The only thing that our kids, grand kids or great grandkids will get from Obama is an astronomical debt that we nor they will ever be able to pay off!

Cindy..Ga.

if we would all look at this world/life through the eyes of a child, the world would be in a much better place.

A parental worry , most distinct by itself. It is appaently familiar for each parent to reverberate on their child's inheritance. Once our children start claiming our attention ,the I in us sinks into oblivion . We start deliberating, worrying and get confused about their future.

Tell me something please Mr Rollins... where were the Republican protests when Bush was spending 10 billion dollars a month on a foreign war based on lies? I would much rather Obama invest inside his own country, helping his own people, than have him spending $10 billion a month on a foreign war.

Don't you think an investment now would pay off in the future? Thats the way life works. Stop thinking in selfish self centered terms, and start actually thinking about the people around you. Not everything in the world is just centered around you.

Americans invested against our future when they decided that being greedy, and interfering in other country's was more important than investing in their own country and their own people by obsessing over the Republicans.

Now money has to be spent to fix the screw ups that the Republicans made and paid down in the future. THAT is life. We cannot continue to sit back and do nothing. The US does NOT live a vacuum.

Please lets give our president a chance as far as i am concerned
he has done one -- of a job we should be proud!

Our country is great because of us – the people. We do need to invest more time and energy into our children. I believe President Obama understands that. I also believe he has the strength of character, intelligence and resilience to confront the obstacles ahead. Yes, we have a great debt to pay, but we the people will persevere. All we have to do is use our intelligence to develop a plan.
Cindy – the debt originated with President Bush's initiatives. President Obama is responsible for only 5% of our national debt.

Ginny – St Louis

I'd like to know why the Rollins family didn't adopt an American child.

If David Letterman has any thing to say about your daughter, even as a joke, he thinks that her being raped at a baseball game is something to laugh at.
What is CBS thinking to continue his show like nothing happened.
Don Imus made a joke about women college basketball players and was removed.
I guess our 14 year old daughter are fair game in the Letterman CBS world.

Children today, unfortunately, need to realize early on that if there are one hundred people in a room and ninety-nine of them are lying, everyone will wonder what's wrong with the other person.

We are an instant gratification, glutonous consumption society with little concern for the long term effects of our actions or the greater good of society.

It should come as no surprise that the global economy collapsed since everyone went all in on mortgage fraud, chased a quick buck and crashed and burned together.

President Obama's greatest asset is his understanding that most people are like sheep and simply need to be pointed in the right/wrong direction.

Let's hope our youth realize this early on and aspire to become like great leaders of the past rather than the morally bankrupt ones of today.

I cannot believe that not one Republican on this site actually thinks the problems at hand are Obamas fault! Where have u been for 8yrs? Up someones u know what? Im sorry but I have yet not heard one Bush supporter admit that Obama inhereted a wasps nest and alot more. He has only been in office for months not years! He'll make mistakes but I bet ur booty that he admits making them; a huge difference from the last administation. Why dont they join him in trying to make things better instead of blasting him and anything he does.

Presidents are human but some are inhumane.Bush and Cheney didnt give a crap about you or me. All they cared about was their oil and their wallets.Not the American people.Im glad they are gone; wish they would stay that way and shut up. That goes for Rush(oxycontin) Limbaugh and Newt Ging"rich" Either do something for the people that paid for your wealth or shut the F up about Obama.

If we want our children to inherit a great, debt free America, we should start supporting our American products so the goverment doesn't have to. Such as buying American cars, instead there are at least two foriegn cars in each garage in the area where we live and most other garages in America. Just think how great it would be if the only cars American's drove were American, how all the companies that it takes to build cars would be prospering. Don't blame Obana, (and I am a repubican) blame the Amrican people.

President Obama is only responsible for 5% of our national debt. Oh please!
All three houses have spent more money, since they have been in power, than all the rest of the presidents from George Washington to and including George Bush. This has all been done in less than 90 days.
You guys need to get your facts straight. The debt is up 1.3 trillion dollars and President Obama wants to spend another 1.3 trillion dollars on health care alone. Do any of you have any idea where this money is going to come from? Do any of you have any idea how much this is?
Like I said before, is it because the first six years President Bush was in office, the Democrats couldn't spend money and get their pork projects done. Is this why they are going nuts now and spending like no other president has done in the past?
We, the American tax payer, are going to have to pay for all this spending. Do you think only the rich will have to pay? Anybody that buys anything will be paying for this. We will have taxes coming out of our ears. If you don't believe this, you are as naive as President Obama!

Ginny –
It took President bush 8 years to run up all the debt. It hasn't even taken President Obama 8 months. What will happen in the years to come with Obama??

Jeanette – St. Louis

Thank you Mr Rollins for while you express a view I differ with, you did so in a fair minded way and did not fall into partisan talking points. We need a discussion on difficult issues and I hope that you can see this is what the president is trying to foster.
I too have the same worries that you do. The debt is crushing and we should try to keep it in mind in all the policies we adopt. However, there is a price of inaction, the status quo can not be sustained. Speaking to the issue of healthcare, no stakeholder will tell you that they want to keep the system the way it stands. Yet no one and that includes doctors, hospitals insurance companies, seems willing to make the changes needed for reform.
We are lying to ourselves if we do not factor in the cost of inaction, not only on healthcare but engery, the environment, entitlement programs. Yes the fixes are expensive but to do nothing is surely to invite the economic failure you are trying to avoid.

added to my last comment – Ginny
How do you think that Pres. Obama's debt is only 5% - when he took office we had a debt of almost 2 trillion now since Obama it is 11.3 trllion and adding 3.85 billion per day. After only 5 months.

