Reader comments
Obama has the right idea

Interesting editorial. I would only add that we already have some forms of "socialized medicine" (a term which is fraught with too many negative connotations to be useful in discussing healthcare reform). I am a veteran, and the entire VA system is paid for by the government. Although I have found the VA ( my treatment has been at the George Whalen VA Hospital in SLC )to be understaffed and even overwhelmed at times, overall I have found my care to be very good. I know that Congress has quite an enviable healthcare plan, so it is not quite correct to say that the government has no experience in healthcare administration. (trying to avoid the dreaded "socialized medicine" concept).

After the third wave of IT REVOLUTION followed by the immense infrastructure and investments, the fourth wave of ET REVOLUTION awaits a BOLD ACTION for CHANGE, I think. The new govt is on the basis of THE POLICY OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCY adopted by a Democratic Procedure. Americans have chosen CHANGE, and NOTHING ADVENTURED, NOTHING GAINED ! Energy Independency is the unavoidable task after all, and it can bring down the fuel costs ultimately as a by-product, which might be enormous enough to cover the upgrade investments. All the brilliant brains get together in the U.S. for the better life and future. Lastly, without jobs, the economic activity can't be activated, and the working class is broke due to the imported fuel costs, therefore the stimulus project by the govt may be in dire need. CHEER UP !

The Clinton administration and Congress did more than raid Social Security to get the surplus. Their deeds included security threatening cuts to the military and intelligence operations of the country and disenfranchisment of health care for most reitred military. The Clinton cuts to the active military is the biggest reason the Reserve and Guard forces are called upon so mucn more these days.

Mr. Obama seems headed in that direction. His budget aevisors are looking at cuts in veteran medical care and increasing costs in Medicare eligible non-working retirees to the tune of $100+ billion. There are other things being done we don't usually hear about, such as some of his picks for cabinet posts. Sure he wants change, but the persons selected should at least be conversant with the field they are going to oversee.

It appears he is trying to roll everything back to the 'good' old Clinton days. Days when government was based more on political connection than security, fairness and truth. Days when the President surrounded himself with only 'yes' men.

Good luck. May God Bless the United States of America.

I really like the fact that Obama sees the need to provide tax relief to other than the very rich. I hope he makes good on his pledge to put people to work, investing in alternative forms of energy. Wind, geothermal and even nuclear. We we go all out in this area, we can wean ourselves of the need to buy foreign oil and the economic drag and risk that the supplies will be cut off.

I expect he will make a very good president.

You are fooled. The rich are the ones paying the lion's share of the taxes. Why should I pay 50% of my income to taxes and you get handouts? If I am taxed more, there is no incentive to produce more jobs. You will see his policies are going to fail.

AZ Border Dude - Now let's be up front and admit that the Reagan Administration started the raiding of the SS fund and subsequent administrations, including Clinton's, followed behind. The difference between the Clinton Administration and the Reagan Administration is that Clinton, assisted by the Republican controlled Congress, actually balanced the national budget rather than just talking about it. Also, the military funding was reduced because the Cold War was over. You mioght remember that Reagan outspent the Soviets which might have been a contributing factor in the fall of that empire. It also put all of us into debt for milennia to come. Clinton also reduced the federal workforce by 250,000, turning over much of the government's work to private industry. I'm not sure that idea worked out so well either but it seems to be what most private citizens pereferred then and now. Just sayin'.

Class envy is what the left is all about - divide the nation.

Question, when Obama makes it harder for employers, such as myself, by over taxing us because we are supposedly rich. What happens to the person that was formally employed by my company and was let go because the cost of doing business was just a little to much to stomach? I know, Obama will just put him to work on a road crew somewhere. Too simplistic this nation is!

This alternative energy is one big 'pipe dream'. we will always depend on oil for our energy and alternatvie energy will be a suppliment to that.

The rich pay 'the lions share' of taxes because they have 'the lions and the tigers share' of the money.

If Obama believes that "The quickest way out of a bad economy is to let Americans keep more of their own money, which they will use either to invest or to purchase products others create." Isn't that like saying that the people have the power to move the economy, yet his plan calls for TRILLION dollar deficites for multiple years to pay for new government programs designed to increase employment.

Wouldn't it make more sense to lower income taxes (thus increasing the purchasing power of each individual) and let people buy or invest their money.

Then, to take care of the new spending AND oil imports, he could increase the oil royalty rates to 20% and start drilling. The oil royalties alone on the US daily consumption would be nearly $230 million, PER DAY. That equates to $83 billion per year. So, if Obama wants to spend more, let him start to pump out oil and get the money that way. Those figures do not include taxes on the oil companies, which amount to billions of dollars per year.

