Sore Republican losers

Republicans would rather not have any stimulus bill than President Obama’s bill. Instead of being angry at their congressmen for not caring if they lose their jobs or homes and getting us in these dumb wars, they would rather criticize a man who cares about them and is trying to do his best to change our economic chaos. They accuse him of too much spending, even if it could put people back to work, save their homes, and give them a new lease on life.

Republicans’ answer to all of our problems is to cut taxes. This will leave our nation in worse shape. Cutting taxes would cause our local, state and national governments to not be able to repair our infrastructure, educate our children and get health care for all of us.

Don’t attack Obama because you lost. This man has done more in one month than any other president in history.

Adell Thompson
Overland Park

Comments

[Smarter Than You]

I can't blame Cassidy for turning to us to solve the economic problem. It's obvious that those currently in power in Washington are bereft of ideas.

While Cassidy's is a slippery move, argumentivly speaking, it's not absolution from defending the decisions being made by this administration.

[Jim]

Eng,

I have presented the numbers to you in this space twice already. They directly refute your point. You either ignore that or talk around it, then repeat the debunked lie. That fits the classical definition of dishonesty.

[Casady]

Thanks Eng for your usual courteous response. I don't necessarily disagree with you but my main question is, at this point, what are our options? We just threw another $30B at AIG (after throwing $89B at them in Oct which makes a total of $120B which is 15% of the total value of the stimulus package for AIG alone!). Anyway, I would be curious to hear your thoughts on how you think we should proceed. Smarter Than You certainly didn't provide any insight. Perhaps he is not smarter than us after all.

[Casady]

Thanks Eng for your usual courteous response. I don't necessarily disagree with you but my main question is, at this point, what are our options? We just threw another $30B at AIG (after throwing $89B at them in Oct which makes a total of $120B which is 15% of the total value of the stimulus package for AIG alone!). Anyway, I would be curious to hear your thoughts on how you think we should proceed. Smarter Than You certainly didn't provide any insight. Perhaps he is not smarter than us after all.

[Engineer]

Jim
Tell me just how the point has been refuted. He has, in effect, cut the DOD budget. If say he hasn't, please set out the figures: the last DOD budget, the proposed DOD budget, the war costs included in the proposed budget and the amount of the proposed budget after the war costs are subtracted.

[Smarter Than You]

This is what they used to call an E-Ticket ride in Anaheim.

Unless you use Enron accounting, the Clinton balanced budget was a farce. Documentation provided many times previously.

Bush also played fast and loose with the books. This is a trend that's been de facto practice in Washington far too long.

Sol is definitely not a party hack for either side. Although Sol and I may differ over issues, he's usually well reasoned and his arguments deserve better than smarmy name-calling.

Stimulus packages don't work. Historically. Again, we've been through that just last week. You might get some short term high/fix, but it is not sustainable.

Now a response for Adell. It seems that there are just as many sore Democratic winners as there are Republican losers. I get the sore winners; they realize that without the economic implosion, a horrible choice for Veep, and Obama’s opting out of public election financing (despite a promise not to) they don't get the win last November. They NEED to shift the debate back to blame Bush/Republicans and away from Obama's questionable economic policies.

As they said in OZ, "ignore the man behind the curtain." Democrats fear the great and powerful "OB" has been exposed.

[Jim]

Eng,

Your constantly parroted talking point has been factually refuted here many times now and yet you ignore that and keep repeating it. In short: you're lying. You're better than that.

[Engineer]

Casady
The objections to the "stimulus" bill is the there is not all that much immediate stimulus in it. A good deal of the provisions are for social programs that will go on for years. The "transportation infrastructure" portion is relatively small, said to be 6%. Also, infrastructure projects, while essential, have problems as immediate stimulus due to time constraints. "Green Energy' is another example of worthwhile endeavors without a lot of immediate impact.
The bill obviously was hashed together without any real planning as to how to get the most immediate impact. Nothing was ever said or done to give the feeling that there was any serious consideration of what would or would not provide immediate stimulus. Obama called for immediate action but gave no specifics as to what action would provide an early stimulus.
As to spending, shouldn't we be concerned? Bush, with two wars, increased the amount of the publicly held debt by about $1.7 trillion in his first 7 years. It appears Obama will exceed that in his first year.

[Engineer]

Jim
Obama is simply hiding his cuts in the DOD budget. That's where Clinton made his big "savings" and Obama is following suit.
Information on the total deficit during the Bush Administration was always available. How much of the new budget's DOD share is for "war costs"?

