Maybe I missed it, but where was the Fireside Chat?
Eight days after his swearing-in, Franklin Roosevelt went on the radio for the first of the so-called fireside chats. He had declared a bank holiday, and he told people why. He explained why bank runs were so damaging, how they worsened the crisis. And he told people what steps his administration was going to take.
That little chat helped FDR enormously. It showed people that he had command of the problem, and was taking control of the situation.
Obama thus far has not demonstrated such command and control. He's been nicked up by the mistakes he made with his appointments. He's felt obliged to say that he screwed up, which, while refreshing, is not an admission we want to hear from our president with any frequency. And he's really taken a curious role with this stimulus bill. By allowing the House Democrats to write it, by allowing the Republican opposition to define it, by devoting so much attention on whether or not the bill would have bipartisan support, the president has taken what should be his first signature piece of legislation, and somehow failed to put his stamp on it. And at a time when the country is virtually pleading with him to exert command and control, he has yielded that role to congressional partisans that the public doesn't quite know and almost certainly doesn't trust.
Imagine if he had sat down in front of a national television audience and said, in effect, here's where we are; here's what we have to do; here's what the elements of the bill will accomplish; and here is where what we will do next. Doubtless the debate in Congress would have been very different.
Soon the Treasury Department is going to announce its plans for addressing the financial crisis. Already critics are denouncing this as another trip to the bailout well, a follow-up to the TARP plan already tarnished by that plan's shortcomings. Obama needs to take charge of his plans before they drift into a cloud of uncertainty. He needs to show his command of the problem. He needs to take control of the situation.
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Senate Stimulus Bill (Full Text)
Updated on February 8 The pdf is now available. * * * * * Updated on February 8 The compromise Senate stimulus bill has been...
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Obama Admin To Unveil New Rescue Plan For Banks
After weeks of internal debate, the Obama administration has settled on a plan to inject billions of dollars in fresh capital into banks and entice...
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Economists Agree: Pass Stimulus Package Immediately
While economists remain divided on the role of government generally, an overwhelming number from both parties are saying that a government stimulus package -- even...
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Obama Hits The Road Again To Sell A Stimulus Plan
WASHINGTON - The presidential campaign trail often loved Barack Obama more than he loved it back. When he was sworn in last month, he told...
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Why The Stimulus Is Too Small
There's a hurricane coming. Meteorologists aren't sure what category it will be but know it will be the worst in generations. There's a warehouse full...
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GOP Fired Up By Stimulus Battle: "We're Picking Good Fights"
You see it all over Capitol Hill, in the hallways, the hearing rooms, the gathering spots. Republicans, coming off a devastating, across-the-board electoral defeat, are...
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Krugman: Obama Let Centrists Hurt Stimulus Bill
What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers...
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Stimulus, Yes; Bank Bailout II, No
If Obama does his job he will mobilize public opinion and isolate Republicans who would rather sink the economy than give a Democratic president legislative success.
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Economic Stimulus: Investing in Vets Delivers a Huge Bang for the Buck
As the Senate begins to debate the stimulus package this week, our elected leaders must ensure that any plan fully supports the newest generation of veterans and their families.
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Bipartisanship Fetishism vs. What's Best for America: Obama Needs to Choose
At tonight's press conference, CBS's Chip Reid asked President Obama about whether, given the lack of bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, the White House was "moving away" from its "emphasis on bipartisanship?" Obama replied that his "bottom line when it comes to the recovery package" is: does it create or save jobs? That's good to hear because the president's actions over the last couple of weeks have left many wondering whether bipartisanship, rather than what's best for America, has been his priority. Perhaps there will come a day when the Venn diagrams of the Republican Party and the national interest actually intersect. But, at the moment, we find ourselves with a GOP whose leaders believe, among other things, that government jobs are not real jobs, and that Obama's stimulus plan is "the socialist way." Hard for bipartisanship to flourish in this kind of atmosphere.
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Billionaire For A Day: A More Entertaining Economic Stimulus Package
Let's do something to capture all Americans attention and by doing so make the economic stimulus package real to all of us: 800 Americans will each win a billion dollars.
