The headlines do say it all, and the accompanying stories pretty much sum up the two opposing views of the issue.

These two headlines will be our choices this fall in the general election when we go into the voting booth. This year there are real choices to make.

Of course my take is that Rep. Sali nailed it, and that is exactly what I sent him there to do with my vote last time. He continues to earn it.

I understand some bloggers may have a different view...

You kids behave out there or your father will hear about it!

Living proof somebody defecated in the gene pool.

are the model of finacial responsility? A debt of over $9 trillion growing by more than a million $ a minute & individuals who took loans for a home so they could be part of Bush's ownership society are irresponsible? Every American would have to pay $30K to pay it off & they are failng for not making their monthly house payment? How does a homeless man with no job pay down a $30k debt created by the representatives he's paid for years? Is the homeless man irresponsible in not paying his $30K share as well? Maybe BSali will step up & pay the $30K of every person who lose their home? Right!

It isn't a one sided debate, there were problems in many areas. A bail our of Bear Stearns using taxpayer $ while a bail out of regular taxpayers, many who lost jobs or couldn't make payments for other reasons, is totally out of the question.

Try middle ground & put an end to the two party fail & blame politics & campaign finance which has America's economy in a tail spin. It might be pointed out that some of the people losing homes have family in Iraq & Afghanistan, fighting for their country. Today's paper pointed out that some Americans in Iraq & Afghanistan won't be getting a stimulus check.

It isn't as simple as BSali would lead US to believe, some responsible people get caught in a bind & can't make payments. It isn't as democrats wold have US believe in every case either, flipping houses & a thousand other reasons lead to losses as well. Banking, loans & the way they were promoted had a little to do with it as well.

If the two parties can't come up with something to fix a problem conserning their boss, the taxpayers, maybe the boss needs to let a few people go. I doubt the representatives all about these bail outs or not, are losing their homes because they can't make the morgage payment which is no doubt higher than an average price home. Maybe it's time to address the real problem, the problem in DC! Misrepresentation, mismanagement of a nation!

Is it time for some pay cuts, eliminate health care, & retirement? For years the American people, the same who go to war started by these politicians have been losing wages, benefits, & retirement. Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid are going broke but we continue to provide for the representatives who do nothing to prevent the failure of these programs. Like a fense along the Mexican border, fixing Social Security is being put off until the problem cannot be fixed. Using Social Security funds as they wish, promoting illegal immigration, & free trade seems to contradict what's best for the American taxpayer, their boss. Why waste the money, tax $, building a fence when our elected officials took campaign contributions & promoted illegal immigration for years to hold down wages. Even the President says Americans won't do those jobs. Americans used to do those jobs when they paid a living wage, I did!

How much of Social Security has gone to illegal immigrants? How has illegal immigration effected our health care costs? Maybe BSali could answer these questions
when turning a family to the street because they had a health care issue that took the bread winner out of action & they didn't have health insurance. It's easy to say someone is irresponsible not knowing their situation. It's easy to promote illegal immigration while accepting $ from contributors, illegal immigration that holds down wages & drives up health care costs so an American no longer makes a living wage & can no longer afford health insurance. It's easy to say Americans won't do those jobs, when in fact we did for a living wage 30 years ago. I know people who worked in meatpacking who made $12 & more in the 1970s & 1980s. They lost their jobs, unions busted & illegal immigrants broght in at $6 an hour. The GOP, President Bush is all about busting unions while he says Americans won't do those jobs? That's representation?

Be the boss, cut representative's pay, eliminate health care provided through tax $, & let them provide their own retirement, a 401, just like the rest of US! Tax camapign contributions to politicians not yet on our payroll, take contributions to politicans on our payroll. Your boss wouldn't let you take money from an outside source & then suffer looses in his business due to the outside influence while providing you auto pay raises, health benefits, & retirement.

All millions of Americans have to do is sign on together & force the President, Congress, & the Senate to stand in front of the world & say no to our demands. Then you'll have the answer to a question they so carefully avoid. Who do they represent?

If millions of people signed a petition stating we cut their pay in half, eliminate auto pay raises, eliminate health care & retirment provided by taxpayers, & they said no, would you keep them around? The world would then see how well democracy works. Would you be dumb enough to vote in the next bunch of misrepresentatives with the same pay & benefits as the last who were responsible for the failing economy, war in Iraq?

