Obama Delivers Ideological Knockout to GOP

[jJoEd77]

^If theres a problem in the way a bill is being presented, debated, passed, signed, or implemented, it's not bad politics to call someone out on it. This is exactly whats right with politics today, we keep those in charge, in line.

 

[NickCole]

Originally Posted by NickCole
Maybe you wait until the results come in to judge legislation but a lot of us judge it as it's being presented, debated, passed, signed and implemented.

Which is why people like you are examples of what's so wrong with politics today.

If that's what you think then you're part of the problem. Whoever you are.

That's what the Democratic process is supposed to be about: participating in vigorous debate about the merits of legislation BEFORE it becomes law and as it's being implemented.

This notion that dissent is wrong was one of the tactics used by Bush and his supporters; now it's used by Obama and his supporters.

 

[Kirbster66]

If that's what you think then you're part of the problem. Whoever you are.

That's what the Democratic process is supposed to be about: participating in vigorous debate about the merits of legislation BEFORE it becomes law and as it's being implemented.

This notion that dissent is wrong was one of the tactics used by Bush and his supporters; now it's used by Obama and his supporters.

No, you're THE problem. You're tied to a rigid ideology that's been proven wrong, and now, when a new regime is trying to undo the damage of the last 8 years, you immediately assume it's going to fail since [Inappropriate text: Removed by Moderator] it's time to try a different approach.

 

[opinterph]

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[NickCole]

No, you're THE problem. You're tied to a rigid ideology that's been proven wrong,

What's the rigid ideology you think I'm tied to?

and now, when a new regime is trying to undo the damage of the last 8 years, you immediately assume it's going to fail since [Inappropriate text: Removed by Moderator] it's time to try a different approach.

Are you talking about the stimulus bill?

It's not a different approach.

It's a huge bill bloated with special interest items that should be separate legislation, and tax cuts. The special interests have changed because now it's Democrats writing them in, but the approach is the same.

 

[Kyanimal]

As of today ... the "Stimulus Bill" has been through committee, and come out the other end with a price tag lower than either version passed by the House and Senate. Most of the "special interest" (a matter of ideological perspective) items have been tossed, and many of the tax cuts, preferred by Republicans, have been kept. I believe it's called a "Compromise"! Just about as non-partisan as we can get, at the moment.

The President, no matter who he is/has been, does not, as much as he would like to, control Congress. I seriously doubt that Congress can control Congress! The President, and Congressional Leaders, of both parties, can attempt to sway, persuade, and even coerse members, but no one can ever absolutely guarantee how anyone is going to vote. With this recent round of "legislation", it would appear that Washington has not yet "gotten" the "Working Across the Aisle" memo, and is still fractured along party lines.

But, hey! President Obama has only been President for LESS THAN A MONTH!!

I thought his press conference was quite refreshing! We now have a President who sincerely attempted to give complete, comprehensive, and sincere answers to the questions asked of him. It was almost possible to see the wheels working in his mind as he formulated his responses! THIS President could be observed actually THINKING, before he opened his mouth!

Let's give the man a Chance to do his job! And, for all of our own sakes, Pray that he eventually succeeds!! (We NEED it!)

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[Lostlover]

Helen Thomas's Feb. 12 column:

It's a damn shame how a minority (Republicans) are getting a majority of the coverage.

Screw them Obama. You have a mandate from the people.

No more Mr. Nice guy.

 

[robertstar]

HA! What a laugh. Spending increased under Reagan more than any administration up to that point. Reagan's policies increased the national debt by over $1 trillion, doubling in four years the debt that had taken over 200 years to achieve. Reagan's combination of tax cuts plus HUGE spending increases busted the budget. It took Clinton and his economic mastery of the repiglicans in congress to bring things under control.

I don’t deny that as I said the theory behind Reagan’s economic plan is sound - tax cuts mixed with dramatic cuts in Government spending is a perfectly valid and workable economic plan and that was the (basic) theory behind Reagan’s plan whether it not it was executed in that way is another issue entirely.

As with the fist great depression, you have to spend your way out. Thanks to Bush, we will be in the hole for years to come. But now, at least, with Obama's stimulus we're digging a hole (stimulus) to get out of a hole(this depression).

Sounds redundant.