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Palin's Facebook Page: Opposes Obama's Stimulus Plan
We learn on Facebook that Palin has "serious concerns" with Obama's stimulus package. Say what?
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Just imagine: What if McCain Had Won the Election and Obama had Shafted him During the Stimulus Debate?
Um, are McCain's feelings after losing an election the big question on people's minds in the nation? I think the stimulus package is the focus of the country right now, don't you?
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Stimulate Me!
Experts seem relatively unified, if such a thing is possible, on the issue of direct economic stimulus to every taxpayer. They're against it.
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Where's Ross Perot When You Need Him?
I'm ready for a little old fashioned Ross Perot specification of the expected outcomes of the stimulus package. This is what we call in education a "teachable moment."
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Rahm Throws Pelosi Under The Bus To Save Stimulus Bill
The story of the morning seems to be that the Obama team is unhappy with Nancy Pelosi and the House committee chairs for delivering up such a liberal, pork-laden bill that they themselves really had nothing to do with.
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Our Twin Crises
That we are unable to manage a functioning economy or deal with climate change because rapacious Wall Street traders have disproportionate political clout is a measure of our political dysfunction.
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Oh, About That "End" of the Obama Honeymoon ...
Where Obama may have made a mistake is in being too substantively accommodating with people who are basically not going to support him except in the event of an extraterrestrial invasion.
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Patriotic Extortion
Imagine if the Democrats had not pre-capitulated to the Republicans on the stimulus bill. Imagine if they had forced the Republicans to actually mount a filibuster.
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Steele Crazy After All This Year
We are witnessing, not so much the collapse of the Republican Party, as its slide into insanity. What was the GOP's great accomplishment last week? A show of "unity" enough to block the first stimulus package.
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Spaghetti Economics
We need to throw lots of spaghetti against the wall, and fast -- and continue to throw lots of spaghetti against the wall for at least a few years.
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Why the Stimulus is Needed, Part II
Given the decreases in personal consumption expenditures and gross private domestic investment, what are the chances of the consumer spending again or business investing again?
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House vs. Senate Stimulus Bills
Some highlights: The House version would spend $60 billion more on education -- the Senate version adds more than $100 billion for tax cuts to individuals and families.
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A Better Stimulus for the Economy
The problem with our economy is not weak spending, which is just a symptom of our predicament. The root problem is lack of confidence in the future.
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The Truth About the Stimulus Package
Until other countries are willing to do their share to stimulate the global economy, the Obama administration is right to lift our boat first.
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Operation Zero Cred
The GOP with Joe the Plumber on the Hill this week to discuss the economy. They should be summarily shut out of this process -- whether or not the president wants them out.
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Stimulus Package: If You Jump Halfway Across a Chasm You Fall Into the Abyss
If we are going to spend two trillion dollars (and most likely more) trying to deal with the economic crisis, shouldn't we do it right?
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Change vs. Bipartisanship: What Happens When You Throw a Bipartisan Party and Half the Guest List Stays Home?
The problem with a message of bipartisanship is that it makes it very difficult to tell the story of why things are so bad that we need dramatic change.
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Delusional or Just Cynical?
A good example of the "frothing at the mouth" reaction to the stimulus plan is a blog penned by Jonathan Tobin, Executive Editor of Commentary.
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Obama Financial Team to Taxpayers: You'll Get Nothing, and Like It
There's nothing that prevents the public from getting their fair share of any future bank profits appropriate to the high risk investment they are being forced to make.
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No, Seriously: Republicans Don't Get It
Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for the future; it is exactly the kind of investment the American people want.
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Selling Stimulus
What the administration needs, and what its senior advisers proved so adept at during the campaign, is a simpler, more compelling, campaign-style message for what this legislation is really about.
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A New Movement
There is a movement to strip billions of dollars from the stimulus bill led by Ben Nelson of Omaha (whose Democratic status is debatable) and Susan Collins (Republican) of Maine.