AZ Border Dude says "it appears he is trying to roll everything back to the 'good' old Clinton days. Days when government was based more on political connection than security, fairness and truth. Days when the President surrounded himself with only 'yes' men."

Dude, where have you been living the last 8 years?

ECR:
Roosevelt used SS funds to build the Atomic Bomb, Truman used SS Funds, Eisenhower used SS to build the Interstate and Kennedy and every President since has used SS Funds. The so called Social Security Trust Fund exists in name only, and they are comingled with the general fund.
Nice try to blame Bush, but hardly original.

bilbo 9:12 - Did you see the name 'Bush' anywhere in my post? Why don't you conservatives stop using whatever excuse you can to defend Bush - especially when he wasn't being blamed for anything. And if you're going to so blatantly plagerize Wikepedia you should give credit where credit is due.

So? Did the government learn how to manipulate numbers from Wall St or vice versa?

The Republicans have given us tax cut after tax cut with resultant massive deficits. I can support some temporary tax cuts now while we are in a recession, but at some point we need to be grown ups and pay for the government we have, instead of leaving the bill to our children and grandchildren.

@good for obama 6:50 | 8:05 a.m. Jan. 7, 2009, you say: "When Obama makes it harder for employers, such as myself, by over taxing us because we are supposedly rich. "
Obama's tax hike would, perhaps, be on people making more then $250,000, and his tax "hike" is based on letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. So for instance capital gains tax rates going from 15% to 20% if you make more then 250 grand (and forgive me if my numbers aren't 100%. that was just a quick google)
But let's say that people making more then $250,000 get a tax hike. And you state that you are in that group, so you are saying you make at least $250,000 a year.
Well, that equals 20,833 dollars a month. Yes, a month. Utah has an average weekly wage of $660 according to an article in the D-news on Nov 30, 2006: Utah Wage Ranks 40th.
So the average wage in Utah is $2640.00 a month. You make at least $20,833.00 a month.
Which get's to my question, how dare you say you are "supposedly" rich.

I'm sure the immoral wars of aggression wars we've been fighting the last several years had nothing to do with the deficit, right?

Fact: Under Clinton, we paid for our government.
Fact: Under Bush, we didn't.

And it's the democrats that are selfish and out-of-touch with reality? Right.

You don't see the whole picture clearly.

Since the 80's the very rich (top 5 or 10%) have an even greater share of the nations wealth. The republican answer to this is to lower taxes in such a way that they get the lions share.

CEO's and other corporate execs get 450 times what the average worker does, is this fair? There is no evidence that this increases their performance either. It actually causes them to game the system to give them income they don't deserve.

There should be income differences according to ability, willingness to work hard, take risks and luck, but these income differences are too wide, they need to be narrowed.

CEO's don't need 50 million per year to live and we have plenty of people who can't even get or afford health insurance.

My cousin is a hard working plumber and he can't get if because of pre-existing conditions in his family. This is why we need national health care.

Sure it is possible to do it dumb, as in England, but look at how Taiwan has done it. They have socialized medicine and it works pretty good over there.

We Americans, we can too.

To "Deficit | 10:58 a.m."

Fact: Under Clinton the accounting practices that the government uses were changed to make it appear that there was a budget surpluss.

While it seems as if BHO wants to go back to the Clinton days, there are some of you who think that we have been there with GW for the past 8 years. Why then, would you constantly harp on GW and not on Clinton of BHO? Oh, I get it, you feel bad for not voting him in, but now you demand the rest of us to give BHO a chance. What a bunch of hypocrites.

I think we all need to give Obama's plan a chance and not just shoot it down because he isn't from our political party.

America can't succeed if Obama fails. I hope that's one thing we've learned from the past 8 years. You can't just spend all your time and effort tearing down the President for political gamesmanship and not tear down the whole country at the same time.

I hope Republicans can be a better minority than the Democrats in Congress were. I hope they don't decide to play like the Democrats did and invest 100% of their time and effort in blocking anything the President does, doing everything they can to make him look bad and insure his plans don't succeed, investigating everything he or anyone in his cabinet does in hopes of finding something they can send them to jail for, impeach them for, or at least make them look bad in the media and the public eye.

We need to unite behind Obama and quit the political one-up-manship that's been monopolysing the thoughts, time and efforts of Congress and the media for the past 8 years.

Give Obama's plan a chance.