Just accept it – we're going broke!

[Rich Weese]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765606100/Reclaiming-Americas-social-compact-through-entitlement-reform.html?pg=2

I hope people will take time to consider this article and the charts/graphs that are in it. Those that think we're headed the right direction, please explain to me how? Give me one tangible statement or occurrence from the current president that makes you think anything will be different in the next four years than what these charts show. Stimulus 4 or QE 4 leading to progress when the first three did not, is kind of like the old adage of adding 2+2 and expecting to get five!

Here is what the following charts show as our current situation.

50% of households now received at least one federal check monthly.

Nearly half pays zero income tax (yes, I'm aware they pay other taxes but so does the other half already).

50 years ago the annual federal transfers was equal to 24 billion in today's dollars – in 2010 that number had risen to $2.2 trillion in transfer of money, goods, and services, which was nearly a 100 fold increase AFTER adjusting for inflation!

Entitlements now represent over 60% of the total outlays by the federal government.

When will the voting public realize we need to ride a different horse? People that are attacking either candidate personally are missing the point. In the previous four years, you can easily see the increases in all of the above. The current administration either doesn't see it or likes what they see and will continue to grow all of these items.

My simple question is, how high do the above percentages need to go before we realize it is not fixable without either declaring bankruptcy or printing so much money that we face unsustainable inflation?

Please notice that I did not criticize anyone personally, but as usual, simply listed facts and numbers as to where we have been, where we currently are, and ask how do we stop the trend? Rich

[Joel Owens]

I listened to Obama on Dave Letterman.

I try to stay open minded when listening to the candidates.

Obama pointed to "the success of America is the growth of the middle class". He said that history shows top down economics has shown to never work over the "share the wealth" practice of helping the middle class.

My big issue is he makes a statement about families sending the kids to college etc. Okay you go to college and get a degree and get 100k in debt and get some crappy job loaded with 100k debt you can't unload in BK. How does that make America prosper??

He also mentioned you help the middle class then they go buy tv's,cars etc. and it drives the economy.

My problem with this statement is that he said we lost 9 million jobs in the recession and hired back 4.5 million.

The problem is the QUALITY of jobs that people lost and the jobs they had to take as a replacement are nowhere near each other in income levels.

I would venture a majority of the new jobs are low income where you tread water paying the bills .In this case consumers will not have much discretionary income to spend on extras to drive the economy.