Yes, I think Liberals are goofy about Mr. Obama.
Eighteen months ago, the United States elected its first African American president, Barack Obama, who came to power at a time of extraordinary challenge:
His administration faced two faltering wars, a crippled economy, and a toxic political climate in Washington DC and around the country.
Conservatives quickly, and very reasonably, formed ranks against his policies and ideas.
Mr. Obama certainly isn’t a socialist — that’s nonsense — but he wanted to do things that the vast majority of Republicans don’t like.
The health care reform act, financial reform, the jobs stimulus bill, the jobs-saving bailout of GM, those are just a few of the substantial realignments of America’s society and economy that right-leaning voters oppose.
In the next few weeks, Mr. Obama is also likely to lead the effort to defeat the Bush-era tax cuts, which largely favored the wealthiest people in our country.
If he succeeds, he’ll likely do so with only one or two Republican votes.
The weird part of this drama isn’t that conservatives have fought the President’s agenda hammer and tong.
On the contrary, it’s a healthy part of our democracy that they are providing a completely different vision, giving us all a clear choice. (I’ll blog more about what those choices look like in the days ahead.)
No, the Twilight Zone part of this story is the growing number of liberals who already — eighteen months after the start of Mr. Obama’s first term — want to throw him under the bus.
In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Frank Rich has a lengthy essay called “Why Has He Fallen Short?”
With no hint of humor, Rich uses terms like “nadir” and “doomed” to describe the state of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
The popular liberal blog Crooks and Liars has been offering a similar essay, penned after the recent “Netroots” convention in Las Vegas.
According to the writer, lefties gathered to lament the fact that Obama is “not a heck of a lot better than George Bush…”
This includes a lot of feminists (angry at what they see as betrayals on abortion), many Hispanics angry at the continued harsh enforcement of immigration laws, gays who feel Obama has betrayed clear promises on gay rights, anti-war activists saddened by escalation in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and a mishmash of folks who think health care reform was a dog’s breakfast and that the general way the economy and financial reform has been handled is a disgrace.
I’m not cherry-picking here. Surf the liberal media — from MSNBC to The Nation — and you’ll find card-carrying liberals who are more or less ready to pack it in.
Likewise, a growing number of polls show that the greatest drop-off in support for Mr. Obama and his party is occurring in liberal bastions like Vermont and Massachusetts.
Before I wrestle with the whys of this disenchantment, a reality check. I’ve opined here before that Mr. Obama’s legislative record is nothing short of astonishing.
(Again, if you’re conservative, it’s reasonable to view that record as astonishingly bad…)
Any other president would have been tickled to get through his first two years with one trophy the size of health care reform.
This White House has crossed the finish line a half dozen times on major policies and legislation, while also locking in the confirmations of two center-left Supreme Court justices.
What’s more, the President’s economic policies have drawn accolades from nonpartisan analysts. Here’s a report on new study of the stimulus package released last week.
The Great Recession wasn’t a depression, thanks to federal stimulus efforts.
That conclusion flows from the first major, independent analysis of recent fiscal and monetary policies — such as the bank bailouts, the home-buyers tax credit and Cash for Clunkers stimulus program.
“The stimulus has done what it was supposed to do: end the Great Recession and spur recovery,” wrote Alan Blinder, a professor of economics at Princeton University, and Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics.
Meanwhile, here’s Jonathan Alter in his book The Promise, describing Obama’s first year in office.
PolitiFact.com, a database of the St. Petersburg Times that won a Pulitzer Prize for its fact-checking of the 2008 campaign, had catalogued 502 promises that Obama made during the campaign.
At the one-year mark the totals showed that he had already kept 91 of them and made progress on another 285.
The database’s “Obameter” rated 14 promises as “broken” and 87 as “stalled.”
With promises ranging from “Remove more brush and vegetation that fuel wildfires” to “Establish a playoff system for college football,” PolitiFact selected 25 as Obama’s most significant.
Of those, an impressive 20 were “kept” or “in the works.”
Despite that track record, liberals are so sour on Mr. Obama that many of them are likely to stay home in large numbers this November, likely tipping key House and Senate races to the GOP.
So what’s behind all the ire?
The biggest miscalculation made by liberals was that they viewed the President’s campaign centrism — his clear support for the Afghanistan war, for example — as a ruse.
