ASU2003

This "Compromise is defeat" and "Obama must fail" bull shit from the right is what is what is wrong. There are new ideas and other things we can do in order to make progress.

Afghanistan - troop surge, build relationships, eliminate bad people, provide security and let people live in peace for a while, then build up local security forces, make sure a peaceful, tolerant Islam is taught, setup businesses, and work towards getting our troops out, but leaving behind 'cleaners'.

Debt spending - expose how debt spending works and all of the accounting tricks used by lots of past administrations to hide the true cost of projects or pass the costs on. It would have been better if the government would have had to get individual people to put up some money in T-bonds or something similar. It would have been better to focus on who would benefit if the banks were bailed out, and made sure the citizens got their money back. And there needed to be rules to prevent something like this from happening again. Yet, something had to get done.

DADT - could be Don't Ask, Don't Care. Gay soldiers don't need to flaunt it, and I don't most of them would. And girl soldiers would probably start saying that they are lesbian to stop the guys from hitting on them.

Tax cuts - they need to get paid for, and there needs to be more studies that actually show that they work as advertised. I think they make to peaks and valleys of the business cycle higher and lower. People spend the money, yet then in a few years they don't need to buy as much and the economy comes back down. Or people put them in the stock market, offshore accounts, or just save it. But, I agree that the government has to innovate in order to create jobs (which it does by funding research and development to create private sector companies)

Guns - I have no problem with people having guns. I have a problem with some of their attitudes. If you are making terroristic statements, I have no problem with the feds taking your guns away. If you are mentally unbalanced because you lost your job or went through a breakup, you shouldn't have access to your guns for a while.

Environment - We are putting lots of crap into the air (Hg, Pb, small particles). Yes, other countries are still putting just as much pollutants into the air as we are, but we have the technology to reduce the amount of energy we use, generate cleaner energy, and not take shortcuts to get cheap energy (PA ground water - nat gas, deep water - oil). And there is less on-going maintenance needed for renewable generation.

Abortion - Women should have access to birth control and be taught about it in 6th grade. It should be somewhat hard to get one (and I don't believe anyone uses that as their primary BC method), yet, they should be allowed to have it.

Social Security - it shouldn't be the only source of income, but it should provide the basics. The money shouldn't be allowed to be used for other projects.

I want to see them come up with solutions that both sides can live with.

The media doesn't give any time to people in 'the center'. They are having a rally next weekend in DC though.