Originally Posted by raymor

I predict a win for Obama in 2012. Between 2012 and 2016, the bills will come due for trillions in completely out of control spending over the last three years. Obamacare will kick in all the way and health insurance rates will rise 80% or more. These facts are a mathematical certainty because the money has already been spent. The bill ($30,000 per taxpayer) will arrive.

Unable to kick the can any further down the road, I predict Obama will see approval ratings in the 30s and a republican landslide in 2016.

If Obama loses in 2012, it's the same math, switch the parties. The borrowed money still has to be repaid. The voters will suddenly realize medicare was trashed. Though that's part of Obamacare, if a republican is in the whitehouse when it takes effect they'll be blamed and it'll be a democrat landslide in 2016. In other words, whoever wins in 2012 will lose big in 2016, and I think Obama will win in 2012 because no republican with a brain is campaigning to be the guy who takes the heat when this shitstorm blows up. Anyone who can do basic arithmetic can see that the next four years we're fucked - we racked up more debt in just the last three years than the combined total of the first 230 years of our existence.