You seem more intent to defend the Republican Party than outraged over the facts!

Your point is lost!

Doesn't matter. If the Taxpayers have to foot the bill, we should have a say in what types of food is acceptable.

Look at the medicare fraud rate and you'll see why this is a bad idea.

Ok, highest quality? I would rank that at a $0 deductible, $0 copay PPO plan with freedom to go wherever you'd like. The incredible majority of americans do not have that... in fact, I'm sure it's well under 1% outside of bogus union contracts.

It cannot happen without extreme growth of the medical field in productivity. Our current medical system simply cannot sustain it. It's that simple.

Akron wants stimulus money to cut down endangered ash trees

By Katie Byard
Beacon Journal staff writer

POSTED: 06:20 p.m. EDT, May 10, 2009

Akron hopes to land federal stimulus money to cut down more than 1,000 healthy ash trees — the species targeted by a tree-killing beetle.

The move is pre-emptive; the emerald ash borer beetle eventually will make its way to Summit County, said city arborist Bill Hahn.

''It's not a question of if; it's when,'' Hahn said.

Officials are seeking about $762,000 to take down and replace all ash trees — an estimated 1,075 trees — in city rights-of-way.

Once infested by the pest — first found in this country in 2002 — trees die within a few years.

They then become a menace, Hahn said.

''They become dangerous — very brittle and they fall apart very quickly — when they die,'' Hahn said.

''Gravity takes its toll'' and branches fall, he said.

The dark green beetle was first spotted in the United States in Michigan. It is believed to have arrived in this country stowed away in cargo from Asia.

The pest has spread to many Ohio counties, including Medina, Portage, Wayne and Cuyahoga, as well as parts of Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Ontario. It has killed millions of trees.

Hahn said city officials don't want to see a repeat of what happened in the 1960s, when Dutch elm disease claimed many elms.

''They were dead and falling down all over town and they were huge,'' he said.

The city has been removing the trees under a five-year program that began last year. General funds covered the bill to cut down and replace 150 to 200 ash trees last year and the first part of this year.

The federal money would allow Akron to accelerate its removal program. The city would hire contractors to do the work.

The city notifies residents with trees that will be removed from the front of their homes.

While 1,000-plus trees sound like a lot, they represent less than 1 percent of the trees in city rights-of-way, Hahn said.

Akron is replacing the ash trees with a variety of species, including American yellowwood, elm, linden and crab apple, the fruiting and nonfruiting varieties.

The federal money would flow through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which is seeking $9 million to divvy up to communities, said Drew Todd, state urban-forestry coordinator.

Treating the trees to stave off the Asian beetle would be too expensive, foresters say.

''Once you start the treatments, you basically have to keep it going. You can't just treat it one year and then stop,'' said Pat Neville, forester for Shaker Heights, which also is seeking federal funds to speed up its removal program.

Neville said the borer hasn't been detected in that city.

Strongsville, in western Cuyahoga County, also wants to take a pre-emptive strike.

Strongsville tried a volunteer program, in which homeowners would sign up to have trees removed from tree lawns. Few residents took advantage of it.

''Most people want to wait and see and hope for the best,'' said Jennifer Milbrandt, Strongsville's coordinator of natural resources. ''We try to explain it's just a matter of time'' before ash borers arrive.

Akron also is applying for nearly $700,000 in federal stimulus money for a tree survey that would identify damaged trees, as well as spots for additional trees. This money also would pay for replacement trees.

The program would involve workers from Davey Resource Group — part of the Davey Tree Expert Co. of Kent — fanning into neighborhoods with portable computers.

http://www.ohio.com/news/44677172.html

So long as we collect taxes, this can never happen. However, the point to worry about is when the interest on said debt will hit the point where the interest is 100% of that income from taxes. That is a dangerous circle of events.

We make so much off taxes, but there is a portion of that which goes to interest (funny enough, larger than the recent deficits and almost what we are going to have this fiscal year) so we have to borrow to make the ends meet on the budget. That means, next year's budget will have a larger portion going to interest and we will have to borrow more money in order to cover the gap. Repeat that last sentence a few times and you will realize that with every passing year, our deficit spending chews more and more of the income from taxes. This puts us in a position where there are three options (two that can actually happen). one, we sit at the mercy of our debtholders. two, fiscal responsibility and pay down the debt (ha!). Three, default, with major political ramifications.