But the fact is that Mr. Obama has stuck religiously to the agenda he laid out during the campaign, including those promises that run contrary to the liberal agenda.
In the end, liberals and conservatives will both have a choice come November.
For conservatives, that choice is fairly easy. They see Mr. Obama’s policies as so dangerously liberal that even a muddled, disorganized Republican agenda is preferable.
They’re working hard to elect what would certainly be one of the most right-of-center Congresses in American history.
Liberals, on the other hand, will have to decide whether the Democratic majority they created in Congress is hopelessly flawed or worth saving.
Newest poll shows only two things more annoying than Obama: Justin Bieber and jock itch. SHOCKING story at:
http://spnheadlines.blogspot.com/2010/07/quinnipiac-poll-obama-less-annoying.html
Peace! :-)
On the contrary, it’s a healthy part of our democracy that they are providing a completely different vision, giving us all a clear choice. (I’ll blog more about what those choices look like in the days ahead.)
You have your work cut out for you!
The only different clear choices I’ve heard put forward by the GOP are those of Rep. Paul Ryan and the GOP seems to want to keep those on the “down low”.
Over the last few weeks I’ve heard a question asked of Republican after Republican politician. “Name one item in the federal budget that you would cut that would make a serious dent in the deficit. I’ve yet to hear any of them answer that question.
Actually, they do have one idea….cut taxes (without paying for them mind you) and the benefits of those tax cuts will “trickle down”.
“Mr. Obama certainly isn’t a socialist — that’s nonsense”
[from Wikipedia]
Socialism is an economic and political theory based on public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.
They generally share the view that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital and derives its wealth through a system of exploitation.
What’s so bad about being a Socialist?
Was Obama’s picture part of the definition?
Should be.
the liberal critique of obama has everything to do with missed opportunities, and the continuance of the Bush-era policies on the “war on terror”. After 8 years of the Bush administration, we had a very small window of time to get some real change enacted. Obama, instead of starting on the left, and negotiating to the center, started from the center, and got center-right bills instead. I do not see any more major legislation being passed in the near future due to elections and the coming resurgence of the GOP.
As for the stimulus, liberal economists (like Paul Krugman) argued that the stimulus is too small. We avoided a depression, but unemployment is still over 9%, which is about where the administration said it would be WITHOUT the stimulus. Now we’re $700 billion in the hole, and no one thinks that the stimulus did anything. Republicans would have complained at the size no matter what, so why not do what the economists recommended?
As for health care, single payer or expanded medicare were never on the table. It would have never passed, but if these were Obama’s starting points, perhaps the public option would have survived. Instead, we have a mandate for health insurance, and the lower and middle classes are stuck with the bill.
Other issues that liberals hate: net neutrality (the telcos have just ‘helped’ draft an NN law to their liking, and greased the skids with promised campaign cash), the war on terror (the DoJ has continued Bush’s ‘state secrets’ defense for national security court cases, Gitmo, targeting of US citizens for assassination, etc.), food stamp aid being cut to fund other initiatives, and so on.
Verplanck –
Your analysis is interesting. I see two pretty debatable points worth wrestling with.
First, your argument that “we had a very small window of time to get some real change enacted.”
This is a key liberal talking point, the notion that the chance to get substantial things done in a four- or eight-year term was likely to expire after 12 months.
But I don’t see any factual basis for the claim.
If the Democrat majority survives, I expect we’ll see a serious push on immigration reform, energy policy, gays in the military and other liberal causes in the next two years.
Second, your suggestion that no ‘real change’ was enacted.
Liberals, obviously, haven’t gotten everything they wanted.
But most independent analysts view Mr. Obama’s record on healthcare reform, financial reform as substantial changes from the Bush-Republican policy.
–Brian, NCPR
Brian,
What Verplanck says. There’s 9% unemployment (and that’s just the official number, not the real one, as Bret will remind us, I’m sure), state governments are in some places literally dying, killing off education porgrams and things like parks funding (a GOP dream), and the White House just doesn’t seem to mind. Couple that with no reduction in war spending, the tin-eared offshore drilling decision just as BP blew out, and a tendency to “punch hippies in the face” by not standing up for people like Shirley Sherrod (I suppose to prove centrist “cred” to people like Politico editors and David Broder and you), and it’s little wonder that liberals across the spectrum are disappointed.