You don’t indiscriminately spend to get out of a recession and from what I’ve seen of Obama’s plan (I will admit I haven’t read the details of it) that seems to be his basic plan, throw money at everything and hope it works. Recessions require intelligent and fully realised spending models that will have positive effects in key problem areas. New Deal for example was a massive expensive but it was intelligent and targeted spending designed to solve a specific problem, whilst Obama just seems to be throwing as much money as he can grab into the hole and hoping it works.

 

[naked gent]

I don’t deny that as I said the theory behind Reagan’s economic plan is sound - tax cuts mixed with dramatic cuts in Government spending is a perfectly valid and workable economic plan and that was the (basic) theory behind Reagan’s plan whether it not it was executed in that way is another issue entirely.

I'm not sure that was the theory behind Reagan's plan. While he did wish to cut some government spending he ran on a massive defense buildup so to say he was making overall dramatic cuts in government spending is incorrect.

He wanted to change the focus of spending but not the amount spent.

The theory of supply-side tax cuts is that even if you don't cut spending just by cutting taxes you'll create enough economic activity to produce more revenue for the government than you would get if you didn't cut taxes.

We now know that that theory doesn't work although some in the republican party still cling to it.

 

[letme]

As with the fist great depression, you have to spend your way out. Thanks to Bush, we will be in the hole for years to come. But now, at least, with Obama's stimulus we're digging a hole (stimulus) to get out of a hole(this depression).

Sounds redundant.

So tell me LL how this would apply , um to You ?

lets say you have $1000 a month rent/mortgage.
......$300 month car payment
...... $5000 racked up on Master Card.

monthly solid bills I.E. Water Electric Gas Cable Phone etc.. ?$300.00 +/-

How is going to Target or Starbucks and buying a Latte and new shoes going to get you outa a hole. You spent money to keep people working , but you have less cash now. And still in a hole.

 

[Chef 4 U]

I am in the UK so not at all knowledgeable about your new president, but I am liking what I have seen so far. He seems like a breath of fresh air - but - I remember when we had the first female prime minister, Maggie Thatcher, people were full of hope and optimism and it soon all went pear shaped, and no female has come close to that job again - Obama has a unique opportunity to pave the way for future black and mixed race people to do well in politics - I hope he learns from what happened with Thatcher.

 

[TX-Beau]

Not to mention the hair, my god do you remember her hair.

 

[Lostlover]

So tell me LL how this would apply , um to You ?

lets say you have $1000 a month rent/mortgage.
......$300 month car payment
...... $5000 racked up on Master Card.

monthly solid bills I.E. Water Electric Gas Cable Phone etc.. ?$300.00 +/-

How is going to Target or Starbucks and buying a Latte and new shoes going to get you outa a hole. You spent money to keep people working , but you have less cash now. And still in a hole.

Easy. Spend money to make money.

The government helps create jobs which in turn gives Average Joes who are currently out of work a job to pay their bills. When bills are paid, loan/credit agencies are able to loan more money. Business run off loans so business are able to expand their operations and hire people seeking employment.

You can also hire people to do jobs that will help national security (alternative fuel industry) and infrastructure (building roads, bridges, canals, etc.).

It's pretty cyclical.

 

[letme]

um LL

you avoided the question.
I to can create jobs. I need an assistant. I don't have the cash to pay him thou.
The Gov prints more money,,,If I did that , I would be in jail.

 

[Lostlover]

um LL

you avoided the question.
I to can create jobs. I need an assistant. I don't have the cash to pay him thou.
The Gov prints more money,,,If I did that , I would be in jail.

Apples and oranges.

You and the government.

Unless you can create millions of jobs otherwise as one person, your comparison is null and void.

 

[Kulindahr]

That didn't seem like a very flattering article to me.

The thing that bothered me the most was knowing that he has Paul Volker and Lawrence Summers on his staff.

The article says Volker intentionally engineered the recession during Carter's Administration, and Lawrence pushed for the abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act..

Why on earth would he take advise from any of these people?

I think you're referring to this part:

And I fault Obama for engaging in blatant distortion at one point. His explanation for the cause of the economic crisis was: “the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place.” But it wasn’t the last eight years, as Naomi Klein points out. “The key pieces of legislation were passed under Clinton,” she says in an interview in the February issue of The Progressive. She is referring to the abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. One official who pushed both those ruinous changes was Lawrence Summers, now Obama’s chief economic adviser.