[Casady]

I mentioned this last week but alas, not one of you responded so once again, I would like to hear what our intelligent and thoughtful conservative friends (i.e. Eng, EKAN, beaker, JJ, pmcw, Sammy) think should be done to address the current situation. I am not a fan of the stimulus package but given we threw $700B at the banking industry without batting an eye or without much question of oversight, why are we seeing such resistance toward an $800B package that reflects a broad range of business tax cuts, individual tax cuts and direct investment into the private sector? It wouldn't be my first choice for providing an economic stimulus but as someone who typically takes a middle of the road position on these matters, I see how it is necessary. I hear many of our conservative bloggers complain about it but I have yet to see a cohesive counter solution. Most banks who took some of the $700B bailout money are merely sitting on their take in an effort to shore up their balance sheets. This is fine as it stabilized the hemmoraging from last October but it has done little to relax credit conditions. The current package directs money directly into the private sector with provisions that require that the money be spent. While I don't know if it will work, I do know that doing nothing will have ramifications far beyong a $1T deficit.

[Jim]

"I never thought I would be reminescent about the Bush deficits...until now. They are all quite small in comparison to Obama's own projections."

EKAN, you know why that is, don't you? Bush used all kinds of budget tricks to make the deficit seem smaller than it actually was.

One of the most notorious and inexcusable was leaving the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan off the books. That funding has always been passed in separate, politically-charged "supplementals." That is a huge present and future cost that was real, but not factored in. But even without that, the final Bush deficit you're so nostalgic for was a whopping $1 trillion.

Obama has reversed that policy, including the actual and projected costs of the wars in his budget. Also, he's put into this budget an aggressive plan to cut the deficit during his first term. I have no idea if it'll work, but it's a worthy goal.

You're blaming Obama for Bush's budgetary trickery and fiscal failures.

[Pub 17]

Obama has a colossal mess to clean up, EKAN. We sit on the problem and do nothing, we're going to be in deep recession for two decades. Obama's deficits are a direct result of the consequences of Bush not wanting to inconvenience the American taxpayer with actually having to pay for the Iraq war out of current consumption. Now the fit hits the Shan.

[EKAN]

Jim, what you said is incorrect. The forcasted budget surpluses were based on the assumption that the ongoing stock market bubble would continue indefinately. When the market crashed, the capital gains collections turned into capital losses and this is what caused the budget deficit.

It never ceases to amaze me at how many people believe that the Bush tax cuts on the top 1% caused the budget deficit in 2002 (his first budget) when the upper level tax cuts were not fully phased in until 2006.

BTW - notice how the surplus shrinks between 2000 and 2001 (before the first Bush budget or tax cuts are enacted).
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.pdf

All that being said, I never thought I would be reminescent about the Bush deficits...until now. They are all quite small in comparison to Obama's own projections.

[solomon]

yeah, why don't you and "beaker' carpool to your forest for the trees meeting.

[BudRog]

Looks like the dumbocrats done taken over this threas, pardon me while I cut out. After 60 plus years I do not suffer the company of fools.

[solomon]

Good morning Jim,

He/she is a great example of someone labeling a person they are too limited to understand. You guys who back the Dems don't have a problem with me having no fealty, but people like "beaker" have to assign a category.

[Jim]

Hard to believe that someone using the handle "beaker" would have the gall to accuse someone else of hiding behind a phony name.

[solomon]

beaker,

First of all, Solomon is my real name, I use solomon on this site.

Second, your calling me a party dumbass is ridiculous if you have ever read my posts. I have always said both Dems and Reps are in it for themselves and their corporate sponsors. The reps and dems are the pair of yaahoo's I am referring to in my post in this thread. You have and will never read where I posted an inclination to be a Dem.

I stand by my post, you prefer a Rep BJ. Been to a restroom in Idaho lately?

[Jim]

"You need to look at your party and realize that the Dems have had the biggest hand in entitlement spending."

For a person claiming not to be a GOP hack, you sure sound like a GOP hack most of the time. Your glass house isn't in very good shape these days, Beaker.

A Republican President and Republican Congress inherit an actual budget surplus that was projected to continue for the next few years into the hundreds of billions of dollars. They introduce Republican economic policies and take us into two wars, with Congress rubber-stamping everything and blocking any oversight of corruption or waste or mis-management. They leave us over $1 trillion in the red and an economy that is much, much worse than the one they inherited. And you say it's mostly the Democrats' fault. Unbelievable.

Your sanctimonious smugness would be funny if it didn't show just how sadly, utterly partisan and clueless you are.

[Pub 17]

beaker
The smoke you're blowing is getting a little thick. I'm glad you learned about entitlement program problems in PoliSci 101 last week. When the bell rings, go to History.