Obama's False Medicare Claim

« Return to Article

Discuss

Member Comments

  • Posted By: tiredoflies @ 10/21/2008 2:53:18 PM

    Obama is quoting The Wall Street Journal as a reliable source.

    If it is wrong, The Wall Street Journal wrong.

    Unlike the McCain campaign which actually fabricates lies about Obamas character, Obama at least has a real source he is quoting.

    Big difference.

    • Posted By: Conserv_Kate @ 10/22/2008 6:27:51 PM

      Enter Your Comment
      Apparently the Wall Street Journal and Obama Hussein are wrong according to Newsweek and FactCheck.org

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:05:12 PM

    Comment: People on these bogs are fond of saying that the current economic meltdown was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting bad mortgages. While Fannie and Freddie obviously are guilty of writing bad mortgages, and worse, guilty of lobbying Congress to allow them to do so with impunity, their actions are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining who (or what) caused the financial crisis we face today.

    In 1929 the stock market crash caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.

    But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

    Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

    The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation, and here's how: the banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

    If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages, and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.

    Furthermore, although Fannie and Freddie are now holding the bulk of these bad mortgages, Fannie and Freddie did not originally write most of these mortgages. They bought them after the fact, bundled by banks/investment companies. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

    What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States. Nice guy, Phil Gramm. Incidentally, John McCain has said that he wants to appoint Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary. Some people just can't learn from their mistakes.

    • Posted By: Conserv_Kate @ 10/22/2008 6:20:44 PM

      How is it that your same lengthy dissertation is posted excessively on this board?

  • Posted By: krohn2 @ 10/22/2008 5:07:54 PM

    FactCheck.Org is owned by the Annenberg group of Chicago! Talk about a conflict of interest! And Obama has been telling people on the trail to check out the site to verify his opponents claims. Funny, every time that he endorsed something, it turns out to be a part of his spin machine! Like he raised objections in the primaries when Indiana required photo I.D. to vote. He Protested that It took away people's right to vote! I
    knew then and there that he was up to no good! America, wake up from the MASS HYPNOSIS!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWTs1YyhFRg&feature=related

  • Posted By: TruthForward @ 10/22/2008 9:26:03 AM

    RoboHate.

    The McCain/Palin campaign is now combining our analog (or digital, cell) telephones with computers, and has produced RoboHate calls against his opponent, to enliven hatred wherever possible.

    Hate is not good for the country. And McCain/Palin uses hatred too often. However, McCain/Palin stumbles grossly on unity.


    This country needs unity in difficult times. Yes We Can. Obama/Biden is right for this country right now.

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:24:33 PM

    Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:24:24 PM

    Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/20/2008 5:57:09 PM

    The GOP is grasping at straws. They have nothing substantive against Obama, but boy are they good at making up lies. This is the leading Karl Rove tactic for years, and if America falls for this again we should be ashamed of ourselves. Not to mention the obvious fact that this is all a smokescreen to keep the focus off of the fact that Palin has been found guilty of abusing the power of her office, and that she is in contempt of court for obstruction of justice. After Nixon and Clinton, Americans are to some extent jaded, but really, would you want a VP who refuses to attend hearings in her own defense, and instructs her employees not to testify?

    This year, the GOP offers you an angry old man and a woman who, while personable, is desperately uniformed on national and international issues. Both of them are far right politically. McCain used to be a maverick, but since 2004 he's voted 90% with Bush. McCain's policies are not original or reformist, despite how he's tried to co-opt Obama's popular message of change. Please go to the websites of both of the candidates and read their platforms. Obama's Blueprint for Change has more good ideas than McCain's plan. Compare them yourself. Obama's basic premise is that tax dollars should be spent to make America stronger and to improve the lives and well being of our people. For example, he uses education programs to train a new technology workforce, contributing to energy independence, creating jobs and improving the economy. When you read McCain's plan you will find no over-arching design to get America back on track. Instead you'll find more tax cuts for the wealthy, de-regulation of the health care industry, and a stated intent to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    I'm a Republican. Although I embrace some forward-thinking social values, in the past I've rarely voted Democrat. My thinking was that since Republicans grow robust economies, by voting Republican I endorsed a plan that would grow wealth for our nation, and then we'd be able to afford social programs. It was a good strategy for a couple decades, but I have to say that the tenure of W. Bush has changed my mind. Not only is there nothing fiscally responsible about today's GOP, the insidious alignment of the party with religious intolerance has really turned me off.