Who is going to pay down the $9 trillion debt? BSali, Larry Craig, President Bush, & the rest of our millionaire representatives? I get the feeling the same people losing their homes, US soldiers fighting for their country, & all the same people payng our representatives to start wars,
will pay the debt. What would the boss of sinking company do? What would the CEO making millions do or the board members do? I've been laid off several times, I know what they do.

They would cut wages, lay off, & eliminate benefits! Voting for the next bunch of politicans taking $ from contributors & giving tax cuts & incentives in return while the $9 trillion debt continues to grow doesn't seem to be working. Isn't the debt proof enough that we need the taxes they are evading through campaign finance? Need money for roads? Tax cuts for contributors might sound good in creating jobs but for some reason we still need millions for roads. Does raising sales tax while giving tax cuts to corporations which can afford to hand over millions in contributions make sense? Tax the contributions, take the contributions, or tell them to keep the contributions & forget the tax cuts.

Fights over, suddenly we have $ for roads & no need to raise sales tax. Campaign finance is a tool politicians & contributors use to shift responsibility to regular taxpayers who are fighting for their country & losing their homes. Politicians of both parties are putting on a show, an act no different than all star wrestling or the circus. Pay the price & get your ticket to the show knowing all the while it's a scam, a shell game? Even little kids know the WWF is phony, for some reason we never grow up. Why do we allow the circus to go on? Slight of hand, quicker than the eye, we know the truth, why do we allow it to continue?

People for whom the American dream of home ownership seemd like a fantasy never to be fullfilled suddenly find themselves being told by Real Estate/mortgage PROFESSIONALS that "Sure, we can get you into a house, no problem. I suggest the ARM, because interest rates are so low now. It'll save you a bundle! Sign here." And for the average, uninformed American, this is all they needed to hear. All their hard work to be rewarded: a home of one's own. And if the mortgage guy says we can afford it, well, who's to argue?

It's all well and good for you monday morning qb's to strut and warble about the stupidity of the home buyers. And your notion of letting the blame rest solely on the buyers requires that we have plenty of shelters for the homeless families which will ensue. That'll teach 'em to believe what the banker tells them.

This housing debacle lies ultimately at the feet of the professionals who knew better. And you petty and small minded people (Sali, I'm talking to you) who think that somehow the home buyers should have to pay for not knowing real estate law really need to remember...there but for the grace of a few interest points go you.

GG is right about this being an area for middle ground between the two parties. Of course there are no middle ground candidates running, so the choice is again polarized.

And CG is right about the mortgage companies...although it is very sad that in our country with centuries and generations of experience with how our economy works we still claim ignorance.

How is it we can not know and understand the basic math implications of an ARM? I sure know that if I can barely afford a $1,000 mortgage today I will not be able to afford a $3,000 mortgage in 3-5 years.

There is plenty of shared blame to go around on this one. One end result is that we must do a better job of teaching basic consumer finance and economics in our high schools. Working people must be taught how to manage their (meager) budgets, credit, etc. and not get in over their heads.

Rep. Sali is not insensitive to people in trouble, but this was the wrong bill to "fix" things.

Some people believe our government is working just as designed. If so I suggest it was a bad design or we wouldn't have a $9 trillion debt growing at over a million $ a minute. War, economy in the crapper, housing gone south, illegal immigration making health care costs unaffordable, Social Secuirty, Medicare, & Medicaid going broke. It's a list perpetual & to suggest government is dong a bangup job is shortsighted at best. If you're a millionaire you better hang on to your money as well, many of the same social standing didn't fare so well in 29.

The problems we have all lead back to one common denominator, DC. The two controling parties, campaign finance along with a President who won't listen to anyone while excersing executive priviledge for every action taken by his administration suggest we have a probelm. Why the President should ever need to use executive priviledge to protect against criminal activity suggest criminal atcivity. I doubt the secrets they pretend are of national security are anything the evil doers haven't already taken into consideration. Executive priviledge has gotten out of hand, used/abused to the point we need to address it.

If we are to support education then math might be the best tool. The math I learned in school would suggest $9 trillion in debt growing at a million $ a minute is no better, in fact worse than an individual taxpayer responsible for $30K of that national debt while not being able to pay his morgage. The housing market losses may be in the trillions but allowing the national debt to continue is a time bomb unaddressed which will one day be the next problem just as 9/11, war in Iraq, the economy, & now the housing market. We have way too many problems all at the same time for a President to suggest a slow down rather than recession only to wait out his term & let the next poor slob accept the mess & responsibility.

