $300,000 and reprimanded for violating House Rules.
JUST IN CASE ANY OF YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN
What first struct me about Jim's post was that it mentioned "deficit" rather than "debt". I did a quick Google and noticed that most of the posts contained this error.
It did find it quite ironic that people who purport to be so fiscally minded wouldn't notice and correct this simple mistake.
While I'd say it was a silly comment to make, I do remember reading number of stories about Dems in the House pushing pay as you go. Not that they were very effective at actually implementing it.
Let's be real though and remember that the biggest reason we have a gigantic deficit today is because of bloated Bush spending that isn't being funded because of tax revenue short falls from the recession.
Obama has most certainly added to the problem (although when you take the Stimulus out of the equation not really that much, and I'd wager a months pay that McCain as President would have done exactly the same thing) but some reviews even by Harvard Business Review have limited the exposure by Obama to only about 15%.
The Net: Deficit (and debt) are a huge issue and Pelosi's comment was stupid and probably meant to provoke. But I don't think she's crazy and our balance sheet needs to be put in perspective.
The new House is going to have a bitch of a time actually following through on their promises. They still have to work with the Senate and Obama and there's still a cashflow issue at the IRS.
-spence