    On the other hand, the intelligent luminous thought of Barack Obama has ignited my patriotism. I want a President who puts America first and can get the economy back on track. In my mind, values voting takes a back burner when we are faced with a meltdown of the economy. It is time for a change, a real change. The Republicans have controlled the Presidency for 28 of the past 40 years, but they have fallen down on the job. The Democrats have a stellar candidate this year, and I am voting for Obama.

    • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:23:47 PM

      Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
      I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
      He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
      is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
      The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
      The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
      the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
      McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
      That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
      It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
      Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
      Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
      Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
      No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
      It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
      even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
      If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
      When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
      So why are the polls even close then ?
      Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
      which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
      They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
      Let's teach him we are smarter than that
      Stand up and hold them accountable
      Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
      Elect Obama Biden 2008






      Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:22:06 PM

    Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:05:02 PM

    Comment: People on these bogs are fond of saying that the current economic meltdown was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting bad mortgages. While Fannie and Freddie obviously are guilty of writing bad mortgages, and worse, guilty of lobbying Congress to allow them to do so with impunity, their actions are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining who (or what) caused the financial crisis we face today.

    In 1929 the stock market crash caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.

    But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

    Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

    The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation, and here's how: the banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

    If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages, and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.

    Furthermore, although Fannie and Freddie are now holding the bulk of these bad mortgages, Fannie and Freddie did not originally write most of these mortgages. They bought them after the fact, bundled by banks/investment companies. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

    What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States. Nice guy, Phil Gramm. Incidentally, John McCain has said that he wants to appoint Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary. Some people just can't learn from their mistakes.

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:01:23 PM

    THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:01:13 PM

    THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/21/2008 6:01:00 PM

    THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
    The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
    the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?
    Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
    which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
    They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
    Let's teach him we are smarter than that
    Stand up and hold them accountable
    Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
    Elect Obama Biden 2008






    Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ

  • Posted By: citizen4truth @ 10/20/2008 4:57:59 PM

    Barack Obama's campaign has been repeating falsehoods all along, hoping that if they repeat it long enough, people will believe them. The popular media loves it too, as long as they are paid to run those ads. They don't even make any effort to check the truth or falsehood of the claims- just so they are paid- these people are worse than prostitutes yet the media pompously claim to be professionals.


    lies about his association with

    • Posted By: Tess126 @ 10/21/2008 4:40:09 PM

      Citizen4truth; Could you please point out several of the 'falsehoods' you claim Obama's campaign has been repeating "all along"? I keep hearing these broad statements by the right-wing, but they don't back it up with any facts. It's the McCain/Palin campaign that --even True Conservatives believe--is lying over and over again hoping that if they repeat them often enough will be believed.

      I always thought the right was mainly strong Christian types who believe in the bible. I thought the right was always interested in truth, decency and morals. This election year has shown the world otherwise.

  • Posted By: toler4fun @ 10/21/2008 3:52:50 PM

    I watched the debates and Senator McCain intimated that there woud indeed be cuts in Medicare.

  • Posted By: Ebonee30 @ 10/21/2008 3:24:23 PM

    I THINK IT'S INTERESTING THAT BROOKS JACKSON WROTE THIS ARTICLE AND NEGLECTED TO POINT OUT ALLLLLLLLLL OF MCCAIN'S MANY OBVIOUS LIES.....

  • Posted By: LindyLee @ 10/21/2008 3:02:16 PM

    Obama Health Plan
    Expand Health Care Coverage - $115 Billion
    Reduce Health Care Costs + $50 Billion
    Close Medicare Part D Drug Coverage Gap - $43 Billion
    Reduce Medicare Costs + $43 Billion
    TOTAL - $65 Billion
    Source: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

    That is an interesting study. With the consideration more small employees would drop their employees' coverage if Obama were elected and provided a federal health plan, the numbers would go higher. They would also go higher if Obama raised the taxes of small businesses as he has stated.

