What? "Snowe called health care the biggest burden faced by business owners" Isn't lack of healthcare a personal problem? Why does the Liberal Senator believe that business is to be burdened with providing people with healthcare? I see the problem right there!

Just another in a long line of liars, thieves and parasites.

Thanks for the 900 million ladies... we really could use that!

every state could have gotten 15.74 Billion

It is easy to make negative comments about what is going on, how about adding some real ideas on how to fix things: Heath care is a problem for small business that's one reason why is cost $55 an hr to have your car worked on, I'm all for the east west highway to help the future of Maine, but maybe I'm wrong, at least that is more on a positive note, use the money to improve the long run.

Here's an idea - how about a real president that would do everything opposite?

i don't have healthcare

Why is it assumed that health care is a personal choice? In this day and age, one needs health insurance to be able to afford health care...not like in the old days, when people went into the hospitals and died. Unless that is what you want to do? Then I would guess that health care is a personal choice...no wonder were in so much of a mess!! Hidden expenses that weren't accounted for....No wonder Dubya said that this country could bounce back from this "recession" just use colorful books!!

Ttired of the stale anti-Obama rhetoric and behavior of Limbaugh's ditto-heads still in office? We can stand to lose a few more in the next round of elections. Their complaints about debt and size of government are absurd when you realize that recent Republican administrations have grown both the size of the government and of the deficits. They are like children who, having been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, complain loudly that others will steal the cookies. We now have an administration focused on the grim realities, and on the real positive potential, of our situation. There is a certain delusional note to the national Republican line: Tax cuts for the rich put us in debt, crazy spending on Cheney's delusions about Sadam put us in debt; deregulating the financial markets trashed our savings and retirements, lets keep doing that and things will be better. Right. Sell that bridge somewhere else, we've been conned once too often.

If lack of health care is a personal problem, so is lack of education.

Everyone should have a right to affordable health care. The best way to do this is through taxes. Unfortunately, our history has saddled us with an employer-based system that leaves 50 million people out in the cold and bankrupts others in the event of medical emergencies. Imagine if we ran our public schools that way. We'd have a nation of uneducated dolts. Then again, maybe that's what the Republicans want, at least the Sarah Palin wing of the party.

I agree with Eljell... we should all be proposing positive solutions rather than sitting back and criticizing. If you can come up with a better game plan that serves the people of Maine and our country better... then by all means... stand up and speak.

Always laudable to spend someone else's money.

Anybody that really believed that load of crap needs to have their head examined. Here is a glaring example: OBAMA: "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." THE FACT: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886. This is only 1 of a boatload he passed off to the great masses of potato heads last night as fact

awchasse is 100% correct! The failed GOP policies of the last 8 years have put us in the situation our country must now grapple with. It is impossible to believe that anyone with even a modest amount of common sense would defend GOP dogma after suffering such as we have. I am incredulous that anyone could possibly suggest that we should continue down that path! I am grateful that Maine's Republican Senators both see the error of those years and seek to actually work towards a better America, rather than pay lip service to the unbridled greed and corruption of the Bush administration along with the Republican controlled Congress and Supreme Court.

Thank you, Senators Collins and Snowe and Congressman Michaud for your effective advocacy for Maine. We didn't send you to Washington to sit back and say "You're doing it wrong" to your colleagues on the other side of the isle. Our government works best when all voices are heard, so let's keep working towards finding common ground where common sense can thrive.

You're right about Karl Benz. I actually disagree with Obama about cars. We should make the car companies use bailout money to improve mass transit. Besides, it's a trivial factual error. If Obama has said, "the nation that invented the automobile industry" he would have been on solid ground. Sure, one of his speechwriters should have cuaght it, but it's not he made up weapons of mass destruction or something.

I meant "had said."