Frankly, there’s a lot not to get excited about, except the prospect of Speaker of the House (and Fairways) John Boehner.
I believe that he has done a wonderful job. His most recent accomplishment of signing another extension of unemployment benefits may “single-handed” keep the North Country economy chugging along at its current pace.
I hope we can look forward to another extension before it runs out again in November.
I hope that he can accelerate the pace of troop withdrawals from the two Bush wars.
If he falters on his promise of “no tax increase for those earning below $250,000”, I consider that to be minor. We all may have to pay a little more to help those that can’t or won’t help themselves. That’s just part of being a civilized society.
I am looking ofrward to his next 6 years in office.
As one whose politics are to the left of the President’s, if I had one wish for him it would be that he would give up his pipedream of “post-partisanship” and understand the GOP goal is to totally oppose absolutely anything he endorses in their efforts to win in 2010 and defeat him in 2012 and proceed from that starting point.
Hey, somebody’s stealing my “anon” identity!
I’m usually the long-winded one.
From now on I’ll have to change my handle to oa, for original anon.
Sorry if I don’t get that Chris Mathews “tingle down my leg” over The King. Let me ask all of you Obama supporters as question though- If he’s not willing to cut anything and Congress isn’t willing to cut anything and if the State isn’t willing to cut anything and if revenue continues to fall far sort of what’s needed to cover providing everything to every special interest group under the sun…..is there any answer other than increased taxes? You know, the same taxes that kill jobs, stifle small business and leave you and me with less and less in our checkbooks each month? The Republicans won’t cut anything either, the back stabbing useless cowards, so there’s no hope over the horizon.
Maybe the best thing would be for me to just call it quits and join the other side. It sure would be easier to join in with the cries to punish the “rich” (whatever “rich” is this week), to provide artificial supports for people just because of their skin color or sex or ethnic origin or political party, to join in in outlawing anything that smells of traditional America life, to join in supporting the invention of new “rights” while outlawing old ones…..jeeze, sounds like a lot of work and I’m a lazy kinda guy. Guess I’ll stick with the status quo.
In the immortal words of Warren Oates, “Lighten up, Francis.”
Besides the oil in the gulf has been declared gone! Yeah team!
Bret, the whole “punish the rich” thing is tremendously misguided. The rich should pay their fair share. Capital gains are taxed at 15%, income for the wealthy is taxed at a little more than twice that. So what do you do if you’re wealthy enough to keep accountants and lawyers on staff? You arrange to have all the money you make come to you as a capital gain instead of regular income. Why should the wealthy pay a lower percentage than the middle class?
Verplanck pretty much nailed it.
Why allow the Republicans to run out the clock on you when you can move legislation?
Brian says: “But most independent analysts view Mr. Obama’s record on healthcare reform, financial reform as substantial changes from the Bush-Republican policy.”
Brian, the Bush-Republican party is far to the right of the Reagan-Republican party. If you compare Nixon to Bush you would find that Nixon’s policies were a far cry from Bush’s. We liberals want something better.
As far as I’m concerned the election was about the Supreme Court and I would have voted for Beelzebub to keep the nominations out of Republican hands. But that doesn’t mean I ever believed Obama was a liberal. The frustrating thing is that the right believes he is…or at least they tell their minions he is.
Knuck- the problem is defining “rich”. Now John Kerry is rich, or rather his wife is. Second wife, he served the first with divorce papers while she was in a mental institute. Classy guy. The Senator keeps his $7 million dollar yacht in Rhode Island IIRC so as to avoid Mass. taxes. He would be the kind of low life scum sucking dirt bag we’d all like to see pay his “fair share”. But what about the “rich” guy who is essence a small businessman that’s actually trying to play by the rules and to build something lasting and strong for his family and employees? He may show a great profit and fall into the dreaded “rich” category. He needs that profit to grow the business and hire employees. The gov’t says they have more right to that money than he does, so the gov’t (politicians) steal that money under color of law. If you try to play by the rules you’ll lose, simple as that.