    This is the cost of Obama's program and remember, health care is an ongoing cost...yearly....$65 billion dollars,opposed to approximately $13 billion for John McCain.

    Obama Health Plan
    Expand Health Care Coverage - $115 Billion
    Reduce Health Care Costs + $50 Billion
    Close Medicare Part D Drug Coverage Gap - $43 Billion
    Reduce Medicare Costs + $43 Billion
    TOTAL - $65 Billion
    Source: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

    Obama's plan will only cost $16 billion dollars to the taxpayers, unless he taxes small business. If he taxes small business, it will be even higher, with small business employers dropping health care insurance and small business with labor union employees refusing to negotiate health care benefits as they could be obtained through the government for free. Pretty pricey.......every Democrat has promised health care. Not one has come through yet. In California, this last year, a health care bill went through the Democrat Senate and failed because it was too expensive. It was far less than this bill because California has a health care program which covers all children. Good article.





  • Posted By: stayinschool @ 10/21/2008 2:26:23 PM

    Remember that it's a politicians job to tell you what you want to hear, not what they're actually going to do. That's how they get elected.

  • Posted By: stayinschool @ 10/21/2008 2:19:42 PM

    The banks not loaning money after the crash, in 1929, caused the great depression. The banks simply held on to the money as they were doing now. Just look it up, it's part of our history, printed in black and white. As for the deregulation co-sponsored by Phil Gramm (the other was a democrat) that is true, what is not true is that president Bush signed it as it was signed in 1999 by then president Bill Clinton. Also Clinton left the national debt 5.5 trillion dollars, it was at about 4 trillion dollars when he took office. That's a 25% increase and people actually believed there was a surplus? The national debt went up 25% without a war, the cold war had just ended allowing for military base closures, reduced military spending, gays in the military, military R&D completely cut off and yes taxes went through the roof. Where did that 1.5 trillion dollars go if we supposedly had surpluses. Don't believe everything these politicians tell, regardless of party. Candidates that put their country first don't exist anymore. Do all the research on your own and don't believe everything your told especially here, so please, check the facts for yourself.

  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/21/2008 1:49:41 PM

    People on these bogs are fond of saying that the current economic meltdown was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting bad mortgages. While Fannie and Freddie obviously are guilty of writing bad mortgages, and worse, guilty of lobbying Congress to allow them to do so with impunity, their actions are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining who (or what) caused the financial crisis we face today.

    In 1929 the stock market crash caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.

    But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

    Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

    The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation, and here's how: the banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

    If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages, and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.

    Furthermore, although Fannie and Freddie are now holding the bulk of these bad mortgages, Fannie and Freddie did not originally write most of these mortgages. They bought them after the fact, bundled by banks/investment companies. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

    What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States. Nice guy, Phil Gramm. Incidentally, John McCain has said that he wants to appoint Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary. Some people just can't learn from their mistakes.

  • Posted By: onceler @ 10/21/2008 1:09:06 PM

    What a load this "story" is. McCain's plan calls for mysteriously large amounts of money to be spent, he himself does not specify how he will pay for it. When asked, his campaign staffer readilly replied, with media present, that cuts in Medicaid were wher the savings would come from. McCain can deny this all he wants, but how about instead of calling Obama a liar here - YOU at Newsweek do some actual research and find out if maybe John McCain is the one lying here. Of course, billions cut from Medicaid would be very, very, very unpopular with the older voters who are McCain's base by now, so he'll do anything to try to get out of the mess.

    But this bogus "factcheck" story, based on future events which haven't happened yet and can't be "checked", is pure crap-ola. McCain's campaign SAID THEY WERE GOING TO DO THIS! What is even contestable about that? Just the fact that they deny it now? Is that alone the basis for this article?

    Truly pathetic.

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse