And now we have a huge trade imbalance with china..

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IMHO is directly related to the fatherlessness in the African-American community. It would be nice to blame it on bigotry or any other host of things, but the lack of responsible parenting and good example setting for education and honest hard work (which leads to success in life) is sorely lacking in that community. It's very sad.

The bottom line is that the GOP estimates are way off, and they don't account for relief programs.

Once this is voted on and if it passes....we will all pay. Gas prices will go up. Obama himself said utility prices would skyrocket....not including all the prices of goods and services will go up. Will that not be a tax to everyone....not just the rich. It will also hurt an already hurting economy.

Common sense....you cannot tax just the rich for all the spending our governemt has done, is doing currently, and wants to do in the future. There aren't enough rich people to fund all of that. He campaigned on people making less than 250K would see no raise in taxes and yet dropped that number to 235K. Yet no one seems to be holding him accountable for that either. It isn't fearmongering to look at all the money that our government has spent during Bush's administration and now Obama's. It isn't fearmongering that our deficit keeps going up and will go higher. That is fact......not fearmongering.

I'm looking for a site where the administrator is neutral and ethical and doesn't threaten people with their ISP numbers.

As far as your posting here, that's your decision. I couldn't care less because I'm only staying on this board long enough to see if anyone else it appalling that an administrator would track ISP numbers of posters for telling the truth about their employer. Then I won't be coming back any more, to any of the boards here.

And thanks for finally being honest and saying it's your preference, instead of the disingenuous I'll leave. Are you happy now? type comments that I doubt anyone believed, anyway.

When are they ever going to start building the new World Trade Center?

Yesterday.

Thirty-nine years after the first concrete was poured into the first trench for the first telephone vault for the first trade center, carpenters built a 168-foot-long wooden trough in a gentle S curve through the south tower footprint at ground zero. From this sinuous sprout, Santiago Calatrava's PATH terminal and transportation hub will emerge.

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src=http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/11/04/nyregion/04rebuild184.1.jpg

Fidel Oliver/Port Authority

Carpenters prepared a wooden trough at the World Trade Center site Thursday.

Don't laugh; it's a milestone day, said Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site and is building the $2.21 billion terminal over the next four years.

Until now, milestones at ground zero have tended to be ceremonial.

There was not a hint of ceremony yesterday. Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were nowhere to be seen in the 70-foot-deep pit. The Freedom Tower cornerstone of July 4, 2004, sat hidden under a blue plywood box.

But anyone looking out from a PATH train screeching around the corner into the temporary World Trade Center station would have seen a crew from the Beaver Concrete Construction Company of Brooklyn.

They're finally doing something with this big hole, said Anthony Martelli, one of the workers, standing inside the newly completed trough. It's about time.

It was Mr. Martelli's first day back at ground zero since early 2002, after a six-month tour cleaning up debris and pulling out pieces of steel. Yesterday, he was building again - he and Paul Klein and Frank De Guida and Robert Manella and Tonino Sacino.

Starting at 7 a.m., they built a trough 18 inches high and 6 feet 3 inches wide out of thick wood planks. Cagelike frames of steel reinforcing bars, or rebar, will be set into the trough beginning today. Then concrete will be poured over the rebar.

That will form the footing of a seven-foot-high concrete retaining wall. The wall will hold about four feet of fill, on top of which ballast will be laid for a temporary PATH track, No. 6, alongside the future Platform D, the fourth and westernmost platform.

Currently, there are five tracks among three platforms, two of which occupy a corner of the south tower footprint, as they did in the original station. Platform D would take up more space in the south footprint and a tiny bit of the north footprint.

Once Platform D and Track No. 6 are usable, in early 2007, other tracks can be taken out of service temporarily to allow construction of the permanent terminal while commuters are traveling through the tubes to and from New Jersey.

The construction manager is a joint venture of Parsons Brinckerhoff, which counts the first New York City subway line among its earliest achievements, and the URS Corporation. A general contractor is to be chosen in the next few months.

Icanda was the contractor in 1966 when the first concrete was poured, at West and Cortlandt Streets. John M. Kyle, the chief engineer of the Port Authority, threw in a silver dollar, a 100-lire coin from Italy, a 5-franc coin from France and a British penny.

Asked about the absence of fanfare yesterday, Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman of the Port Authority, said: I think people have become so jaded by the inordinate amount of ceremonies that have occurred at that site - disproportionate to what's actually happened - that I didn't want to add to that. This is about actually building.