I don’t “like” rich people. I’m just a jealous of their wealth as anyone else. But I also realize it’s petty jealousy and that the rich do in fact tend to be the people employing the rest of us po’folks. You want to even it out and make it fair? Get rid of all the taxes and loop holes and subsidies and junk and go with a flat tax or consumption tax. I favor the latter. If you choose to live frugally and save you’ll benefit. If you choose to be extravagant and spend, spend, spend…well good for you. Currently the harder one works to make something of themselves the more the gov’t punishes you. That’s not right. This would give you a choice. Oh yeah, and gov’t needs to learn to live within a budget-permanently.
Obama will the do the same thing Clinton did to his majority…kill it. That way he wont be beholding to all those “goofy” liberals. The Clinton/ Dole race was a joke and the swelling Clinton war chest should have been used to fund those weak seats in the house in order to keep a majority. Instead those seats were lost and Bill Clintons “hands were tied” when it came to moving legislation.
Also, why would we resuscitate an economy likened to a psychopath without legitimate regulation in place first? Call me crazy but a full blown recession may have been the dose of medicine we needed and not the stimulus package.
At the very least we should have stimulated from the bottom up.
That may have kept the tea bags, the liberals, and the conservative quiet covering the entire political spectrum in this here US of A.
There you go again Bret. Mr. “I hate Democrats as much as I hate Republicans”. How do you think all those Democrats and Republicans got elected? People voted for them. Why do they stay in office? Because people vote for them again and again because they are doing what the voters want. Remember that survey from a month or so ago asking voters what they think should be cut from government? Foreign aid!!!
Now maybe you TEA party types can get in there and fix the broken system. The logical place to start is to get rid of, or scale back, social security and medicare. Good luck with convincing the voters you want to take away those programs and good luck with getting re-elected.
They got elected because most people choose row a or row b without putting much thought into it. They stay in office by using tax payer money to send out fliers telling us what a fantastic job they’re doing and by making a big show of bringing a little bit of stolen tax money back to the area. Whoop te doo. Remember, most of the population is perfectly happy as long as they have football, Dancing with the Stars or NASCAR. Debt? Unemployment? Deficit spending? Rights? Forget all that stuff, hand me a beer and get the game on!
Re-election- there’s a problem. Term limits would help, don’t you think? So would establishing the idea of keeping our people out of Washington and back home. They can tele-conference for most of what they do. That might help bring the “public service” idea back.
If you want to cut back Social Security, etc. that’s fine. But you can’t yank the rug out from under the people currently under those plans overnight. Nope, it won;t be popular, but cutting entitlements never is.
What’s the alternative? More and more and more debt.
Brian, the left is doing what the left always does– surely you’ve seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian. “Splitters!!”
The Right on the other hand is now vociferously opposing many of their own former positions, now that Obama is championing them: See Rachel Madow (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/38782)
Bret,
Obama and the democrats are more willing to correct out finances more than republicans. PAYGO rules are now in place, so that every dollar spent has to be cut elsewhere. The health care bill has been predicted to reduce costs. The pentagon has started to reject some of the more egregious projects that are nothing more than pork to the defense industry. Under Bush, we got ourselves into two deficit-financed wars, a trillion dollar tax cut that wasn’t offset with spending cuts, and a 500 billion dollar prescription drug bill that was also deficit-financed.
As for state and local spending, that issue is more about local politics and power than ideology. Breaking that cycle will require more than a rejection of liberal policies.
As for ‘artificial support’ (i.e. welfare programs), it has been proven by economists that things like food stamps give more stimulating effects to our economy than corporate tax cuts. Unemployment checks go right back into the economy as people pay for their food, clothing and shelter.
It’s interesting to hear you, as a conservative, being jealous of the rich. I’m a leftie, but I’m not jealous, per se. I want them to pay for their fair share of government. Others here have highlighted the main point: rich people can hire lawyers and accountants to cheat the system and pay a lower tax rate than us poor schmoes who fill out their tax forms on their own. Conservatives want a flat tax for fairness, but I think that we’d do better by eliminating all of our loopholes. With those gone, we get more revenues, and probably could reduce the tax rate on everyone, rich and poor alike.
I’m not a fan of term limits. At this point, lobbyists draft bills for congresscritters to introduce. Seasoned politicians at least know the ins and outs of the process. If we’re doomed to have a fresh crop of people every 10 years of so, the lobbyists will have even more power since they know the game better than our elected representatives. It’s a misguided solution to our problem: too much monied interest in the system. I think campaign finance reform is a more effective solution to this problem.
