Re-do that chart against who was in control of Congress, which actually spends the money.

Exactly.  People seem to think that the Pres has a lot more control than he does.  I guess it's just easier to place all the blame in one lap than to distribute it where it actually goes.

Done did.

Who's to blame, well least blame it on everyone excpet the "PERSON' you see in the mirror. . .

forever,

I am surprised that you allowed your article to be turned into a Bush bash fest by the Obama (Democrat) defenders when the intentions of the article seemed far from it. Criticism of this current administartion for their lack of respect for the American taxpayers is not about Republicans vs Democrats but about the concept of fixng a stupid situation with stupid solutions.

You are concerned with the children who are suffering and that is understandable (we all are, unless you believe we are all heartless monsters), but what are you willing to do to stop the suffering? You are willing to throw this Nation into a deeper financial hole in the hopes that Obama can save a country he himself said may never recover?

It's these kinds of articles that make me wonder if people like you actually believe that we don't care about the people of this Nation. The ignorance of some to blame a single man for the problems of this Nation is mind boggling, Obama is only part of the problem. Pelosi, Reed, Dodd, Geithner, etc are also responsible as are Bush and Clinton. Our Govt has failed us time and again and all we do is blame the other party.

The ones who should be blamed are ourselves for allowing this to go on for so many years for lacking the education necessary to understand the stupidities the Gov't does. We voted all those idiots into office and it's our fault they screwed up.

I didn't wirte this article for blaming someone. It was to point out that there are people out there that are suffering as we all know, and the ones who feel it the most are the children.  Climb down off your chair Charles, see, you learned something. 

And another thing, people like me put words into action.

They are called demagogues. This argument is an appeal to emotions (ad misercordium).

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/emotiona.html

If you wanna get technical here, the children are the ones who suffer the least. Some of these kids are too small to understand the difficulties and they probably dont notice something is wrong. The older ones can understand better and may be willing to make sacrifices. When you speak about suffering, are you talking about them not having all the things they use to have or not eating, sleeping in the cold and not being able to do the basics such as taking baths and brushing their teeth? I think you may be making a mountain out of a molehill. Children don'tm suffer if they don't have all the things they had before or never had, they simply get upset for a while and move on. You don't give children enough credit, they are tronger than you think. My kids had to deal with many years of cheap toys for Christmas and basic Birthday partys with a friend or 2 because we could not afford expensive gifts and lavishing parties. But they did not suffer, they delt with it, just like we all do.

And what, the rest of us just BS our way thru life? People like you didn't seem to have a problem puttning words into action with every mistake President Bush (including fumbling words) did during his 8 years yet Obama doesn't even get words.  You doing a great job.

As far as I remember, the recession started when Bush was in power. And you are blaming Obama?

The first point is that the 'article' was hardly turned into a 'Bush bash fest'. In point of fact reply #1 started out in the typical JU manner of 'bashing' Obama and all things Democrat with the bald faced assertion that all top democrats are assholes that are somehow responsible for this 'bad economy' without a single shred of evidence to back up these assertions.

My response simply indicated that if you insist on contradicting the obvious intent of the OP which was to focus on the people actually affected by said bad economy as opposed to getting into the blame game then you should at least look a little further back than 2 months as to cause.

The second point is that I am not in any way 'defending' Obama. My point of posting the graph of National Debt as it correlates to presidential tenure was not only to point out how poorly our debt has fared under Republican leadership but to hold up the standard by which I measure *all* presidents, Obama included.

I can't predict the results of the Obama presidency on the basis of the first 60 days and neither can anyone else. At this point all that anyone can say is what they *think* those results will be and that leaves room for significant argument and legitimate difference of opinion. In 4 (or perhaps 8) years we'll have a much better basis to make an informed opinion although I do suspect that there will be significant room left for argument even then.

The other point that was made, that the president has absolutely nothing to do with how money is spent in this country, is absolutely ludicrous. I will grant that congress has a significant effect as well but I didn’t make up the chart that I presented, it’s easily found by even those with weak search skills, however I couldn’t find any similar breakdown of national debt as it correlates to congressional majority. That’s not to say that one doesn’t exist or that some folks here haven’t made up their own chart but I do find it interesting that no one bothered to post such a chart after making such a fuss over it.

The bottom line is that even though I will grant that there may be useful information in a graph of debt with respect to congressional majority there still is significant meaning in the graph that I posted and in 4 (or 8) years we’ll see how well Obama has fared and that will determine whether or not I’ll be willing to ‘defend’ him. Until then I have a ‘wait and see’ attitude.

[sarcasm]Maybe communism / monarchy isn't the problem at all. Maybe the fault lies with all of us, with our culture and apathy.[/sarcasm]

Yea... see, human nature, kinda a fixed thing. Blaming everyone because faulty and UNFAIR economic principles like communism bring economic ruin is downright stupid.

Mr. Bush 'inherited' a few things, too, but I don't recall any slack being cut.  People stopped demagoguing for a little while after 9/11, but his critics still call the recession he inherited after the dot-com bubble burst (on Clinton's watch) the 'Bush Recession'.  What goes around comes around.  If people insist on holding a single individual responsible for the state of the economy at any given point in time, when it is Congress which writes the laws and appropriates funds, so be it.

You are very quick to leap, mumble.  It was a play on words, hardly a 'bald-faced assertion.'  Get a sense of humor.

Charles, if you think children don't suffer from circumstance or their parents' poor choices you are crazy.  Adults can suck it up and deal.  Children do not deserve to. 

And FTR, Donna is a GIVER.  You are a TAKER.  I am shocked that you would try to condescend to her regarding this.