Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration says it has been on a "learning curve" with the economic-stimulus package but has figured out how to spend some of the available billions more quickly.
Concerns raised on pace of stimulus - USATODAY.com
Obama outlines plan to accelerate economic stimulus spending - The ...
Without Superfund Tax, Stimulus Money Helps Pay for Cleanups ...
Think Progress » Newest GOP Complaint On Stimulus: There's Not ...
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Barack Obama:"Now, I realize that when we passed this Recovery Act, there were those who felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer. Today, some of those same critics are already judging the effort a failure although they have yet to offer a plausible alternative. Others believed that the recovery plan should have been even larger, and are already calling for a second recovery plan. But, as I made clear at the time it was passed, the Recovery Act was not designed to work in four months – it was designed to work over two years."
That’s an absolute lie, and a deliberate one. In fact, it’s a series of deliberate lies. First, the Republicans did offer at least two proposals, neither of which Nancy Pelosi would allow to come to the floor. One was a tax-holiday proposal which would have allowed taxpayers a break from funding the federal government. The second and better idea actually came from moderate Democrat Rep. Walt Minnick (ID), who proposed a $170 billion START stimulus that relied solely on tax refunds and government spending in only 2009. Republicans backed Minnick’s START plan, but it never got a vote — because Pelosi and Obama locked Minnick’s idea out in favor of their plan. Also Obama promised to "create 3 to 4 million new jobs....what a joke!
That is not and lie, deliberate or absolute! We heard all of this before and in this age, it's easy to go back and look at the record. It's funny, the stimulus under Bush was very similar to the one you say was proposed in this truly deep downturn. Bush signed a 168 billion dollar package of tax cuts and small rebates as a booster shot in Feb of 2008, but it was too small and again a failure in understanding economics. This economic downturn is not the result of government spending but wasteful governmental spending, too much consumer debt as a result of failure of business to raise incomes to labor with profits and a failure to the voters to see who has their interest at heart until things get really bad. Every time the Republicans get into power, they say deficits do not matter, until they are out of power. Then they scream at the spending. But it's really about that they no longer control the purse strings. If the funds are spend on capital projects, and helping people to get educations, and investment in energy independents and transportation infrastructure, we should be better off in 2 or more years. But like Obama said, many times before, it will take at least that long.
Obama’s argument that he had promised a two-year effect is also a lie. Obama and his economic team sold Porkulus as a means to prevent an immediate spike in unemployment. Obama’s economic council argued that a failure to pass Porkulus would drive unemployment to 8.8% in the near term. Passing Porkulus would keep it at 8% or below this year. It is now at 9.5% and climbing. CBO's own analysis showed that in three years, unemployment would be within a percentage point regardless of whether Porkulus was adopted or not. It was all about short-term performance, and Obama’s plan failed.
The idea that Minnick is a moderate democrat is laughable. He is a DINO from one of the reddest of states.
Minnick does represent a red state, one of the many that are running budget surplusses and having low unemployment. The "bluest States" are the ones running massive deficits and millions on welfare. Do you think there is anything you can learn from this irrefutable little fact?
The stimulus includes 288 billion in tax cuts. If you say that the stimulus is worthless, then you are also saying that tax cuts are worthless. I happen to agree on that point, but that portion had to be included in order to get the plan passed, and to get help to Americans past the party of NO.
**yawn**
I didn't even believe that performance. You never once looked up from the script.
Yeah, and when the tax payers had their break from funding the federal government, how do you propose to fund Medicare, Social Security, public schools, roads, bridges, parks, etc.? If you had to pay the private sector for all the services the federal government provides, you would be paying a great deal more than you pay out in taxes. As for President Obama saying the stimulus package was designed to work over two years rather than in four months, I heard that said repeatedly, and just because you did not care to listen doesn't mean it was not said. And if you don't want to pay taxes, don't collect Medicare and Social Security benefits, don't send your children to public schools, only ride on toll roads, don't use the parks, don't use the police and fire department, only use private bridges and schlep your own garbage.
If they went too fast then people would be talking about mismanagement of funds. People are never pleased.
nothing is easy after 8 years...it's not going to happen overnight. I wish it would since their are many people hurting and frustrated. I know in our state we had pretty immediate help with teachers - thousands were to be laid off and they kept their jobs due to the stimulus. I know our area has kept jobs because of the stimulus. There's road construction and overpasses which are desparately needed, and being built due to the stimulus. This is just a couple small areas I'm aware. It's the beginning... For the gop, nothing will win their approval, so I won't even try. Just continue with your complaining, it's not very positive, but very typical.
Absolutely - except, it's been over thirty years of mismanagement that has to be cleaned up now. It just cannot be done in six months.
I have hope though - after all, Claudius was able to clean up Caligula's mess in Rome.
One thing the Democrats were able to do, give twice a much money to Democrat supporting areas of the country. Change, no change at all. Spend $1,000,000,000,000 and expect to get a learning curve, do overs and not be held 100 percent responsible? Obama is out of touch.
Republicans like you keep peddling that false claim but its not true, like most of the other conspiracy theories you guys come up with
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/09/fox-stimulus-story/
So Democrats shouldn't be held 100 percent responsible for the biggest spending bill in history? Why not?