Deficit spending under W's administration was bad and irresponsible. Obama's administration is just taking the game to the next level. Currently, many only blame Bush and Co. for the problems we are facing and they will likely blame him when the **** hits the fan. The scary part is, the **** has not hit the fan yet and we are very quickly approaching option number 1. When it does, we will not be ready. It's going to be Great Depression II. And the sheeple are too blind to see it coming and no amount of government spending will be able to fix it because there will be no loans to use.

A vicious cycle - and we're stuck in the middle.

K Car! Jimmy "the waste" Carter! The Pacer, Pinto, Vega, etc. etc. etc. When you have no competition you get crap.Try this: build a better car than the Japanese are and more people will buy it. You can shovel the sh!t cars to the people but for now they have a choice and they are clearly choosing quality. What a concept.

Dem dudes musta' never went ta' skool.
Even I knows plants thrive on carbon dioxide.
Dey sho gots lots of folks buffaloed.

Send this on to BHO. It's simple enough so even he can grasp it.

Carbon dioxide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carbon dioxide (chemical formula: CO2) is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state.

Carbon dioxide is used by plants during photosynthesis to make sugars which may either be consumed again in respiration or used as the raw material to produce polysaccharides such as starch and cellulose, proteins and the wide variety of other organic compounds required for plant growth and development. It is produced during respiration by plants, and by all animals, fungi and microorganisms that depend on living and decaying plants for food, either directly or indirectly. It is, therefore, a major component of the carbon cycle

Fire Departments are not socialism. Capitalism is about efficiency and in most areas, it is far more efficient to have a taxpayer funded fire department than a private one. the New Deal was the largest creation of social programs in our history and none of them really fell away after. Social programs are like a drug - once a person gets a fix on them, it's hard to let them go.

No, entitlement comes from all those that are crying to the government to fix their problems.

Clinton did nothing but sign the bill for welfare reform. It was republicans in Congress that started the reform. Congress is largely responsible for just about everything. All that had been done then is quickly being erased.

Our current socialist practices began last century with the New Deal. It began to lace a sense of entitlement into the American public and now, that sense of entitlement has gotten further out of hand.

The problem with our current socialist spending? Sustainability.

The principle of socialism is based on that everyone puts in everything they can and everyone takes out what they need. In order for socialism to succeed, there has to be that balance that what is taken out does not exceed what is put in.

We are far exceeding what we put in. We have faced record deficits for the past 8 years and are facing even further record deficits that will make the last 8 years look like chump change. We cannot sustain this practice. It's that simple. We are already over 11 trillion dollars in debt and rising fast.

What is being put into place is partly infrastructure investment (which is not always socialism, capitalism is based on the most efficient entity performing any one good/service and sometimes, the government is it) but is largely is socialistic spending. Increasing jobless benefits, medical assistance, and other care programs will be the reason for the tax hikes that are to come. We are creating permanent programs with borrowed funds. Bush and his administration borrowed heavily to fund tax cuts and the wars (though both only totaled about 60% of their deficits IIRC). Nothing has changed in those budgets but we are now permanently increasing our social spending while our economy is falling. Even when it rises again, we will not be able to sustain our current spending practices because we could not even do that before.

What we need is responsibility, not giving handouts to the people. You may think my statements are heartless, but the facts are the facts: we are not fixing anything. We are placing a band-aid on a bullet wound that is our economy. We are failing to fix the problem at this point and all the administration is concerned with is the people that are going to help this economy the least. Until we fix the root, we are doomed to repeat.

I sure love all these folks worried about other people's entitlement issues...LOL They crack me up

Acting like they are doing others a favor with their scorn.

If they are so worried about entitlement, make sure they themselves never get entitled and that is the end of their personal responsibility.

Entitlement talk stems from extremist groups. Clinton made sure that welfare is not an entitlement program anymore. Foodstamps never has been so what is all the concern about unless you have a hidden agenda.