This is what you get when you make policy without regard to consequences, and believe fables about your own government. Remember when McCain kept saying the economy was strong? He was practically quoting the Democrats who stopped the legislation Bush wanted, to keep this from happening!

That's the neolib way. True liberals have compassion for the old, weak and infirm.

Then I guess Obama isn't a true liberal, because his health plan ideas are based on Dachle's and Dacshle admires the Dutch system, which euthanized over 11,000 people in 1990 -- more than half of them without consent.

What the fuck was he thinking about with "trickle down" bullshit.

You're sure spewing irrational hatred!

BTW, trickle-down has been shown to work -- within limits. Within certain parameters determined by basic tax rates, employment, employment distribution, wage structure, and domestic vs. foreign taxes for major exporters, cutting taxes can boost employment and production and result in more revenue. Laffer's problem was universalizing a special-case situation before he really studied the matter -- and Reagan was too damned trusting and too bloody willing to believe in simple solutions.
It also depends which taxes you cut -- cutting taxes for industries which export a lot and compete with major foreign industries can actually raise revenue, especially, for example, when the domestic industry is resting on up-to-date plant and machinery while the foreign hasn't updated in a while. OTOH, cutting taxes for the wealthy has far less impact than cutting them for the poor -- so if you want trickle-down, you want to cut taxes by less at the top.

Anyway...

How is he failing? He hasn't really done anything yet. LOL

He's failing on one point, and that's a simple one: instead of getting broad input on a bill that could have represented everyone, not just a select few of his party members in the House, he let partisan politics have their day. The time to have reached for bipartisan support was in the crafting of the bill, not after it was hammered together by one party, whose leader basically told the opposition to go fuck themselves.

He's failing on another, too, and that's his appointments. He shouldn't have been grabbing anyone from the Washington power structure -- for example, for Treasury and economic advisor posts, he should have picked from people respected by leading economists of all flavors, and from businessmen who started at the bottom and built up large companies of their own, who have face crisis situations and triumphed. For Justice positions, he should not have selected extremists who want to gut the Second Amendment, and who believe that the U.N. really ought to be running the country.

And he never should have listened to Daschle about health, and let that into the package, opening up the path of euthanasia without consent for people some government hack decides isn't worth the resources to keep alive.

 

[Kulindahr]

I could give you a laundry list of my grievances with Reagan and what he's brought to this country.

But it sounds like you have his cock in your mouth and it's cut off your oxygen.

He makes a fair observation, so you respond with personal insult.

Grow up.

 

[Lostlover]

He makes a fair observation, so you respond with personal insult.

Grow up.

That was an A and B conversation... nah nevermind.

 

[Kulindahr]

As with the fist great depression, you have to spend your way out. Thanks to Bush, we will be in the hole for years to come. But now, at least, with Obama's stimulus we're digging a hole (stimulus) to get out of a hole(this depression).

Sounds redundant.

A number of solid economic minds have argued that the way the Great Depression was handled actually lengthened it.

It's a damn shame how a minority (Republicans) are getting a majority of the coverage.

Screw them Obama. You have a mandate from the people.

No more Mr. Nice guy.

"Mandate"?

His majority wasn't out of the low 50s in the popular -- that hardly a mandate from the people. And since a lot of people didn't even vote, he doesn't actually have a majority behind him... so your "mandate" kind of evaporates from lack of substance.


Anyone enjoying the concept of a "knockout" to the GOP is clearly in favor of the same old politics, when we need something new and different. So far, Obama has been doing pretty much the same old program, and I'd hoped he was better than that.

I would be quite proud of him if tomorrow he dismissed all his Cabinet appointments and sought people without a partisan axe to grind, who believe in America, and then announcing that there is too much ideological baggage in the stimulus package (assuming the euthanasia-enabling plank is still in there), and he's soliciting input from everyone.
But at this point I don't think he has the wisdom or the guts to do such a thing.

 

[Lostlover]

A number of solid economic minds have argued that the way the Great Depression was handled actually lengthened it.

Yeah and those people practice Voodoo Economics like Walter Williams. The black economist that sucks our founding fathers' dicks.

The same founding fathers who didn't think he should be allowed to vote.

Oh the irony.

Oh, there's also Rush "High School Diploma" Limbaugh offering advice on that too. Sean"Dropped out of College" Hannity also says that lengthened the Depression as well.

No thank you.