Bret, would you give up your police pension to balance the budget?
Wait? Bret has a police pension? You mean my tax dollars…..
Verplanck- To cut all the loopholes would require a complete rethinking of the tax code, it’s made up of loopholes. Do it anyway you can, but anything to limit the “shady” outs would be a help. Still, unless you cut spending we’re not going to solve the problem.
oa- did I work 20+ years contributing to my pension every day (it wasn’t a “freebie”)? Yeah, I think I did. So I worked and earned it. I wouldn’t be in favor of stealing from me or anyone else who paid into their retirement. That’s a little too Enron for me thanks. You want to change things then you start with the new hires and work from there, same with Social Security or any of the medical entitlement programs. I’ve said this before, you can;t fix it over night. It’s a lot easier to kick a hole in a dam than it is to put the water back. It’s going to take decades to fix things.
BTW- I have zero faith in Social Security being there when I’m eligible. I can deal with that. I can’t deal with the idea of pulling the rug out from under those living off SS or Disability with no other income, and I know plenty of those people. We let our politicians sell us these ideas and now we have to pay for those mistakes. Taxes will go up, no doubt. I just want spending cut too.
Brian Mann,
With respect to the stimulus: by Obama’s own standard- unemployment won’t exceed 8%- it was a miserable failure. No maybe it prevented things from getting worse, but I don’t think there’s any way of knowing for sure what would have happened without or with a different policy.
One of the Democrat’s and Obama’s problems for the coming elections is that
“Vote for Me
It would have been worse”
is not a particularly appealing slogan.
I had very mixed emotions about the 2008 election. I trully believed that Bush did not really win in either 2000 or 2004…doesn’t really matter. What did matter was that he really put us on a road to perdition…won’t argue that, sorry.
Whomever was elected in 2008, he/she would inherit a world of hurt, and wouldd not be able to please anyone. I almost voted Repug just to let them have to take the blame for not being able to clean up the mess.
Bret, it is pretty obvious that you don’t run a business and that you don’t really know what rich is. I run a business, two of them actually. One business is a real estate holding company that rents my commercial workspace to myself. That way I can take money that I would be taxed at 35% on and pay rent to myself so I only pay 15% on it if there is a profit. Its all legal.
My business that actually manufactures product (yes, made in America) grosses less in a year than most of my customers make in one month. Business is actually pretty good, but we are a small company, just two of us and some part-time help. I don’t pay myself a lot of money but I’m comfortable. My business pays for my health-care so that is good (except I’d rather pay more to the government and have national health-care).
So I’m going to tell you something that most business people wont tell you:
business people lie about their business. They will cry and complain that government regulations are too strict, and that they don’t make a profit. Sometimes regulations and paperwork are a pain in the butt, but it isn’t that big a deal. And profit? Anyone who runs a business that makes a substantial profit is an idiot (yeah, count me among them). There are so many ways to spend excess money out of a business to make it look like you don’t make anything it isn’t funny. Try this one, start paying for health insurance; that goes up 10-25% every year. Great way to reduce your profits!
Here’s some more detail on one of my reasons why Obama is a disappointment to me:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/12/091012fa_fact_lizza
Knuck- I’m sorry, just where did you define “rich” in your story? Are you saying you are rich? And your story proves out my point- you have to use loopholes to stay in business. Actually, loopholes is just another word for cheating, but legalized cheating to avoid legalized theft of your income makes and odd sort of sense. With a simpler tax code and lower tax rates you wouldn’t have to “cheat” to make a profit to grow your business, now would you?
Look, we simply can’t continue to give everyone everything they want for eternity. There is a base level of services that need to be maintained and, regrettably, a certain amount of tax revenue has to be collected to support that basic service level. There’s no need for duplicated and redundant services and agencies. There’s no need for public money being involved in private enterprise, banking and loans, subsidizing airports and rail service, much less auto manufacturing and healthcare. We’ve created a monster that feeds on cash and it’s hunger never slows, it only grows.