There is a potential snag, however. A lawsuit filed last month by the Coalition of 9/11 Families seeks to halt the project on the ground that it violates a federal law requiring that historic sites not be used for transportation projects unless there are no feasible or prudent alternatives.

Anthony Gardner, one of the plaintiffs, whose brother was killed on 9/11, said the authority had never justified the need for Platform D.

Our focus has always been to ensure the maximum preservation and access to the remains of the footprints for the American people and future visitors to the site, Mr. Gardner said yesterday.

The Port Authority and the Federal Transit Administration have yet to answer the complaint, he said. A spokesman for the authority said it would not discuss pending litigation.

But Steven Plate, deputy director of the priority capital programs department, did talk about the authority's sense of stewardship as he inspected the site, pointing out that the tower footprints had been covered by polyethylene liners and 12 inches of stone fill to protect them during construction. We're very committed, personally and professionally, to preserving the site, he said. Eighty-four of our own perished here.

I don't want to sound melodramatic, but there is no monopoly on caring for the site. This is the Port Authority's home.

Why is it that we can find money for wars and thieving corporations, but one PENNY designed to help American citizens is viewed as evil? Why is the thought of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructures such a bad thing, considering it will require WORKERS to do that and will bring JOBS with it?

Why is it okay for Bush to care so much about the Iraqi people he bombed that he included comprehensive and universal healthcare as part of his Iraq war budget, yet the mere mention of helping almost 50 million people acquire healthcare just terrible?

All that's just fine and dandy, but dare to mention one thing to help Americans get by in a bad economy is suddenly "big government"?

Bush only cared about corporate welfare and is supported. Obama cares about people and is trashed. For the life of me, I don't understand that way of thinking.

P.S. Who do you think will ultimately pay for all the things I mentioned above -- the things that Bush placed on the world's "credit card?"

they would have already done it when the economic crisis hit. We already owe them tons of money. I think they would make out better collecting interest off us than spending their resources trying to "control" us, which would eventually lead to yet another war. What I think should be in the bill is help for those who need it immediately (the ones who have already lost jobs and extending state funds to make budgets) and infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, green job advancement. This can't be outsourced, it generates revenue, it provides jobs, and its needed. The more people we put back to work or keep at work, the better chance we have of paying these bills off through taxable income.

I know it looks like an enormous amount of money to be going into debt for (and it is), but at this point I don't think we have any choice. If you want to talk national security, a depression would leave us much more vulnerable than being in debt. Being vulnerable is not an option at this point.

and how we can buy things so cheap at Walmart because the Chinese work for little money. If the things we bought at Walmart were actually made here in the USA by Americans.....it would be a lot more expensive because Americans demand higher paying jobs. That is the thing. We are kind of screwed both ways. Do we keep the job here in American and pay a heck of a lot more money for things we get cheap now or do we continue to keep China in business by sending our jobs over there. Kind of a double-edge sword when you think about it.

I personally think that we should bite the bullet and pay more for American made goods so we can keep jobs here in America. The more we want cheaper stuff, the more we will be buying stuff made in China and the less jobs we have in America.

...which has been the biggest foreign purchaser of our Treasury bonds and notes. Now, I see that they're also over here snapping up foreclosure properties. America is for sale.

I don't think most Americans realize that the nation would actually be declared bankrupt if normal accounting methods that are required of businesses were used by the government. Our total forward indebtedness (which is different from "the deficit") is something like $16 trillion dollars - a sum that is greater than the combined gross domestic product of the entire world. "Indebtedness" includes anticipated obligations under various welfare programs, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and our contractual obligations represented by Treasury bonds, notes and bills - which are nothing more or less than loans we have to repay. When you hear people talking about the Federal Reserve "selling" these instruments, they're not selling anything...they're borrowing! If you "purchase" a $1000 Treasury bill at par value, you give the government $1000 dollars, in exchange for which you will be paid a stated rate of interest and, then at some stated time in the future the government will pay you the face value of the bill ($1000). In other words, you have loaned the government $1000 for a certain period of time.

Foreign governments "buy" these instruments just like citizens do. To make a long story short, we (the government = taxpayers = you and I, my kids, my grandkids and any kids they have) owe the world about a $kajillion worth of these loans.