I don't go out to dinner. At all. Hard to cut back from that, unless I quit eating altogether. And vacations? What are those, anyway? Is it anything like when I take the weekend to visit out-of-town friends and sleep on their couch?

Many people I know are in a similar place.

He acts like the government just spent a little more on the credit cards over Christmas, but everything else is well.

The problem is that the credit cards are maxed; two different banks are showing up to re-posses the cars and the sheriff has the foreclosure papers -- he just hasn't served them yet.

Someone need to hit Obama with a clue stick.

Can't believe the gall. "You should eat out even less and go on even fewer vacations, because we can't stop spending all your money! Work harder, work harder till you drop, we want to squeeze even more out of you, and even your unborn children!"

The latest so-called "budget cuts" are a total joke.

What also makes it a joke is that his very policies - low interest rates, stimulus, money printing - all send PRECISELY the false signals to the market that are specifically designed to stimulate consumption spending (eating out and vacations) instead of saving (in order to create the temporary short-term illusion of a false "recovery" for the elections). It disgusts me to my core. These guys are crooked to the end.

One of my best friends, who is a Vanderbilt graduate and was making over $100k a year, just accepted a job caddying at the Coeur D Alene Resort golf course.

Finally I recalled the last retort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat brioche."

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

what 'dya expect from a guy who has never worked a real down in the weeds job. cut back? er we did that several years ago sunshine, at some point there is very little to cut back on.

He won't come back to reality because his paymasters (the public sector unions) won't let him. Period.

The key to success for Republicans in 2012 is to ask this simple question to all non-government employees in America: "Are you willing to work to age 75 with few benefits so that government employees can work to 55 with lavish benefits? If so, then we encourage you to vote for Barack Obama and the Democrats. Otherwise, vote the adults back into office."

I've been having trouble discussing the politics of budget cutting partially since the numbers don't have any meaning, 1 trillion 10 trillion, 60 billion are unimaginable to practically everyone. One thing that is seeming wo work is putting it into perspective of with about 300 million people. It works out to the gov't owes 50,000 for every man woman and child. So if you are a 3 person family your share of the debt is about 150,000. A decent sized mortgage without a house to show for it.
It puts the 62 billion proposed cuts into persective. You owe $50,000 and we are asking to cut out $200 per year off your budget, and you are screaming it's impossible.

How much of this is comrade Barry's fault and how much did the bushman contribute to it?

Yo Biff, Bush is not the President anymore, Obama is SOOOOO he has to be the one responsible, he can not act like a five year old saying but but but it's all Bushys fault as that will absolve him from doing anything.

So step up Mr. President and starts being a President and not celebrity and ego driven official.

How much of this is comrade Barry's fault and how much did the bushman contribute to it? -- Posted by: biff

Note that the last few year of Bush's presidency was with a Democratic Congress.

But that is neither here nor there. If I could sue every single congresscritter for the last 45 years for malfeasance, I'd do it.

If you take a look at eastern/central europe 20 years after 40 years of communinism, it's still a big mess, independent of who is in charge. Western europe took ~10 years to clean up after WWII. What is the difference? Comrade Barry ain't doing much, but then again, he wasn't elected on the promise of tackling hard problems, I believe he was basically elected as a change to the Bushman.

Sigh...tinkering round the edges. Any budget that doesn't tackle the big three - Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and public sector pensions - is a complete cop-out. He even says

The truth is Social Security is not the huge contributor to the deficit that the other two entitlements are. I'm confident we can get Social Security done in the same way that Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill were able to get it done, by parties coming together, making some modest adjustments. I think we can avoid slashing benefits, and I think we can make it stable and stronger for not only this generation but for the next generation.

On what planet? It may not be a huge contributor to the deficit now, but it will be. Start transitioning to private accounts now while you've still got some money left to pay the people for whom it's too late - or end up cutting people off when there's no longer any choice.

@biff -

Then you need to blame Nixon (price controls), Ford (hostile congress), Carter (idiot), Bush I (hostile congress), Reagan (very hostile congress), Clinton (profligate), Bush II (profligate, and then enabled a Democratic congress), and Obama.

It's more than a recent problem. We've been overspending for decades.

brian,

yes, exactly. If the will and know-how to fix it is missing, then no matter who is in charge.