Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Diomedes]

They want, want, want, but are unwilling to sacrifice for it hence the rise of easy credit during the last 20 years.

It goes further back than that, but whatever.  It is this point on which I am most dissapointed in Obama so far, among a few disappointments.  In short, he's said we're going to have to sacrifice a lot, that this is a crisis as big as WWII was, etc. etc. 

But he hasn't asked the American people to do squat.  If he doesn't do it soon, while the bloom is still on the rose, he'll have squandered a vast reserve of political good will.  He needs to come on the airwaves and give the American people a strong dose of stern talking and exhort us to change in a host of very specific ways.

And he's going to have to make a lot of people unhappy by doing it.  A lot of business people who are selling us stupid shtein we need to stop buying, for example.

[Butchers Bill]

Jindal's talking about turning down about 100 Million out of the 4 billion or so his state will be getting, or about 2.5%

If turning down that extra 100 million will save his taxpayers 500 million in the future they he is spot on correct.  From what I have been reading the unemployment assistance in the stimulus is a one time payment that once exhausted, is non-replenishable.  Therefore, the states are on the hook for the remainder of the expanded assistance.  Essentially an unfunded Federal mandate.

[Butchers Bill]

It goes further back than that, but whatever.  It is this point on which I am most dissapointed in Obama so far, among a few disappointments.  In short, he's said we're going to have to sacrifice a lot, that this is a crisis as big as WWII was, etc. etc. 

But he hasn't asked the American people to do squat.  If he doesn't do it soon, while the bloom is still on the rose, he'll have squandered a vast reserve of political good will.  He needs to come on the airwaves and give the American people a strong dose of stern talking and exhort us to change in a host of very specific ways.

And he's going to have to make a lot of people unhappy by doing it.  A lot of business people who are selling us stupid shtein we need to stop buying, for example.

Point 1:  just out of curiosity when would you say it started?

Point 2: That's why I have said for the longest time a "service" economy will never sustain itself.  If all Americans were to stop buying unnecessary goods and services tomorrow we would have a total collapse that would kick the Great Depressions ass in terms of severity.  This is why we need a diversified economy...one that produces as well as serves.

[ATV]

Subjective parsing of what the douchbag said does not encourage constructive dialog.

Obviously the douchebag said other things to his newspaper. I didn't think folks on here would be much interested in the local goings-on in Alabama. As if I claimed he didn't say other things. Pathetic.

[Butchers Bill]

Subjective parsing of what the douchbag said does not encourage constructive dialog.

Obviously the douchebag said other things to his newspaper. I didn't think folks on here would be much interested in the local goings-on in Alabama. As if I claimed he didn't say other things. Pathetic.

Your post makes absolutely no sense.  You posted a link to a video, gave your own misguided opinion on it, tried to pass it off as fact, and I called you on it.  That's it. 

[Diomedes]

Who says the states are on the hook for anything more than what the feds pony up?  They would be required by federal law to lay out another 500 mill?  That doesn't sound right.

[Diomedes]

Point 1:  just out of curiosity when would you say it started?

Too easy credit started in earnest around Reagan's time I think, but the culture of entitlement well before that.  The American pathos for over eating, over spending, over-the-top everything has grown like a cancer unabated to the point where it is now about to kill the host.

[ATV]

Your post makes absolutely no sense.  You posted a link to a video, gave your own misguided opinion on it, tried to pass it off as fact, and I called you on it.  That's it. 

Oh, ok, so you don't want to talk about Shelby's newspaper article, you want to go back to the other douche's interview on Fox.

Well, the record is above. I posted the link. I mentioned a couple things the douche said. Then you wrote about something else he said, insinuating that I should have mentioned that, and that was "all"  the douche said. Anybody with half a brain can go watch the video themselves to clearly see what else the douche said. Then again this is "mindless" partisan bickering.

[rjs246]

Who says the states are on the hook for anything more than what the feds pony up?  They would be required by federal law to lay out another 500 mill?  That doesn't sound right.

Again, I don't know the details but what I've read has said that the federal government is providing short-term funding but that states who accept the money are required to expand unemployment indefinitely. So once the fed money runs out, the states have to pay.

It doesn't sound right, I agree, but that's what I've read.

[Diomedes]

Well if that's the deal then I'd tell them to keep their money as well.

[Butchers Bill]

Who says the states are on the hook for anything more than what the feds pony up?  They would be required by federal law to lay out another 500 mill?  That doesn't sound right.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/22/stimulus.governors/index.html

I just threw the 500 million out there to make the point that IF that's what they are saving than I am fine with it.  There will definitely be a future cost to the state taxpayers, but how much depends on how long and deep the recession is.

"The $100 million we turned down was temporary federal dollars that would require us to change our unemployment laws," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

"That would have actually raised taxes on Louisiana businesses. We as a state would have been responsible for paying for those benefits after the federal money disappeared."

The law demands a "permanent" change to state law, Jindal said.

A leading Democrat, meanwhile, said he does see a potential problem.


"I'm not sure that we can, over the long run, cope with the high unemployment compensation standard that this mandates for states," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, the head of the National Governor's Association, told "Fox News Sunday."

[rjs246]

The thing that gets me about this is that the welfare reform of the Clinton years is universally lauded as an example of effective government reform. It reduced the cost of welfare for the nation while actually putting more people to work and reducing poverty (which should be the point of the welfare system).

If this provision reverses any of that I don't understand what it's doing in the bill in the first place...

[Diomedes]

I'd like to know more specifics.  When Jindal et al. complain that the law would require them to extend unemployment benefits to other people who don't currently enjoy them, it makes me wonder just who those people would be?

Part time workers, I would bet.  At which point, he and I run up against differences in thinking.  I think part time workers should have some recourse to unemployment benefits, he likely thinks they do not.  I think part time workers often carry two jobs and sometimes three, and they are the group of people closes to the gaping abyss of non-working poverty, so they are exactly the people I think the state should be catching before they fall.  Jindal and his ilk likely disagree.

[Diomedes]

Also, I'd like to see the media stop using phrases like "a rising GOP star" every time they quote Jindal or some other politician.  shtein like that is unnecessary.  Rising GOP star or not, he's the Governor which is plenty enough position to pay some attention to what he says.  Constantly adding that someone is known as a maverick, a rising star, etc. smack of some kind of media sales pitch.

[ATV]

More on the bottom line. Expressed best by the first part of this segment. "These people I think have to give it up". You can sugarcoat the policy, call it whatever you may, but admittedly this is what it comes down to...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qirifeQesKY

And I agree with Maher completely.