Do you all remember the big promise that The DEAR LEADER made repeatedly on the campaign trail? No taxes - not a dime of extra taxes in fact - for anyone making less than $250K a year. Yeah, about that, never mind


White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the president won't rule out a health care reform bill that includes a tax hike on people making less than $250,000 a year. I pressed Axelrod on whether Obama will draw a line in the sand and veto any bill that funds health care reform with tax hikes for people making under $250,000 a year -- despite a pledge Barack Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on the poor and middle-class. "One of the problems we've had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other. And you don't get anything done. That's not the way the president approaches us.


Translation: Bend over and get ready for the tax increase of your lives. Yeah I'm talking to you, middle class folks in Ohio and Michigan who voted for this sham. I'm talking to you ignorant voters in Georgia and Florida making $40K a year who thought Obama would only tax the "rich" and use that money to give you a bunch of freebies.

Maybe next time you uneducated voters will think twice before voting for a communist. Hope? Change? Yes we can? Are you still happy? Your man Obama is tanking in the polls real fast. I want to say I hope you've learned your lesson. But unfortunately I know that most of you will vote for this guy again in 2012. You can't fix stupid, and this country is oozing stupidity from every state.

Obama forced the 750 Billion dollars stimulus package on us because unemployment would stay below 8%. We are now approaching 10% unemployment. More lies from the Obama administration and Congress.


June 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said a second stimulus package isnt needed yet, though he expects the U.S. unemployment rate will exceed 10 percent this year.

I think its important to see how the economy evolves and how effective the first stimulus is, Obama said at a White House news conference.

He said it is pretty clear that unemployment will continue rising before the recovery takes hold and said it isnt surprising that initial forecasts from his administration missed the mark.

The economy has lost about 6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The jobless rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in more than 25 years.

Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus bill in February, and his chief economic advisers had forecast it would help hold unemployment below 8 percent. It included tax cuts and spending on infrastructure projects that the president pledged would save or create 3.5 million jobs.

I dont feel satisfied with the progress that weve made, Obama said. He cited the need to speed up distribution of stimulus funds and do more work with a program to modify existing mortgages, which hasnt been keeping pace with all the foreclosures that are taking place.

Foreclosures

Foreclosure filings in the U.S. surpassed 300,000 for a third straight month in May and may reach a record 1.8 million by the first half of the year, RealtyTrac Inc. said June 11.

The median price of an existing home has fallen 26 percent from the peak reached in July 2006 as sales slumped and financial institutions auctioned off foreclosed properties. While the losses have devastated some families, others were able to buy a house for the first time because of the drop in values.

Obama defended his initial stimulus projections, saying the economy worsened once the legislation was enacted only weeks into his presidency.

Nobody understood what the depths of this recession were going to look like, Obama said. It was only significantly later that we suddenly get a report that the economy had tanked.

Its not surprising, then, that we missed the mark in terms of our estimates of where unemployment would go, he said.

Worse Layoffs

Obama said without the stimulus legislation, the recession would have been worse and states would have been forced to lay off more teachers, police officers and firefighters.

Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, said a second stimulus isnt necessary and may be counter-productive because of the impact on the deficit.

The stimulus hasnt provided any impetus to growth, he said. In light of the record so far, I dont think theres a crying need for a second program.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said its still too early to tell.

If unemployment is well into the double digits and still rising, it would indicate broader problems in the economy and serve as a catalyst for more policy action, he said.

If it doesnt look like the economy is going to revive, come out of recession in any significant way, then I think another stimulus package will come back on the agenda, he said. Both politics and economics will come together and argue for another round.

Spending and Deficits

Obama sought to address growing public concern about his spending plans and the deficit, which the Congressional Budget Office projects will hit a record $1.85 trillion this year.

While saying legislation to enact his health-care overhaul and clean energy proposals are crucial to future U.S. economic growth, Obama said both initiatives must and will be paid for.

Revamping the health-care system will not add to our deficits and will be paid for through savings and efficiencies, he said. Our top priority has to be control costs.

While the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Obama with an overall approval rating of 65 percent, his handling of the federal budget deficit received positive marks of only 48 percent.

Obama said at his news conference that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has done a fine job under very difficult circumstances. He declined to answer a question about whether he would reappoint Bernanke, whose term ends in January 2010, saying he was not going to make news on that subject.

He said that, while the Fed could have done a better job anticipating systemic risks to financial markets, it has performed better than other regulators in responding to the economic crisis.

Since the crisis has occurred, Ben Bernanke has performed very well, Obama said.

Don't look now, but the Obama administration and his Democratic Party pals who have controlled Congress for years have "saved or created" so many jobs that the U.S. now faces its worst unemployment rate in 26 years.

That's right -- nothing George W. Bush ever did was as bad for the U.S. unemployment rate as what Obama and Dems in Congress have accomplished together. Why, nationwide unemployment has now reached 9.5%, with another 467,000 jobs lost in June alone.

It's almost as if the trillion-dollar "stimulus" passed by Democrats in Congress was a joke. It's almost as if crushing regulation of U.S. industry, of the kind Democrats specialize in, is bad for the economy. You think?

"Obama forced the 750 Billion dollars stimulus package on us because unemployment would stay below 8%. We are now approaching 10% unemployment. More lies from the Obama administration and Congress."

Remember what a panic it was to get that bill passed? If Congress didn't just pass it in a matter of days, basically without reading or understanding it, the economy would fall into the abyss. So we rush the bill through, and months later we have barely spent 10% of the money, and there has been almost zero stimulative value to the bill. It has helped some people with unemployment and Cobra problems, which is obviously good, but it was a STIMULUS bill, not a welfare bill.

"Obama said without the stimulus legislation, the recession would have been worse"

Unfortunately there's no way to know that or to quantify that, so it takes no effort or risk to say that. Just words.

using obama's logic, who is to say bush is wrong?

as did 95% of America. Sorry you missed out.

All that occured was that witholdings were reduced for this year. The tax tables were not changed so you just end up paying the tax next year. You are a typical Obama supporter who does not read the fine print.