Everyone seems to be on this "First Hundred Days" trip. What's Obama gonna do to clean up these disparate, enormous messes? Put out all the fires?
Give it a rest. A plane load of Saudi sociopaths hit the World Trade Center and the Congress, the country and the world gave W. a pass for eight years. Whatever he wanted. They gave him the MasterCard. The result: priceless.
Obama might consider three things.
One is that Tim Geithner was a mistake. In a time when the nation isn't thinking much about Iraq (sad) or energy efficiency (bad) but focuses, as Americans do, on money-money-money, appointing a Treasury Secretary who is on the up-and-up should have been evident. Others who did not pay their taxes, whatever taxes, were disinvited. Why not Geitner? There must be dozens of other men and women who could do that job just as well and right now. Why is Geithner still there? Geithner should resign.
Two is that Henry Paulson needs to spend at least the rest of 2009 in front of Congressional committees investigating how he spent the TARP money. Paulson is to TARP what Colin Powell is to Iraq. Paulson put his name and reputation on the line to advocate for the bailout. A lot of that money went to the wrong people and was spent on the wrong things. Shamefully so. Blame Paulson. He looked the American people and their government in the eye and said this bailout was necessary to save American financial markets. Instead, too much of the money was used to save American financiers. A lot of whiny, cranky libs on this site balked when I said that we should forego prosecutions of Bush administration officials on behalf of moving America forward. I will amend that. Like any looting event, the cops arrive in time to catch the last looters out of the store. Paulson is the last looter. Prosecute him. For fraud. Sentence him to life without parole. To be served in a Congressional hearing. Another prospective defendant, in the name of liberty, is Gonzales. An attorney general who shamed the Department on the level of Hoover and Meese.
Third is the refundable tax credit, which should be done away with. It is welfare. Not even the president of the Harvard Law Review/ President of the U.S. can bullshit his way around that.
A post script: To John McCain. You need to keep quiet, John McCain. You lost and more importantly you are to blame for your loss. You ran a lousy campaign. In terms of message, logistics, ideas. Now you can't seem to shut up about the stimulus package. Another rich Republican market shill who can only deal with spending bills that stimulate the Dow. You gotta shut up, John McCain. We can never go back to the Stone Age ideas that the likes of you and Paulson and Cheney (re: fighting terrorism) have tried to force down our throats. Your political career is over, essentially. So go out with a little dignity. You lost the race, so you can take your lips off the Bush family fundraising apparatus now.
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McCain Lobs Sharpest Attack At Obama Since Campaign (VIDEO)
From The Politico: Sen. John McCain took his most direct shot at Barack Obama since the presidential campaign on Friday morning, using a Senate floor...
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McCain and Limbaugh's Murky Crystal Ball
Sen. John McCain -- known to have never gone online -- led the charge on Capitol Hill this week to strip the Internet from President Obama's economic stimulus package.
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I especially liked the postscript. John McCain really does need to lay off the bitterness he has kept from the days of the campaign and move on; America has enough issues to resolve already. As one who had proclaimed, in his seemingly moving concession speech, that all--regardless of difference in political views--should come together to support the new President in "fixing" the country's many problems, McCain should keep to his word and stop attempting to remind us all about how much he and Obama disagree on things. Have some self-respect, McCain, and shut it down.
really loved the message to 'who to blame' mccain.
he sucked before the campaign only to suck more after the campaign.
Regarding the "First Hundred Days" noise, Amen. Clean the Aegean Stables in three months? I don't think so. Last time I checked, we didn't elect "President Hercules".
Tim? The jury is still out on that one and, if only for fairness sake, it should be. Yes, I know full well that he hails from the hand that feeds, but, since WE have NO idea of HOW that hand actually works, let's first see what someone who should know comes up with. Let's give the guy 100-hours, shall we?
Now, let's turn to Hank. Like all of us, he is a product of his background, professional experience and of his time. I mean, c'mon, the guy was genuinely SCARED---I clearly saw FEAR in his face---he felt that he had to do SOMETHING and do it NOW. Rushed incompetence? Perhaps. Intentional "evil" on his part? I think not. Enough with the witch hunts, already... (By the way, what would YOU have done?)
And as for that teeny-tiny third point... Yes, Virgina, it IS welfare.... We all know that and, yes, Obama also knows that. ALL "refundable tax credits" are by definition. And the point of your comment was? You don't like welfare? Fine, just say so then, without insulting our intelligence.
And, finally, as for John McCain... Old warriors just fade away, remember? So the less we invoke his name (hint), the sooner he will go quietly into the night.
I find your third item -- among the three things Obama might consider -- egregious and unfeeling. “It is welfare,” you write. You omitted “... for the poor.”
In your otherwise exemplary second item, you failed to characterize, what you otherwise correctly describe, all that as “welfare for the rich" -- corporate welfare at a time, once again, that our free market capitalists don’t at all mind corporate socialism, where even the money of the poor is sucked upwards by welfare for the rich and powerful, elites and corporations.
In a prior incarnation during, of all things, the Nixon administration (and supported by Nixon), refundable tax credits were proposed as a negative income tax.
Frankly, I am sick, tired and enraged at being pissed on from on high. Err, excuse me – “trickled down” upon.
While you come from a solid middle class background, not poor, I nevertheless expected better from you. I am, sadly, disappointed.
I repeat the president's response to Helene Cooper's question regarding the bank bailout ..."and I'm trying to avoid preempting my Secretary of the Treasury, I want all of you to show up at his press conference as well; he's going to be terrific."Uh, I didn't think so. He didn't say anything new in my estimation and instead wasted yet more of our country's money and time. I'm getting mighty nervous again.
It is IMPOSSIBLE that he was unaware that this financial crisis was coming, or that he had no part in creating it.
The award for this is being appointed Secretary of the Treasury?