In my little fantasy world if I sell a lamb for $100.00 if should pay a small portion to support that basic system, say 10%. I get to keep the other 90% to cover my production costs, improve my farm and livestock and to put a little away for the day I have to pay my land and school taxes or when I need a new ram or roof. The millionaire down the road that sells $100K worth of widgits should pay a small portion, say 10%, and have the rest to cover his costs, pay his employees, growth, other taxes, etc. His actual profit and my actual profit may be similar in percentage or maybe he’s a millionaire because he’s a lot smarter manager than I am and is just better at thinking things out.
The conservative view says we’re both entitled to our earnings and here’s hoping you both grow. The liberal view is that I’m not paying enough in taxes and I’m probably polluting the environment while exploiting those poor lambs. But, I’m a small time guy and probably need subsidies to survive after paying additional taxes. The millionaire is obviously and evil sob and should be taxed at 90% because he has more than…..well, he’s just got a lot so he deserves to pay more.
Simplistic, yes, but basically accurate.
I don’t know if you can define “rich”; it’s a relative term.
If you have millions but aren’t happy because Bill Gates has more, are you rich? If you make ends meet, and that’s all you want to do, are you less rich?
I think we can define an income level or accumualation of assets that we arbitrarily define as rich. I don’t have a problem with the estate tax, because I trully believe it only affects the most wealthy, who, in many but not all cases, came to their wealth because their grandfathers were better thieves than others’. I think the income level that is being bandied about as meriting the expiration of their tax breaks is fair. And trickle down has not, does not, and will not work.
Frankly, I think the more you give away, the richer you are.
Hi Bret,
I have no doubt you earned your pension, but if yours is a direct-benefit pension, then a lot of the fiscal scolds and Tea Partiers on the right think you and your fellow beneficiaries are part of problem. A big part:
http://www.empirecenter.org/Special-Reports/2006/06/defusing_new_yo.cfm
OA, that’s fine and I understand the thought (and facts!) behind the ideas for change and agree with many of the ideas in that link. But, beyond my personal situation, I’m not in favor of overnight changes as some propose. Firstly it’s fundamentally unfair, in terms of labor contracts if not morally/ethically, to change a retirees benefits post facto. Retirees, be they Troopers, teachers, DOT, DMV, DEC…any state agency, retired with a contract and an understanding of what they were getting into by retiring. You yank the rug out from under NY’s retirees and it’s just like yanking the rug out from under the elderly living on Social Security- you create a whole new welfare class.
We need to cut and change, yes. I think it’s going to take 20-30 years to get things to where their sustainable. It won’t happen overnight, but it also won’t happen unless we start today.
I agree withmany things being said here. Bret- Where do you stand on legacy cost GM? Should those retirees be expected to give back? Also, I think it is true that you can only get moey fom people who have some and NY(and any other states is becoming a very retired state. How much longer can we continue to give breaks to people just because they are a certain age and say to those just entering the workforce ‘Sorry about your luck’?
Bret,
All I’m saying is nobody really minded in the 1980s when financiers bought companies, a la “Wall Street,” raided the pension funds, closed the companies, and laid off the employees. That’s just capitalism, pensions and contracts be damned, and some but richer was smarter than the poor people who built up the funds.
The same thing is happening now: There’s big piles of money in pension funds, and the same people have their sights set on them, including the biggest fund of all, Social Security. They want to “privatize” it and make it more “efficient.”
The same people who saw all the inefficiencies and costliness and greed in auto worker retirement benefits are seeing the same things in cops’ and firefighters’ and teachers’ more protected benefits. And they’re using the same dirty word, “union,” and a worse one, “public employee,” to make the case that people like you don’t deserve what you and people before you bargained for. And that it should be taken away right now (so they can get the fees from more “efficient” reinvestment).
Sometimes, you gotta ask for whom the bell tolls.
Bob, I’m not entirely clear on exactly what you mean, but if I follow you and the people retired on a contract then the employer, whether it’s NYS, GMC or the Federal Gov’t, is obligated to fulfill that agreement. Now, if you’re asking if I think GM made some idiotic concessions to the unions over the years (as did NYS) then yeah, I agree completely.
We face the same issue in NYS as we face nationally with Social Security- lack of revenue. We’ve created a problem because we (I did this too) thought the good times would never end. We thought the taxpaying population would continue to grow and that revenue would flow like Genesee at a demolition derby. We we arrogant and foolish and now we have to pay for it. It’s gonna hurt.
