Dan

Not a doubt in my mind that if he'd have gotten one of those runs, he would have scored.

4th and 1. Cameron calls in... tell Marshawn he better get this. Beast gets hit well behind the LOS and fights enough to get the first down. Love that guy!

There can be no other! Hamdan Rocks!!

Lynch gets a good run. My day is complete.

I'm watching.

The league has achieved exactly what they wanted and it's great for the game (IMO). Because of this parity, each year most all teams are still alive for the playoffs in December, each year new teams make the playoffs that were not there the year prior, each year the playoff games are highly competitive, and each year the Super Bowl is a good game between 2 evenly matched teams. Hence, more people watch for longer. I still don't get why it's such a bad thing for an 11-5 team that can't win it's division is not in the playoffs, while a 9-7 team that can is in. As to the original posters thoughts... the amount of money spent on FAs this year is irrelevant. Ralph could pay for every top dollar FA on the market and we'll still be an average team next season. There's one area he needs to spend money on and he's already made that decision - he's standing pat on the coaching staff. Does anyone really think a great, veteran backup QB is going to help this team win? Or lets pay big bucks and get the best WR in the league - just so he can run around while we dump off to the RBs. And just how good would Haynesworth look dropping back every other down in pass coverage?

I suppose that whole TARP $350billion thing was just in my head. I apologize.

I would suggest that the biggest difference between Democrats and Republicans is who they're giving money to. The Democrats seem to prefer giving money to poor/low income people, primarily. While the Republicans seem to prefer giving money to to the wealthy/high income people, primarily. But, both seem to be redistributing wealth. Either way, thanks to lobbyists and life long congressmen/women, the federal government has become pretty much nothing but money machine. It's just that every know and again the people getting their hands on the money change. I find it interesting that we rushed the TARP legislation through because we had to help the banks and what not. They got several hundred billion dollars with little accountability - AIG was paid 2.7 times their stocks value. And the Republicans have said little about that. Now, the Dems want to give several hundred billion to everyone else, and we have to slow down and think about it. (note: I'm not taking one side or the other here and saying one's right or wrong, I'm just making an observation.)

According to the CBO, we actually had surpluses in the late 90's, which effectively halted the growth of the national debt; hence, the the term net. But apparently, that's not good enough because we don't like the way we got the surplus and stopped adding to our debt. OK. Actually, I ascertained exactly what you were trying to say. I simply used a little hyperbole in a failed attempt to make a point. You're point seems to be that governmental policies have little effect on benefiting the economy but often hurt it. So, can I assume you'd just prefer the government to do nothing? At least that way they're not hurting anything? Interesting though that through the debate, I don't recall seeing your detailed fix for the mess we're currently in. My original point of this thread was to ask about tax cuts, because I wanted additional insight from individuals that favor tax cuts. See, in my world, I don't have the answers, I don't even always understand all the questions, but I do try to gain perspective and insight. We currently have 2 primary theories as to how to get the economy going - tax cuts or federal spending. Maybe neither of those will work, but the reality is we're going to do primarily one or the other because those are the only 2 ideas on the table. Therefore, it seems relevant to discuss those two ideas. On the other hand, I suppose we could just sit here and say I don't like any of it, government is bad, everyone is stupid, I'm right - despite the fact that I don't know what I'm right about because I've never articulated constructive alternatives. I think we can all agree that the government spending more than it has is a bad idea. However, we've done that for decades and, yes, it's one of the facets to this problem. So what do we do now? Cut all spending, raise taxes, get out of debt? Or just do nothing at all? Perhaps we should introduce the bird flu, kill the 1.6 million that just lost their jobs and let the rest sort itself out?

I would expect so. Just as I would expect the Republicans asked for cuts that they knew they could concede on in order to compromise, as well. Similar to any negotiation, you always go in lower or higher (depending on if you're buying or selling) than what you're really prepared to pay/sell for.

As I stated previously, I'm certain I'm not the only one here that has no clue what they're talking about. Except that during the Clinton administration the net number of government employees and spending did not increase. In reality, I drink ice tea with a greater degree of regularity. Although I did drink Kool-aid at my sister's house a few weeks ago. Not sure what that has to do with anything though. It's fairly universal in business, government, anything that the useless administrative bureaucrats are fired last. Not sure how we can single out any one Administration because of that. I have no problem at all pointing out that I know very little about economics. Nor am I pretending to. I'm merely pointing out that there seems to be a moving scale as to what effects the economy and what doesn't. Excellent. So if nothing any politician ever does has any effect on the economy why are we all so worried about the current "stimulus" bill? Well looks like it's time to move to Canada, because they're saying now this "stimulus" bill will pass in some form. It's always nice to make someone smile.

So now we're quibbling over which parts of the government are more important. Cut one, grow the other, back and forth. What's more important is did the overall size of the government and did the government's spending increase or decrease? At least that's how I see it. Why should we have continued to grow our military under Clinton? We weren't in any major wars and Russia had pretty well collapsed. I've always kinda laughed at this notion that today's problems are due to some guy 10 years ago. Just how long does it take for an Administration's economic policies to come to fruition? Lord knows the stock market goes up or down every time some one sneezes. Yet, it takes 8+ years for Clinton's policies to take effect? Does that also mean that the economic growth of the 80's was due to the policies of Carter and Ford in the 70's? I'm not saying that all policy effects are seen immediately and that no latent effects are realized. I just don't understand why our current bad economy is because of Clinton. And that our economic growth in the 90's was because of Bush/Reagan. But our economy in the 80's was also Reagan. See how it all gets backed up kinda (because we all know Carter sucked balls)? Does that also mean that we don't have to do anything now, because Bush's last 8 years will begin to pay off in a year or 2? I'd agree entirely with your final statement.