Regardless of what President Obama says or does, his authority is limited by Congress which should in turn should be representative of the people. If citizens have complaints and better solutions they should contact members of Congress as well as the various govermental department heads to present alternate plans. No one is happy with the ARRA because it is unfair to the individual taxpayer who did not spend beyond his means; however, this is where we are and we all have to sacrifice to get to a better place. Voice your dissension by writing, calling, emailing, faxing and voting.

If I follow your logic than this must be a speech writer too-OBAMA: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before." THE FACTS: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining slightly since. The figure in 2007 was 4.9 billion barrels, or about 58 percent of total consumption. The nation is on pace this year to import 4.7 billion barrels, and government projections are for imports to hold steady or decrease a bit over the next two decades. Since obama doesn't have to take responsability for what comes out of his mouth than why should bush? sounds a bit like a double standard to me. BTW I am no bush fan either.

Regardless of who said it (or wrote it), there's a difference in degree between the factual errors cited above by Lobstarok and the whoppers Bush and Cheney told that have so far cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of lives. Any intelligent person should be able to see this.

Collins says she looks forward to reading the Presidents budget. It is nice that she is going to actually read this item unlike the stimulus package which she blindly supported without knowing it's content. If she and the two other republican? senators hadn't blindly supported the dems package then another package would of been negotiated which would of been a better bill with less ear marks, pork, and more stimulation for the economy. Pay attention to the stock market and you will see how poor the bill is that Snowe and Collins passed. Neither one of them has children so why do they care if our childrens future is being greatly diminished.

Conservative Republicans need to find primary opponents for both Snowe and Collins so that they can accelerate their lemming-like dive over the cliff of responsible governance into the bottomless pit of historical irrelevancy. I wish you conservative Taliban Republicans success in driving your party ever rightward. To paraphrase Grover Norquist, we need to continue shrinking the size of the Republican Party until such time as we can drown it in a bathroom.

Correction: until we can drown the Republican Party in a bathtub.

1 party country=socialism regardless of who is in charge. This country will self-destruct before that happens. I always find it amusing that folks from the left want to literally kill folks on the right. And just who is the nutjob?

So encouraging to read what many have written here, incl fausto,freerange,awshasse, jgordon,amazed,eljell: I called Senators Collins, Snowe and Mike Michaud's offices this week to thank them for their efforts and for their works towards the stimulus bill. The office administration people who answer (actually answer the phone!) sound very appreciative of the calls and say they will pass on the remarks.

From those who still regale the last 8 yrs and are so critical and negative about everything happening so far under our new President....yes, I guess they should do what freerange suggests here. Otherwise, it sounds like a lot of cries in the darkness.

What a beyond odd remark 12:03 PM. "Neither of them has children so why do they care"... about childrens' futures??? Unbelievable. How intelligent! Most of us know that is an irrational and unfounded statement. Snowe had a stepson who tragically died young; she cared about him and his future tremendously. Just because one has children (and I do ) does not provide one with some kind of monopoly on compassion and understanding.

Healthcare insurance is pretty expensive for just one person, much less for a family, Overtaxed. Most programs enjoy a shared responsibioity - shared between the employer, who can buy in for a lower rate because of a group rate for all employees, and the individual who pays a sliding rate depending on the number of people to be covered (children up to 18 or through college is usually the coverage). Think of the cost otherwise when an employer's workforce gets sick and feels they HAVE to come to work because they can't afford medical treatment. Then the rest of the workforce can become infected. And what about the long-time, loyal employee whose work effort have made the employer successful? Isn't healthcare something he should have - not to mention reducing the taxpayer burden in underwriting emergency room covereage which is what ends up picking up the un-funded healthcare that has to be provided. It's a LOT LESS expensive to provide some kind of universal healthcare than not, in the long run - to both businesses and medical facilities.