OA, I know what you mean but that stuff where they ended up throwing employees to the hogs. It never set well with me. I always figured if you made an agreement you should try and stick by it. Old fashioned, I know.
I’m guilty of what you speak of in a way. I never was a big union guy and I never understood why a union high school drop out was getting $25K a year for sticking bolt A in hole B while I was making $17K after taking a series of competitive exams, physical tests, background investigations, had to have a squeaky clean record and still score high enough not to be bumped by an affirmative action hire. That kind of thing leaves a sour taste, ya know? So I groused like everyone else. But perspective changes over time. So now I figure that I made my choice and he made his, so be it. I still think unions get some real juicy contracts, my old job included. Again, arrogance and greed and people thinking the money will come…somehow. Now we’re stuck and there’s no way we’re going to get out easy.
Social Security started getting raided back under LBJ if memory serves. I wonder how much more damage privatizing it would do? I have zero faith I’ll ever see any of it.
Well on those retirement issues the demographics are working against us also. Systems like social security and many pensions need one thing to make them work; many new babies. Babies who will someday become workers who will pay for the old who are dying faster than the babies are being added. But today we are not adding enough babies to make up for the healthier longer living older people. Its a problem all over Europe and Japan.
Yeah, Bret and Mervel, I agree there are issues, and the pension plans are a real problem, especially for local governments (which is why I brought it up), but Social Security is pretty easily fixable without drastic measures like privatization. A few tweaks will make it solvent til 2075, as I understand it.
Yeah, Bret and Mervel, I agree there are issues, and the pension plans are a real problem, especially for local governments (which is why I brought it up), but Social Security is pretty easily fixable without drastic measures like privatization. Actually, those filthy 14th amendment immigrants are paying into the system, by an large, and often not getting anything back. Plus, a few tweaks will make it solvent til 2075, as I understand it. (Too late on a Friday to look it up.)
i’m late to the party but here are some thoughts chiefly related to verplanck’s 10:07 comment and those that address it.
i think verplanck is right about the small window to get things done. unless there’s filibuster reform it’s very hard to get anything done in the senate without close to 60 senators, and it’s very hard to sustain a majority that big.
i’m with brian on health care. i think the affordable care act was a massive victory for progressives/liberals/democrats/whatever-you-will. of course that’s not to say it couldn’t have been better — a public option would have been great and single payer would have been even better (though i don’t think there’s any hope it would ever pass). but the structure put in place by the aca is a sound one and because of this victory it’s politically reasonable for there to be tweaks and improvements made in the near future. that’s what happened with social security, after all. i personally don’t think it’ll be long before democrats start to make a new push for a public option, after all.
i think one of obama’s biggest mistakes was the too-small stimulus. i think those who say the stimulus did nothing are really wrong — as the report brian linked to points out, there are solid estimates that the stimulus had a real (positive!) impact on employment and gdp. but obama’s economic team (as well as many private forecasters, to be fair) badly misjudged the severity of the downturn, which is why we’ve ended up with unemployment worse than the worse-case scenario put forth by obama’s team at the beginning of his term.
so far as i understand obama has handled the draw-down in iraq well, but his escalation in afghanistan looks increasingly like a blunder. one important thing verplanck fails to mention is the administration’s failure to prosecute the perpetrators of torture under bush. the best way to ensure that the u.s. tortures in the future is to impose no consequences on those who have done it now.
Campaign Finance Reform!
Start there and work your way back to every problem/solution.
Problem solved?
HT- you keep saying the stimulus was too small, but as I understand it less than half has been spent so far. How do you square that?
http://projects.propublica.org/tables/stimulus-spending-progress
According to that chart only 46.08% of stimulus moneys have “been spent”. In fact that chart shows some puzzling things- why does the US Agency for InternationalDevelopment get $38 million? How does that help the US? The Corporation of National and Community Service get’s $200 million. As I understand it that’s Obamas brainchild to fulfill his hope for a civilian corps larger than the armed forces, or however he termed it. That’s just the seed money for that project. I don;t see how that stimulates the economy.