But of course. I'd dare to say, the vast majority of people here have no idea what they're talking about.

How did Bush just try this? I've seen views on both sides of the FDR New Deal working/not working. So, IMO, to use that as an argument is to get into a histrionics debate. How exactly, is this Bill taking from one and giving to another? In fact, this Bill cuts taxes. I don't see any tax increases in it at all. What it does, in fact, is use money that we don't have. So, perhaps you could say we're taking future generation's money. Certainly, you could argue that adding to the federal deficit to this degree does more long term harm than short term good, but that has nothing to do with taking from the rich and giving to the poor. The government has pretty well perfected the art of getting money from thin air. That's why the federal deficit is as large as it is. So to conclude that they're going to recoup the cost of this Bill from higher taxes, implies that they can recoup the costs of all the previous year's spending with higher taxes. I think anyone will say that our deficit is so high, currently, that increased taxes alone will do nothing to decrease it. But, let's just assume taxes aree raised in a year... is it to pay for this bill or to pay for the previous 10 years of spending? Does it really matter? I really have no idea what ruined Japan's economy; but it'd be nice to see some evidence that it was government spending and not some list of other extraneous events. Regardless, just because they couldn't make it work, we should assume we can't either? Again, we really need to know a trillion more details before we could have any real discussion about Japan's economy. Many of those have supposedly been removed from the Senate's version. And the wastefulness of some are entirely up for debate. For example, I don't see forcing the military and government to use electric cars as wasteful. Some American auto maker has to make all those cars, do they not? Tell, Ford that buying 100,000 cars (I just made that number up) is a waste of money and I'm sure they'd disagree. Ok... not enough time to really go through the rest of those reasons. IMO, many of them are highly debatable if not just inaccurate statements. I think there are very good arguments against this bill and/or portions of the bill; I just don't think these are them.

Isn't that pretty much exactly what everyone said last season? How many people thought a QB that hadn't started since High School would lead them to 11 wins? So, much like I won't believe the Bills will have a winning season until they actually have 8 wins; I won't believe the Pats* are falling from grace until I actually see it. Until then, they're still the Pats* and we're still trying.

Interesting thing about Reagan, he's credited as being the ideal conservative Republican President. Yes he cut taxes, greatly, his first year in office. However beginning in 1982, his administration raised taxes every year, he added a cabinet member, and grew the size of the federal government by several hundred thousand employees. So, if I'm thinking right, the best conservative President we've had in 25 years has been Clinton. I'm fairly certain, the number of federal employees shrank during his 8 years and the federal budget was as close to being a surplus as we've seen. Of course, Bush was anti-conservative - growing the government, debt, and spending unlike anything we've ever seen. Maybe this is why I get so confused by the terms conservative and liberal?

You do realize that this whole bank/mortage mess is because of less regulations and the banks went wild. Furthermore, if you get rid of all the "free trade" stuff and increase tariffs, how are you going to have a production and Export economy. Who would trade with us, if we don't trade with them?

When I was much less financially stable, I don't mind saying, I took several liberties with my tax returns for several years. Fortunately, I think you can only be audited for 5 or 7 years, and I'm in the clear on those now. Of course in recent years, I use Turbo Tax and they don't let you fudge much at all.

It's on now! Tickets are bought, reservations are made. Myself, wife, 2 sisters, and the folks are rollin' into town. Canton is in trouble. If you get something put together, by all means, post and let us all know. Not sure what I could do to help put it together, but we'll certainly be interested in any activities associated with alcohol consumption. For those still looking, we all got rooms at the Holiday Inn in South Cleveland, $93/night. My family is flying in on Friday; I may be driving up from Columbus (depends on work). We're still awaiting tickets to the game. Anyone have an idea when they go on sale?

Really? It sounds like more of the same old same old to me... tax cuts on capital gains, increased spending on defense, money to big oil for alternative energy research that never pans out. If that's the core of a stimulus package count me out. I'm not at all sold on the current mess of a bill, but at least it's different.

A most excellent post! The problem I have with the scenario is... I have a job, in fact I'm about to get a decent bonus, but no way am I spending it now. I was going to buy the wife a new car. But, with confidence things will be better anytime soon, I'm going to save that money for the time being. So fundamentally, the scenario is sound, but how do we get th 92% spending again if they think they're on the verge of joining the 8% not working?

I keep seeing people talk about tax cuts, more tax cuts. We need tax cuts to put more money in people's pockets so they'll start spending. Now a tax incentive to buy a new car. Here's my concerns, that I haven't really seen addressed: If I don't have a job, how's a tax cut or tax incentive going to get me spending money when I have none coming in? How can I buy a car when no one is giving me a loan to buy the car (or house)? Yes it seems a tax cut should or could be part of a stimulus plan, but it seems like it should be a smaller portion of the plan. It seems like job creation should be the focus; then once everyone has a job, we could worry about cutting their taxes. What am I missing?

If used to generate a DNA Fingerprint for the database, how is it any different than giving fingerprints when arrested?

I wouldn't go so far as to be crying for joy either. But, it is kinda nice having an elected official admit he made a mistake, apologize for it, and state he's going to try hard to improve. I find absolutely nothing wrong with that and I'm not sure how anyone could. I'd hope everyone could/would own up to their mistakes similarly. Because let's face it, it was a mistake to nominate a couple of those guys. I do agree, though, you don't want a President to continually be apologizing. But, that's mostly because it means he's continually making mistakes not because he looks like a wuss.

The Girls Gone Wild guy?