Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[fansince61]

Tax cuts are fastest, "cleanest", cheapest way to get money into the economy (I would take the 35% tax bracket back to 39%).  Energy independence - drilling in ANWR, natural gas and all the green projects/research make lots of long term sense.  Give the Federal agencies 2-3 X COLA in there budgets (to increase efficiency - not salary/bonus) would be a good start.  Replace all the government (fed, state , local) workers who are scheduled to be terminated but can't be because of union interference (about 60,000 I believe).  Extend unemployment benefits and COBRA and wait.  It will turn around in 12-18 months.

[Seabiscuit36]

LOL at the thought the economy would change overnight, and LOL at people who thought the DC machine would change overnight.  It takes time fargers, now go rape a child

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

So you think what should have been done instead?

What do you think?  Something smaller and either more sustainable and/or with less long-term implications.  Instead of stimulating the current economy, this bill introduces a ton of permanent and persistent programs into a government that already can't pay for everything it does.

So, basically, if the country's going to be fiscally responsible at any point in time, taxes are going to have to be raised to ridiculous levels just to pay for things already being done.  And that kind of drastic increase will just cause more economic pain.

For the record, I was consistently displeased with the level of financial irresponsibility of the Bush administration as well and bemoaned the death of fiscal conservativism.  Bush put in the daggar, and Obama's twisting it with the help of a very happy Congress.

[ATV]

Clinton's thoughts and predictions about Obama and the economy...

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/02/16/roberts.bill.clinton.economy.cnn

[ice grillin you]

I've said over and over the delayed spending of over 500bill. of this bill that is uncalled for. The money that will be spent right away should be in this bill, then as needed they could always add another bill and spend later. Why have all of it available if we might not need it. Who knows if the econonmy will turn around or the housing market will start to rise sooner then later. Last month spending was up 1% when it was supposed to be down the same.

the spending youre against in this bill is all ideological...you dont give a shtein about spending you just want to spend on what you want...well you your homies had eight years of that and you failed the country miserably...possibly beyond repair...so now its time to sit back and take your medicine like a good boy and basically zip your lips...for the next 8 years would be ideal...but at the very least can your old white backwards mouths close for the first hundred days...is that to much to ask for...instead all the zealouts have done is bitch like the pussified old men that they are and their leader rush came out and say that he hopes the countries president fails...be proud MA

[Geowhizzer]

The problem for fiscal conservatives is that there is no truly fiscally conservative party anymore.  The Republicans and the Democrats seem to be in a competition to see who can spend more money the fastest.

The Dems and Reps are no longer ideological rivals - they're just flip sides of the same coin.  A bunch of corrupt politicans whose main concern is winning the next election, damn the cost to the long term stability of the nation.  Both give lipservice to their constituents, but neither deliver much.

I hope Obama plays it differently, that he really pulls us in a different direction, but I'm fearing he's just putting a new perfume on the same old pile of dung politicians have been delivering since the first Bush presidency, if not before.

[ATV]

Begala pwns Sanford...

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina took umbrage at my writing that his approach to the economic crisis is to do nothing. I'll deal with his "ideas" in a moment, but first let me make a modest proposal:

If Republican politicians are so deeply opposed to President Obama's economic recovery plan, they should refuse to take the money. After all, if you think all that federal spending is damaging, there are easy ways to reduce it: Don't take federal money.

Gov. Sanford can lead the way. South Carolina should decline to accept any federal funds for transportation, education, health care, clean energy or any of the other ideas President Obama is advocating to fix the economy. And the rest of the GOP can follow suit.

Justice Louis Brandeis famously called states "laboratories of democracy." So let's experiment. Gov. Sanford can be the guinea pig. His Palmetto State already gets $1.35 back from Washington for every dollar it pays in federal taxes, according to 2005 numbers, the latest calculated by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax research group.

Under the Bush-Sanford economic theories, South Carolina's unemployment rate has reached 9.5 percent -- among the highest in the nation. But if Gov. Sanford wants to continue those policies, good luck to him.

