Obama:

It’s a Washington where politicians like John McCain and Hillary Clinton voted for a war in Iraq that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged - a war that is costing us thousands of precious lives and billions of dollars a week that could’ve been used to rebuild crumbling schools and bridges; roads and buildings; that could’ve been invested in job training and child care; in making health care affordable or putting college within reach.

Obama again:

We can’t keep spending money that we don’t have in a war that shouldn’t have been fought. We can’t keep mortgaging our children’s future on a mountain of debt. We can’t keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who are struggling to keep pace.

As usual, it’s not the principle that matters.

Rob, I’m thinking of the old saw “give a hungry man bread so he can eat, and he’ll be hungry tomorrow.  Teach him how to grow his own wheat and he’ll never be hungry again”.

But I agree with you on free market systems.  The unfortunate facts is they exist as a result of the “pay off to the general public” by the totalitarian regimes, who otherwise few would ever support. 

The bottom line is that a free markets will never exist in those countries until there is a change in their political system.  I think the solution is “revolution from within”. 

But it would initially have to involve seed-money from our government, because what businessman would invest in such a corrupt system?  Nor why would he invest knowing that his investments could be confiscated at will, and further that the US government would probably even look the other way when it happened, as they have done in the past.

IAMbs: Obama’s inaccurate rhetoric is still no excuse for us giving welfare to the corrupt nations of the world.  Classic leftie misdirection.

Robert, perhaps my point wasn’t clear (wouldn’t be the first time!) When Obama doesn’t like where the money is going, it’s desperately needed at home.  When he, for political reasons, wants money to go for some pet cause, we’ve got all the money in the world available for it and no need for it here.

Got it.  I guess I wasn’t clear that I was chiming in with you.

D’oh!  I’ll just stop posting and go have more coffee…

Rob,

I can’t disagree with the intent of the post. But I can’t seem to find anything in senate bill or the house resolution which mentions a percertage of GNP.

It was talked about at the G8 summit:

(9) At the summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) nations in July 2005, leaders from all eight participating countries committed to increase aid to Africa from the current $25,000,000,000 annually to $50,000,000,000 by 2010, and to cancel 100 percent of the debt obligations owed to the World Bank, African Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund by 18 of the world’s poorest nations.

Granted the US would, as always, commit to the lions’ share of this $50B...but this is an agreement coming from our current administration, with at least some at the behest of the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003.

The Obama/Hagel bill is nothing more than a verbosely written tirade commiting us to aid to Africa.

Carrick, LDSally, Robert108:  Mea Culpa! I am the author of the original post A CONSERVATIVE’S NIGHTMARE which Rob excerpted here, and I am to blame for the excessive number of zeros. But, as one of you said, ‘any amount is too much’ in this bizarre scheme.

In my original post - and based on Barack Obama’s speeches and literature - I set forth a detailed account of what we could expect in four years of his Presidency. Maybe I should have called it AN AMERICAN NIGHTMARE.

I have never known a Democrat who met a tax they did not like. Obama is no different.

Socialism is socialism even when you camouflage it as a Democrat.

Carrick, LDSally, Robert108:  Mea Culpa! I am the author of the original post A CONSERVATIVE’S NIGHTMARE which Rob excerpted here, and I am to blame for the excessive number of zeros. But, as one of you said, ‘any amount is too much’ in this bizarre scheme.

I knew already. Well written by the way, despite your inadvertent mathematical error.

So if you (or Rob) could, would you please answer a couple of questions I have ?

Would you provide a link as to your source of this:

The Act will require the President and Congress to set aside .07% of the annual gross national product - our GNP

and…

It is Barack Obama’s response to the call of the Bali Global Warming Conference for a global carbon tax;

Is this prose on your part, or was this referenced somewhere? I’m not criticizing, just curious.

Thanks.