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Stimulating
As muddled as this economic stage may be -- and all major measures taken in crisis usually are -- it is born of the drive to reconstruct and not profiteer, and that alone is progress to applaud.
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Bipartisanship (is) for Dummies
The idea that we can turn this economy around by caving to the feckless demands of those who screwed it up in the first place is utterly bankrupt.
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Obama: Use This And the Jobs Bill Will Pass With a 100 Vote Margin
Our best salesman is Obama. There is no house or senate member who this president cannot roll over.
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Obama to Speak Monday Night on Stimulus While Rep. Pete Sessions Says Republicans Are the New Taliban
If the media hadn't acted so irresponsibly the past two weeks and President Obama hadn't tried to be so bipartisan, he might not have had to take to the airwaves, but that's not the case anymore.
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Pulling the Wool Over Our Eyes
The American people elected President Obama in record numbers to lead our country in a new direction, if the Republicans aren't willing to join him, the least they can do is get out of his way.
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Our Phone Calls Are Working, Don't Let Up!
If representatives know that's what their constituents want, they will be both more inclined to keep that critical public investment from the House bill, and act with the speed.
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Obama Undermines Jobs Mandate For the Sake of Bipartisanship
Roosevelt had the New Deal, Kennedy had the New Frontier, Johnson had the Great Society, and Obama has...the stimulus plan. An abstract goal with fungible components that valued process above all else.
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Lions Coach Up Steelers on Stimulus Package
How can anyone take the GOP seriously on economic policy? Agree or disagree on their philosophy; their record is demonstrably terrible. They are the Detroit Lions of Congress.
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Democrats in Congress Need to Learn How to Lead
I am losing patience with congressional Democrats' innate instinct to capitulate, something that has been evident since the November 2006 mid-term elections.
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Republicans Say They'd Support the "Right" Stimulus Bill, But Stimulus for Them Is Only More Tax Cuts
If you look closely at what the Republicans are saying, this isn't a debate on the merits of this stimulus legislation, but rather another round of policy battles fought during last year's campaign.
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Considering how little America has given to the world, an "American Dream" without substance, it is probably best that the Indians and Chinese run the world for the rest of this century. If Americans were intelligent enough to read, the lesson of the British Empire would be salient: what goes up must come down...with lightning speed.
Obama’s fireside chat was on Arab TV; his first TV interview as President. Too bad you missed it. It was a hoot - right up there with his appointments and handling of the Stimulus Package. Obama has taken on some curious roles and not only with the Stimulus Package. If he said he screwed up every time he has screwed up on and since January 20 that would be playing as a continuous loop.
We must do the following.
1. Force the Senate to abolish all super majority rules.
2. If that fails, the Democrats must resort to the nuclear option. I do favor Obama's attempt to reach out to Republicans, but if they bite his hand, or attempt to undermine his actions, then the Senate must resort to the nuclear option. (That would work even with the budget rule)
That's the steps we need to take first. Our first target should be Harry Reid. If he is afraid to resort to the nuclear option, the Democrats need to elect a majority leader who will.
having house meetings and playing his videos. You will find out he is as organized as his election
campaign was.
It was essential that he make the bi-partison gesture,, and the whole country stands to see the Repubs as the obstructionists that they are.
He will have the support of most of the country. Except that economists say that the bill does not go far enough.
America has fallen!!!!
Bottom line what have you done to help support the President's efforts? He cannot do this alone. If all you are going to do is sit back and complain, it is just as much your fault as anyone else. the President cannot do this alone. IF you supported him and trusted him, then do so. Not just with your vote in November but with every voice you have at your disposal.
Stop talking and start acting.
My own experience?
"LA LA LA LA LA" - Best impression of the Vancome Lady...
BLACK HOLE = email system is constantly overloaded.
Phone in?....the poor clerks answer the phone with that "Oh, damn...not ANOTHER one.." attitude.
BLACK HOLE
Richard Shelby, Jeff "abolish estate tax" Sessions, and Mike Rogers.
he may not be doing what you think he should be doing, but then again, if yur advice was so good why are you just writing columns?