Make no mistake about it, Republicans like Gov. Sanford want to go back to the bad old days of George W. Bush. In his CNN.com column, Gov. Sanford expends 605 words attacking President Obama's plan to turn the country around after eight years of Bush-Republican-Sanford economics.

That is his right, but attacking President Obama's plan is not itself an alternative plan. Nor is dredging up hoary old gripes about the New Deal. Nor, indeed, is deriding neighborhood electric vehicles -- which create jobs, save money and reduce pollution -- as "streamlined golf carts." But that is what Gov. Sanford offers us.

Then Gov. Sanford turns to his ideas (keep in mind he was responding to my charge that he favors doing nothing). He devotes precisely one half of one sentence to his plan to save the world economy; 24 words that will create millions of jobs, restore liquidity to capital markets, protect investors and consumers, regenerate stagnant demand and restore the capitalist system. Here they are:

"... cutting the payroll tax, opening foreign markets through an expansion of our trade agreements, and reducing our corporate tax, which is among the highest worldwide."

Wow. As we say in the South, I've got the vapors. So cutting taxes and cutting trade deals will get us out of this mess? That's all we need to do?

We don't need to extend unemployment insurance, or update health information technology, or move to renewable energy or repair roads or rebuild bridges or modernize the power grid or prevent states and cities from laying off teachers and cops or any of the other myriad proposals in President Obama's plan?

To be sure, President Obama's plan includes tax cuts -- mostly for middle-class families. But cutting taxes on corporate profits is of little utility when there are no corporate profits to tax. And precisely with whom would Gov. Sanford cut these miraculous trade deals? In case he hasn't been watching CNN, the entire world economy is in the tank.

If cutting taxes for the rich and for big corporations and promoting foreign trade alone could energize the economy, we wouldn't be in this mess. But maybe Gov. Sanford is right. Let's keep our federal money -- give it to states where the governors will actually put it to good use. We'll let Gov. Sanford try his plan, we'll try President Obama's plan.

Something tells me Gov. Sanford won't take that gamble. Because for all his rhetoric about hating federal spending, he can't wait to get his hands on our money.

From http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/16/begala.carolina/index.html

[Phanatic]

C-Span ranks the presidents on their day. Certainly all presidents have positives and negatives to deal with.

FDR's social programs, I think, fit the time but where never meant to last as long as hey have so he gets that hung around his neck. However he was a sitting war president and made America a world power through the start of WWII, all this after the great depression.

Truman finished up WWII and dropped the bomb.

Reagan's domestic policies cause him problems but he was president when the Soviet system collapsed.

On and on. I think the top 10 presidents on this list are right. No man in that position will be able to get it all right. Who were the greatest? Plenty to argue about here...

http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx

Top 10

Lincoln
Washington
FDR
Theodore Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
John F. Kennedy
Thomas Jefferson
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Woodrow Wilson
Ronald Reagan

On this list I don't know a whole lot about Woodrow Wilson. Let th mindless bickering begin!

[Rome]

Reagan was a senile corrupt evil troll.  Here's hoping Satan is farging him in the eye socket right now.

[ATV]

FDR's social programs, I think, fit the time but where never meant to last as long as hey have

Yes, banking regulations are so overated.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

1.  Not a social program
2.  One of his programs out of roughly 1000

[rjs246]

FDR created a ton of programs. Some were wildly successful others were not. The problem with his 'successful' programs is that our legislators have failed to display any sense or creativity in keeping them workable. These programs weren't bad, their upkeep has been atrocious for the better part of a century. How is it possible that Social Security has not been reformed yet? It makes absolutely no sense.

So now we are in a place where even the most beneficial of those programs are almost 80 years old and need to be completely overhauled in order to even begin to be fiscally feasible. In reality, FDR is 'losing points' because our government failed to keep his ideas in line with a changing world.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Some of them have been poorly maintained and others were simply not sustainable or designed to be sustainable.

The problem with government is that it trusts itself implicitly.

[ATV]

The bottom line....



From http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/clinton-economic-record-and-rising.html

[Tomahawk]

Reagan was a senile corrupt evil troll.  Here's hoping Satan is farging him in the eye socket right now.

Agreed