I am going by the figures in this article by Rollins.

Jeanette – Also St. Louis

But in four years, Iraq will either be a thriving democracy or engrossed in a raging civil war.

I see Ed is still trafficking in false dichotomy.

I agree with Melissa. The Republicans have had no problem spending money on their manufactured war in Iraq, but when it comes to spending money here it's a different story.

No, no, we don't want to spend money on the infrastructure of the U.S. Sure, we'll spend billions to re-build Iraq – after we spent billions to blow it up. But a bridge, school or a freeway, here? Forget it – too expensive. New hospitals in Iraq? Sure! Health care here? No way – too expensive.

I'm tired of all of this smoke and mirrors about health care reform. I pay for health coverage, through payroll deductions, with my employer. I also pay a $30. co-pay for doctor visits, 20% of the bill, and I have to pay an extra $100. for a visit to an Urgent Care facility. Yet a person who is uninsured goes into the Urgent Care and pays nothing. The Repubs yell and scream that a National Health Care plan will cover those people and we'll have to pay for it............. uh, who do you think is paying for it now? What's the difference? And don't give me that "it's all the illegal's fault". There are tons of citizens that are uninsured. More now, because of the poor economy. Something has got to be done about health care. I heard that the number 1 reason people declare bankruptsy, lately, is because of a catastrophic illness.

People are sick of this stupid squabbling between the Parties. You want your child to have a better future? Then stop bashing each other and use your energy to get together and accomplish something.

If we dont have dreams, we dont have aspirations. If we fail to aspirations, we fail to plan. And then what do we have? (As the adage goes, .....Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.)

The question is about what our dream looks like, do we have a common dream. JFK gave US a common dream – of the man on the moon (and back again) which has given us each a computer, many in our hands (the dream of Star Trek, I might add. Who does not have a "communicator?" ) Joseph Stalin tried to give his country a dream. Luckily, many did not share that dream. Too many shared Hitler's dream. I think Obama's dream is that we can talk rationally to each other, that we can respect each other as human beings with those inalienable rights, whether in Palestine, NOLA, Afghanistan or Pakistan, or DC. More than anything else, I think Obama's trying to get past demonizing rhetoric which adds nothing but the development of the likes of Von Brunn and Roeder.

I agree totally with Rollins and trust me I am not a republician.

We must also keep in mind that many of the democratic people who hold office did so during the Bush era, they had their vote and they along with the rest in "power" took us into Iraq. Yet, we now have Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan not to mention N. Korea who says sanctions will be viewed as an act of war. We have pirates and the lone wolf who will shoot people at will.

We are in economic freefall and we cannot spend our way out of debt, it just is not logical nor does it make any kind of sense.

This pay as you go policy is not change, Clinton did it and we still had a national debt. We are owned by China and governement continues to grow and involve itself in all aspects of corp. america.

Our leadership thinks to control not only the nation but the world, swine flu is now a pandemic, everyone blames everyone else for their own inaction to better their lives or control their own spending in a pay as you go method.

My husband, yes, he is still my husband in California and a few other states have always paid our credit in full even while paying additional tax on benefits as computed income while we are denied the over 1,000 benefits we should by law have as a married couple who have been together for over 21 years. We have our home here in San Diego, one in St. Louis and a farm in Iowa, so I guess all that makes us other than normal.

I fear what life will be like for my two wonderful grandchildren as well. What will be left for them other than debt and a government out of control.

But if we want to question why Mr. Rollins did not adopt an American child, why did Obama not adopt a pet from a shelter. Oh I remember now, allergies right.

The president was right on target on reforming the system, acknowledging that we cannot control ife, or change people but we can do something to change the system to make it work and adopt a pragmatic attitude that promote accountability among all parties – families, government, medical insurance, drug companies and hospitals. And we have a choice to adopt healthier habits and lifestlye.

beautifully put JC of Los Angeles!

Well, Ed I am happy for you and your child. Just remember don't ever let her not know what good you have done. And for President Obama he has alot of hard work ahead of him no thanks to Mr. Bush and Cheney's screw-ups!

Our kids have no future,they will be Slaves to the government and the social programs of Obama.working to feed the Governmental Leeches that supported Obama,and will not work for their keep.

Today's youth have no example to follow. Both parties have demonstrated they love to spend money ... someone else's.

Yes, the same Dems were in Congress while the GOP controlled it. But even if they had voted "no", the spending bills would have passed – just like now when the same GOP members (who for 6 years never met a spending bill they didn't like) vote "no".

People say that Obama has run up or will run up a larger deficit than Bush did. But they fail to ask or answer the question - would his deficits be larger had he inherited a much different scenario than an economy on the brink of collapse and continued wars on two fronts and a possible 2 more in offing (Iran and N. Korea)? If he didn't have to clean up the mess left by Bush, would he actually be producing a surplus? Is the right so bitter and unable to recognize the role they've played in getting us to where we are? Where's all that personal responsibility they so highly tout?