I would think the national debt might be just as important as the housing crisis & both the responsibility of the President, Congress, & Senate. They created it through misrepresentation, mismanagement, & greed through campaign finance & favors in return. Tax cuts & incentives look good on paper in creating jobs but more people working at lower wages while aborbing those tax cuts through sales & property tax, don't pay for roads or schools.

It's time for our representatives in DC to do their jobs & in doing so, prevent problems rather than agrue about how to fix them after the fact. It's called management & it's not happening in DC. The two controling parties fight back & forth like a couple spoiled brats, the President acts like a king, & they all need a trip to the wood shed. A damn good chewing out to start & a strap in public might embarrass them into responsibility, although I doubt it.

As with everything our representatives are responsible for, the nation will have to collapse before they act. Like the sink hole in Texas our economy seems to be slowly slipping away with no real sense of urgency along with total denial by the President & no accountability or acceptence of responsibility. I guess our representatives of millionaire status have little to worry about while taxpayers sending family to war, live paycheck to paycheck in uncertain times.

We don't really treat him like royalty or Letterman would be in jail (smile).

Remember, Congress tried to get Washington to be called Your Royal Highness, and he refused. The reason it is "Mister" President is because they come and go as the hired help they are. It's a great thing about this country.

The President does a lot. He provided the leadership to convince Congress to fund the war and continues to do so. My point was that they can take it away from him anytime they want. It cannot be his war when other people continue to give him the money for it.

My point was that recessions are not what Presidents call them - they are specifically defined economic periods and indicators. A President can neither make it be so, nor make it be not so.

The President provided the leadership and encouragement for the passage of the economic stimulus package, successfully. And he then signed it into law.

The President has also failed us in his immigration work - I've said that numerous times.

But he's done huge work along with the leadership of Secretary Kempthorne to recover us from the Bruce Babbit no-public-use days for our lands. Yet he has not succeeded in gaining approval for oil drilling in our coastal fields and ANWR.

I have plenty of complaints with the President. I did with the last one and I will with the next one. But it was a great hope and a huge measure of audacity that brought us to this country, defended it before, built it across the Oregon Trail and many others. I tend to focus on that great hope and audacity every day rather than my complaints.

I also work hard to keep "my" representatives in office so at least of measure of what i want gets done.

Don't confuse our "paper debt" with paper money - as you infer in your 7th paragraph. Paper money is real and tangible and earning and spending it are good things. The continual growth of that will ultimately wipe out the paper debt - or virtual debt of the country. Remember, President Reagan spent the Soviets into oblivion in order to win the cold war and amassed a huge national debt too. People whined and moaned about how the great grandkids would be paying for it. Halfway through the Clinton Presidency it was paid and we had a surplus - and none of us paid our "$30K" or whatever it was then. We grew the economy out of the debt and balanced. That's how it works.

"The Secret?" Just go to Costco and buy it.

when he never votes for another dollar for Bush's war. Until then he is just an idiot for voting to send borrowed money overseas, while pretending to be concerned about our tax dollars.

We got this down with the sickness!

GG, I don't know why you would say that. I'm wrong all the time too. Voted for Clinton his first term thinking he was a "new Democrat." I was slickered.

Voted for Dole the next time in protest all the while knowing that for all his faults Clinton was probably the better choice - yikes, I still don't feel good about that one either way.

I voted for Phil Batt thinking he was a conservative. Missed on that one.

I thought Bush's relationship with the Mexican prez would lead to some immigration solutions. I was wrong - Bush has failed us on that.

Regarding the debt - yes, IF we go into a recession and don't pull out of it and it continues to decline into a depression then we don't pull up and the debt ceiling can't be managed to hold up the economy and it crashes. That is not a good thing.

My desire is that we continue to grow our economy, housing is picking up a bit - that's good, Ford is showing promise - that's good, oil is strong, the DOW remains close to 13,000 - other indicators are pretty good. Here in Idaho, American Ecology just got a great cleanup contract - that's good.

Life's good and we can make it better. I've seen people "farming" rice under bridges in Korea, and eating fish that float by. One rainstorm and it's gone. No whining - they are out there the next day resetting crops. What a great attitude, better than many in this country living large.

That's my point. We have so very much to be thankful for and hopeful of - we never have room for a poor attitude. On our worst day we are better off than 90% of the world.

And we can make it better! That's my goal.

You fight the weeds. I'll grow the grass.