Personally, I am fed up w/ a lot of you armchair quarterbacks---BOTH from the L. and the R.------to the Right-----your Repub. adm. left this mess, by and large/ aka Bush, PAULSON, who started fumbling what to do, and, largely, rewarded the Goldman-Sachs ilk; to the Left-----somehow, also from your couches, you opine that the Obama Adm. "should" have been able to figure out and feel its way through an unprecedented fiscal fiasco left by the right-------I am not saying everything being done has satisfied me from my armchair-----I'm just saying, the beat of the carping goes on w/ a lot more heat than light from both camps--
They have to "figure out" how to spend the money? Wow, I'm glad this joke had to be passed right away or the universe would've exploded. This is the first president that actually makes me wonder if he's trying to ruin the country on purpose.
Yes, there is a learning curve, if you studied stimulus in other countries, they have all gone through a learning curve before, they just started much earlier than we did because of course, the Republican Party is always behind the curb. What the stimulus has proven though is that tax cuts are useless in stimulating the economy, after Bush's tax rebate stimulus in early 2008, and the tax cuts in this stimulus, its clear that, that is not a successful tool in stimulating the economy
You're right, the stimulus bills that kept Japan in a recession for 10 years did a world of good. Besides, you missed my point. I was saying they had this 1100 page "stimulus package" that spelled out how to spend the money (supposedly. It's not like anyone got a chance to read it), but NOW they say they have to figure out how to spend the money. Yeah, that doesn't seem shady in the least.
Bush was the first
Obama was either wrong about the stimulus or lying about it.
You Dems need to get your story straight. When the legislation was being assembled you said the stimulus was so urgent that the nation couldn't even afford to let Congress have time to read the bill before voting on it. All your party leaders said there wasn't a moment to lose. Now you counsel patience on the stimulus. You talk about a two-year time frame. If this thing was going to take so long to work perhaps we should have taken a little more time to put together a better bill instead of slapping something together in a panic.
excuse me, you Repubs. need to "remember" that the hurry up rush-rush STARTED SHORTLY AFTER THE LEHMAN COLLAPSE------BEFORE THE END OF LAST YEAR W/ BUSH AND PAULSON----------hellllooooo
They have a very short memory. To them all of the countries problems started in January 2009. To them there was no budget deficit before Obama took office
The stimulus money would move even faster if the Republics would approve Obama's appointees rather than putting capricious holds on each and every one of them. Many of the departments that are charged with disbursing the money are understaffed because the Republics are holding up the nominations of the people Obama needs to run the departments.
Also, some states are apparently using the money to make up budget shortfalls rather than putting it where it was intended, even though this is in violation of their agreement with the government.
The fact of the matter is that the Republic party is doing everything in it's power to make the stimulus fail either by encouraging Republic governors to use the money for their budget shortfalls or by impeding Obama's ability to get people in place to disburse and/or monitor the money.
So which departments have money that they cannot distribute?
As usual, you are finding BS ways to blame the republicans for Obama's mistakes. Priceless.
As usual, all you do is snipe at the comments of others without offering anything constructive to the debate. So you don't like Obama....fine...you have that right. I have a question for you. Did you like what Bush and the Republicans did while they were in power? If so, why or why not? Have you read any history of the Great Depression or past economic downturns? Do you think it's possible that politics can get in the way of good government? What's your solution to the economic collapse? What kind of economic stimulus or not would you have recommended?
It's simply a lie to say the stimulus wasn't sold to the public as a quick fix. The final text of the legislation was released after 10 P.M. on a Thursday night and put up for a vote the next day. Nobody had even read the finished bill. And this was after every Democrat in Congress pledged to have the text online for 48 hours for the people to read before a vote was taken. That is how urgent it was supposed to be. It is a plain fact that the vote never would have been taken in such haste if the bill had been presented as a project that would require two years to work.
They had plenty of time to read the bill. It is not Obama's fault that the Republics were too lazy to even read it.
Plenty of time to read the bill? Over 1100 pages of text to read between 10 P.M. and 9 A.M. of the next morning. Those Republicans must be some awesome speed readers.
There is road construction going on all over our area.
Obama's Nov. 4th Victory Speech:
"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.
I promise you, we as a people will get there."
Obama's Inaugural Speech:
"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met."
Fine, but the idea is to move the country at least into a positive direction, not make it worse.
He is NOT making it worse - as much as you would like to believe that. Anytime true change happens, there is almost always a period of tension before things finally begin to move along smoothly.
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First of all, one has to ignore Limbuagh, Murdoch "News" and the Republicans, who only attack Obama continually and want him to fail. They will do and say anything to achieve this, and care nothing about the country at all. The Republican governors are even holding back stimulus funds from their states so they can say that Obama is failing.
and I added to hugh 99's post:
You are so right about the holding back. Banks are also holding back giving out loans when they are definitely solvent enough to do it, why?? They want Obama's recovery to fail so that they can get another one of their "friends" in office and allow them to stomp all over us AGAIN. With their multi-million dollar bonus's.
For those who can't see this or don't believe it - do you remember Reagan and the hostage crisis: The hostages said their captures were looking at their watches to see when Reagan was sworn in and they were released. Found out that they had brokered a deal with the Admin. I thought that we didn't deal with terrorists?
Yes, the media keeps focusing on Obama, but Obama did his part. They should expose those banks, and those Republican governors and call them out, but instead they cowardly focus on the president.
The Stimulus will work...Let us be patient and stop listening to the doom sayers like the rethugs
I guess you can see the future. Do you mind giving some lottery numbers?
For those that would like to see what is actually going on with this money it is all on this site.
http://www.recovery.org/
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Posted: 07-10-09 10:15 PM