As to the caustic remarks re: President Obama and Senators Snowe & Collins - President Omama has accomplished more (to correct the mess created and left by last 8 year administration) in 37 DAYS than Bushie baby and Darth Vader Cheney did sum total. The vast majority of Americans are moderate in their positions - neither radical right nor irresponsibile liberal left. That was the one clear message sent by the voters last November. When the Republican Party catchs up to actually HEARING the American voter they might have a chance in gathering some votes. But as long as they hang on to the rabid mentality of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the like - they will lose out. The RNC/GOP-Grand Obstructionist Party lost! Collins and Snowe and in because they are rational women and, as such, benefiting both Maine and the country.

Lobstarok, you have apparently never read that Grover Norquist, a huge influence in the Republican Party, once famously said that he wanted to shrink the federal government until it was so small that one could drown it in a bathtub. Turning a Republican's words upon his own party is an example of irony, not a threat of violence. Rest assured, Lobstarok, it is far too amusing to watch your party self-destruct to even think about doing anything more than admire how zealously your party follows the Lemming-in-Chief, Limbaugh, over the cliff.

I will stand back and celebrate as the party of angry white men continues racing to its own self-destruction. Lobstarok, continue leading the charge! Onward! Faster! Downward! Even 140 feet into a 150 foot fall you will, when asked, say brightly that "Things are going good so far!"

The latest Research2000 opinion poll shows that Obama has a 69% approval/26% disapproval rating. That same poll shows that Republicans in Congress have an 18% approval and 70% disapproval rating. Even George Bush could never get his approval ratings below 20%, but Boehner & Company are breaking all records. With your help they can get that approval rating into single digits.

Lobstarok, I am rooting for your efforts. Your party needs you.

The government should have given the taxpayers money to...THE TAXPAYERS! If they had chosen to give a trillion dollars to the people with caveats that the money be used to pay off mortgages, credit card debt ect. the banks would be fine, the auto dealers would be fine because the people would be free to spend again, having shed their debt. What amazes me is that the government doles out all this money to banks to free up credit, when too much credit is what got us into this mess in the first place. But no, give it to the corporations so they can resquander it in the form of bad loans and bad credit. So when they finish blowing this money then what do we do? Tax our great-great granchildren?

fausto: Thanks for reminding some of the current approval/disapproval ratings. Most Americans are definitely aware of this; but some are in deep denial.

glenna: You are so right-on about what this past election showed....that the vast majority of Americans do think and vote more moderately. Oh well......one party gets that; the other sure does not seem to.(that will continue to be their downfall; but unbelievably, many including the Rush contingent, actually believe someone like Palin has a chance to be elected President in this country!!) They also seem too set in their ways to admit when they need to steer a different course. But that is their fate then, isn't it!

Maine's "delegation" was played and used.

awchasse......at least the republicans in office know how to file their taxes.

I am not a republican. I am a conservative and at the moment there is a huge difference. Nice point tanker99

Thanks lobstrok........ the thing is I'm a dem., and I'm bot blind to the BS. Thinking of changing to independent.

oh ya, awchasse, to the comment about cheneys delusions about saddam. We can at least give the republicans one war that they can start. Lets not be blind, the dems. started all the others.

8:01 PM Oh yeah....they are so squeaky clean!!!

... and won them ... tanker99.

To ladyslipper ... although the Dems passed laws in Congress those two years, the Prez disobeyed 'em or, most likely, didn't even understand them. Thank our lucky stars we have a lawyer in the White Houlse again.

To BobByn ... no one "plays" a Maine Senator. These ladys are shrewed brokers on behalf of themselves and the people of Maine, and they have manuevered themselves into positions of power ahead of every other Republican Senator in this overwhelmingly dominant, Democrat government. Well done! Both Republican and Democrat in Maine can and should be proud of them.

Incidentally ladyslipper, If I'da gradjeated from high school I probably would'a typed White "House" correctly... my apology.

ambrosebear... you should of graduated, because you would know how to spell it, and you would recall korea, vietnam, somallia, bosnia, etc. Which all the dem. presidents lied to the people also.

What does Obama and Collin's have in common? Their both in their LAST term!!!