Well, politicians "have" to be an extension of the electorate, and as far as 99% of the general population is concerned every one of these people were people who's greed knows no bounds and who are single-handedly responsible for all our economic woes, and on top of that they're getting a "tip" for doing such a "great job".

Like many other things congress/the president can't just say to the public "Look idiots, shut the mass hysteria machine down for a second and listen..." because there's always an election around the corner, so instead they take turns grandstanding against windmills.

Congressman wants to kill naming rights deal for new Nets arena

This is getting ridiculous. Barclay's (a British bank) wants its name on the new Nets arena to be built in Brooklyn. They got money from AIG which got money from the Government.

Again, its not like Barclays (or Citi with the Mets park) decides to spend lots of money for just an ego trip. This is advertising!!! What is the point of trying to bail out banks if you then make it tougher for the to make money in the future.

Now, it should be pointed out that the Congressman who is behind this is from New Jersey, and that the fact that the Nets are moving from NJ to Brooklyn may have played a part in this. Not that this fact would make his actions any better.

Which is just another reason why we should go back to limited government. The less government is allowed to meddle in things, the less they will be influenced by an uninformed populace to make bad decisions.

Right, and as soon as someone/anyone in government starts putting their money where their mouth is in that regard, maybe I'll listen.

It seems to me Republicans were perfectly fine with a gigantic spend-happy government when they were in charge, now all of a sudden they're back to playing the small government card.

It's an interesting strategy. Claim government doesn't work, get in power, F everything up, stand back, tell the world "See? It just doesn't work."

Besides, I don't see whats wrong with a party that goes back to its principles after being punished for straying from them.

Like Matt, said, this situation is exactly the reason that the government shouldn't have gotten this involved in the first place. And I agree with Jeremy that the Republicans who have been in power recently at least, have been just as "big government" as Democrats, just in different ways. Which is why I voted 3rd party.

And to the point of political grandstanding and jumping at the crack of the whip so to speak, I'm often reminded by the powers that be at my privately owned company that we have an advantage over our publicly traded competitors whose stock holders are only interested in short term financial reports. We can have a "bad" quarter or 2 or 3 if it's because we're positioning ourselves for the long term. Government owned/run corporations have that short-term performance issue times 1000 compared to publicly traded private sector businesses.

Yes, spending more money than you have is a big problem, and spending tons of money you don't have is a bigger problem

I'm talking about the fact that for 8 years Republicans bought jetskis and rims and now that we're sick and homeless, they are baffled by Obama's "reckless spending" and are suddenly the financial experts.

Yeah, so its not exactly disingenuous for Republicans to balk at the new spending. If you run up a $5,000 in debt, and then Sarah wants to run up $20,000 more, you wouldn't be out of bounds calling that a bad idea even though you also ran up a debt.

It's a catch 22. Big organizations require a big inefficient bureaucracy to get things done. Busting that organization up would speed up getting things done, but would increase the number of things that needs to be done. In a big company someone can just rule from on high, and that's that. He might not understand that his decision isn't the best thing for each individual branch, but each individual branch coming up with their own solution, with their own R&D, that doesn't necessarily jive with other branches, isn't necessarily the best either.

For example, the Eau Claire city planners have a better understanding of what is going on at a local level here, likewise the mayor of somewhere else in Wisconsin knows their needs more intimately than someone in the state legislator. It isn't necessarily best to leave every decision up to "as local as possible" because both Eau Claire and Somewhere Else will have to spend time and money (which, on some level, comes from the same pot) battling over the same issues that could be decided once at a higher level.