Obama and The Economy: How It's Going to Play Out
Time to cut the hope haze and cue a dose of reality:
1) The stimulus bill that will pass is going to be essentially the Gang of Four compromise. Obama's original plan was too small and badly created. The House bill, though a vast improvement was still not enough to do the job. The Senate "compromise" bill is even worse than Obama's original bill. It won't do the job. Period.
2) The next step after this is going to be Geithner's plan. While we don't know the details yet, I am willing to lay long odds that it is going to be a huge heaping bowl of suck whose main selling point will be transferring taxpayer money to banks. Probably not hundreds of billions. Probably a few trillion.
3) Then we're going to get entitlement "reform." Since Obama is promising this to Blue Dogs, this isn't going to be anything you're going to like.
At the end of all this, assuming it doesn't turn into an actual depression, we're going to have Japanification (a situation where you never get a good economy ever again) on steroids. Don't believe me, believe the president's own economists,whose report shows employment not fully recovering.
But the next recession or financial crisis or both will be even worse, because the US will have used up so much of its good credit not properly dealing with this one. And the next one after that even worse. All assuming that any of these doesn't turn into a Great Depression.
This is what is planned for you. This is what Change is going to be. Obama never even tried to pass a good stimulus bill -- his original had 40% tax cuts. The compromised bill has 42% tax cuts. No wonder he's praising the Senators, they got him the bill he wanted, more or less. The only people in this debacle who acted in the interests of ordinary Americans are House Democrats, but in the end they're going to be forced to choose between no bill and a fatally compromised bill.
Plus Ca Change, Plus C'est La Meme Chose
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Earth to Obama !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can someone please tell Barack Obama to quit saying he inherited this economic crisis and remind him that he was a senator when Democrats controlled congress long before this so called meltdown started?
Talk about avoiding responsibility!
If I whined like that on the job, I'd be seeing pink real soon!
Earth to above poster!!!!
Lets compare how long the 'pubs were in charges before the dems took over? Honest answer please.
Obama is and always has been a center-right politician. This "stimulus" package will be a center right affair. It will not be nearly enough to get the economy righted. It will do some good, in that it will stop the major bleeding. But, that is all it is-a stopgap.
The House Democrats are to be commended for trying to do the right thing. Obama clearly lacks the vision thing in economic policy.
Strategically, the Democrats are now in a precarious position. They won, in large part, on the promise of big changes--you know the ones you can believe in. But, because Obama surrendered the field to the Republicans (giving them essentially veto power over the stimulus), we are not going to see any real change. The Democrats will get blamed when the stimulus bill fails to spur the economy. The Republicans will say "we told you so!" even though they were the ones who gutted it so that it wouldn't be sufficient.
I can see "Contract With America, Part II" coming in 2010.
Economist? No.
Oh.
The politicians are posturing, playing Russian Roulette with this Nation's Economy. Many do not care about collaborating to find real earnest solutions to the mess we are in, but rather just positioning themselves to be on the right side of the debate in the next election cycle.
“But the next recession or financial crisis or both will be even worse, because the US will have used up so much of its good credit not properly dealing with this one. And the next one after that even worse.”
Want to be scared? That is what conservatives are saying too, just from a different angle. Whether this bill fails or succeeds short term it will have long term effects on weakening our credit as a nation. While everybody knows we need some sort of stimulus, nobody knows how we are going to pay this tab in the long run. Basic economics say that even assuming this plan hits on all cylinders there will be another recession at some time in the next 8 to 12 years. If this does not work, it may be sooner. The other problem is that we may be covering up real problems in the economy that will grow and fester until the next down swing.
http://federalistblogs.wordpress.com
Greetings Ian,
Life is normally a journey without all or nothing situations. Most often all or nothing experiences are left to desperate gamblers, misguided cults, fearful mobs or delusional dictators. We do not need to allow a few fanatics or the political vain to use fear to get their way. Should we become the sheep that follow blindly and drink the punch?
Reinvesting into America's economy should be a journey. We should have a plan with a clear vision, a strategic focus and mutually supported actions to achieve that vision. To create such a plan, it may involve some compromise. The compromise must be guided by the shared vision to avoid loss of focus. This guidance should have been established at the onset by the man who holds the office of the Presidency. Instead, we have succumbed to the hysteria of the mob in both the House and the Senate, where special interest is the rule of law.
Where is our President?-who should be our visionary, with the courage to stand-up to the hysteria and political vanity while skillfully creating an atmosphere of compromise to achieve the goals of the shared vision.
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
An American Patriot
If you look at the bill as a chance for some help, this kind of grousing is just counter-productive. The people who oppose just about every measure that could possibly help the economy recover (partly because they oppose recovery itself if it happens on President Obama's watch) are using opposition like yours to support their argument that everybody hates this bill and nobody thinks it will work. They are leveraging that argument to take the bill even further away from where you think it should be.
Sometimes you need to focus on what effect your actions will have, rather than just showing off what a great fortuneteller you are. This bill will save some jobs and create some jobs. For the people who will actually have those jobs, the bill is better than what the alternative is beginning to look like (nothing but tax cuts).
