Give and take. And one word: Compromise

The clipped comments from the following 3/22/09 AP news story are from Republican Senators Judd Gregg and Richard Shelby, and also White House C.E.A. chairwoman Christine Romer.

More commentary is below.

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090322/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_economy_9

clipped from news.yahoo.com By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 2 mins ago "People are disgusted and outraged, as they should be," said Gregg. "But let's not overreact in a way that basically has the Congress grabbing its pitchforks, and charging up the hill, and abusing what is a core authority of a government, which is the authority to tax its people." Shelby said Obama would have to scale back his budget, given the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported on Friday the president's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade — more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency. The CBO predicted a deficit of $2.3 trillion worse than the administration's own projections foresaw. Romer downplayed those numbers. "There is a question whether CBO is right. So we know that forecasts — both of what the economy is going to do and of what the budget deficit are going to do — are highly uncertain," she said.

When they're not seemingly attempting to torpedo the country by playing partisan "gotcha" (or future "will getcha back"), these Republican senators' comments make a lot of sense. Though Sen. Gregg also screamed about Pres. Obama spending the country into "bankruptcy" (please see: own party, last eight years), his comments about racing to tax executive bonuses displayed moderation. Yes, outlandish bonuses must be reigned in, but not everyone receiving them caused today's "mess", and many can (now) be previlaed upon to return the bonuses.

Some individuals actually do possess superior talent and/or experience running large businesses, and should be fairly compensated. "Whacking" them all with 90% excise taxes isn't fair or proportionate, either. There must be better alternatives (e.g., "asking" for voluntary returns, suing some recipients (with now-government owned firms, etc.). Take some time and address the issue properly. Try to draft some durable, long-term limits on ridiculous bonuses.

As stated before, if AIG had been "allowed to fail", the world financial system (lending, borrowing, etc.) would have seized up far worse than it did (has). AIG's 'tentatcles' were everywhere. Bad regulation/no regulation.

As a counterpoint, we now hear the current chairman of basket-case Citigroup is forging ahead with a $10 million office "makeover". This is a person who astoundingly still doesn't "get it", if true.