We seem to be a nation of b____ching & complaining. .Its clear that Obama in his only 3 weeks in office.-is trying very hard to help do his job. Even as he fights the results of the Reagan / Bush policies. I still hear folks that do not acknowledge that. Are folks just dense ? or do they just want to buy the GOP crap and the Limbaughs of this world. The very folks who are ' followers & ditto heads ' of Rush- have likely suffered from the policies he espouses. You know- deregulation- trickle down - huge tax breaks for corporations- uncontrolled free trade- greedy CEO's who take OUR money and still get 10-20 Mil bonus's. . You get the drift.. The GOP is doing their best to make Obama & his bill FAIL. THEY WANT POWER BACK IN 2010 & 2012. Nothing else matters to them. It will take 1 1/2 - 2 years for us to see results with the stimulous. It tooks years to happen - so be Patient...
A little negative, aren't we?
I am confused. If all the senate needed is 51 votes to pass the bill, why not just tell the republicans goodby and pass the thing like the house did. Even if the republicans wanted to filibuster, they would have to have the agreement of all their members and I bet they wouldn get it. If they did filibuster, it would be interesting to see how all those old men could stay awake.
Normally, you would be right, but in this case, for obscure procedural reasons, they needed sixty votes. Possibly to forestall a threatened filibuster?
Reid caves just by a "threat" of a filibuster. I for one wish Reid would call their bluff and make them do it. After the Republicans get tired of sleeping on cots and peeing in bottles, under the glare of the American people who are angry that they are holding up the stimulus package, they will use that "threat" a lot more sparingly.
And it would help if Reid were replaced by a Majority Leader with some cajones.
The people's house!
The only people in this debacle who acted in the interests of ordinary Americans are House Democrats, but in the end they're going to be forced to choose between no bill and a fatally compromised bill.
Thank you !!!! Everyone keeps beating up on the House (specifically Nancy) because they "made Obama look bad". I'm so glad someone (besides me) finally had the balls to say... the House is the only party to this mess that actually got it right even if it was still too small (however, I still think that the House plan WAS Obama's original plan until it started getting made fun of... then of course the blame fell to the House for adding 'pork').
Anyway.... I know there is little hope that we will go back to the House plan... and while I've been very critical of them in the past (and plan to be in the future).... I try to give credit where credit is due.... and they deserve credit for what they did.
I will continue to beat up on Nancy and the Democratic House members. They stuffed things into the original stimulus package that were easily used as conservative talking points to convince many voters that this was a spending package - and not entirely devoted to jobs creation.
Even today there is talk of some stupid provision that sounds like govt-regulation of physician decisions concerning health care. What stupidity. If there had been NOTHING but job creation in this bill, there would be little to criticise. As it is, because there were provisions that smacked of political objectives, it makes us look disingenuous as we argue for economic recovery.
Obama had one chance with this bill. I doubt it will do the job, and all the democratic objectives we wished for will now have a much more difficult time gaining approval. If the original house bill had been less political, it would have been easier for Obama to slam Republican refusal to help the country.
The Democrats, once again, cannot learn to pace themselves. Yes, the Republicans trashed us. But they took 8 years to do it. These people could teach us a thing or two:
- to hit to kill instead of leaving political flesh wounds;
- to concentrate on the most outrageous facet of any proposal (no matter how small);
- and to implement a change in political direction SLOWLY.
If you act like you can't possibly be re-elected, you won't be.
Outstanding post. Favorited. Not much more to add that, other than the fact that they only thing that the House Dems and the Pres. seem to regret is removing the very parts of the bill that were needed the most, school nutrition, education, etc., but it appears to just be damage control. First impressions are lasting, and regardless of how you look at this, both the Democratic House and President have left a very poor impression. If the bill will pass, will virtually no Republican support, heck, why not double down on the education ( like Head Start), child care and nutrition spending. If the country truly called for change, why would they punish Congress for delivering on it?
Your post seemed to have been cut short. There's no mention of what will happen in two years. Let me point out that whatever happens, the disaster will be mitigated by whatever amount of the bill is delivered. In 2010, the Congress members will move more Democrats into position and allow Democratic measures to continue to build on this stimulus plan. At the end of Obama's second term, Americans will be able to see even more than the 22 million jobs created during Clinton's years. Clean energy will be developed, education will be improved, healthcare will be shifted to cover all Americans.
Now, if you take off the rose-colored glasses, you'll see that half the spending in this bill doesn't even start to kick in until 2011. You'll also see that Democrats own this bill, and that if all these earmarks for federal projects fail to noticeably improve the economy by the 2010 elections, there will be many angry, out-of-work voters headed to the polls. And they will most definitely have Democrats on their minds, you can bet on that.
Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, and the like are relying on the voter's ignorance and apathy. Did you hear Schumer say that the American people don't care about pork? He thinks you're too stupid to know what pork is, or earmarks are.
That quote from the movie "Aliens" may never have been more apt:
Game over, man, game over!"
It's only a question of how long we'll be circling the drain before we go under.
I agree! And for some reason, I don't think it will be very long now . . .
Start an "Armed Citizen's Watch" group for your neighborhood NOW before it's too late . . . . .
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