The “stimulus” is a boondoggle of gigantic proportion. Same with TARP. Using borrowed money to fund Health and Human Services ($122 BILLION!!!!) is supposed to stimulate the economy? Looks more like a band aid to patch up a lack of tax revenue.
H-T where does go to get answers on this health-care law. A friend is asking who to go to about keeping his 24 year-old on his policy. The ins company says COBRA($) and he has not been able to get any answers from representatives in gov’t. So maybe you know, where do you go to signup for ObamaCare?
Bret, thanks for the great link, it’s full of information. Information that answers your questions specifically. For example, “why does the US Agency for InternationalDevelopment get $38 million.” Click on the USAID link and it gives you the answer. All the money is going to the development and operation of the Global Acquisition and Assistance System. The GLAAS is some sort of IT project, the specifics of which don’t interest me that much. What does interest me is that the $38 million is going to a company called Devis, a “minority women owned certified small business” [http://www.devis.com/Past_Performance/USAID/GLAAS]. Sounds to me that the money is being used to keep or provide jobs, right?
As for the commie sounding Corporation for National and Community Service, it (as I’m sure you’re aware) operates AmeriCorp and VISTA programs. I’m proud to say my daughter was an AmeriCorp volunteer in Boston inner city elementary schools. Most AmeriCorp volunteers are eligible for food stamps, so I guess in that sense it doesn’t stimulate the economy. She has used her AmeriCorp experience to gain admittance to a highly competitive Masters degree program. Also,she receives from AmeriCorps, $5,000 towards tuition for her Master’s degree.
I’m pretty sure my daughter and her AmeriCorp friends do not consider the stimulus, or at least money supporting AmeriCorp, a “boondoggle”. I’m guessing they see their AmeriCorps experience as patriotic and something more than a “boondoggle”.
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx
In the above posted website you can enter a zipcode, click on a map (and zoom in) and see, more specifically, where money has been awarded.
Hey, cool, I didn’t notice that. Thanks. But you avoid the question- you say the stimulus wasn’t big enough and if I read the chart right, which you haven’t denied yet, then 54% remains unspent.
I have no doubt your kid had a wonderful time and very educational experience in Americorps. How did it stimulate the economy? Never mind, I found it-
“The funding supports more than 15,000 AmeriCorps members to provide vital services to people facing unemployment, poverty, or other challenges by offering job counseling and placement services, providing foreclosure prevention and financial counseling, weatherizing homes, strengthening food banks, supporting health care and independent living services, and more.
The Corporation for National and Community Service acted swiftly to get funding into communities and boots on the ground, swearing in the first AmeriCorps VISTA members on April 24 and making AmeriCorps grants on May 14. One year after enactment of the Recovery Act, preliminary reports show these Recovery Act AmeriCorps members are achieving strong results, including:
* Leveraged more than 135,000 volunteers to serve 1.1 million clients
* Provided employment and skills training and counseling to more than 35,000 clients
* Helped place more than 5,400 people in jobs
* Provided foreclosure and housing assistance services to more than 22,000 people
* Generated more than $18.3 million in cash and in-kind resources for nonprofits
In addition to providing direct services to individuals and communities affected by the economic downturn, Recovery Act AmeriCorps members are providing a critical boost to more than 600 nonprofits across the country by mobilizing volunteers, raising funds, creating programs, and expanding service delivery at a time of growing social need. ”
I forget the word that describes this stuff, fluffocracy comes to mind. Sorry, but $38 million is a lot of bucks for redundant social services.
Bret, A few posts ago you accused me of putting words in your mouth. Now show me where I said the stimulus wasn’t big enough.
What redundant social services? Sorry, but you haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about. Even if the 38 million went to provide money for the 15,000 AmeriCorps volunteers, that is still only $2533/volunteer. Are you suggesting the volunteers aren’t worth it? That they didn’t provide any service to their country. I’d suggest they provided as much service as any cop or soldier. You sir, are insulting.
Sorry got you and HT mixed. Still, the question to HT remains. how can it be too small if it hasn’t all been used.
What redundant services? Looking at the list I posted I see a whole bunch that are already covered by other agencies in most states I know of. But I guess having 5 or 6 agencies is better than having 1 or 2 doing the same thing?
Tell me, if this is all volunteer work then where did the $38 mill go? Administration probably. IOW this is another bureaucracy. So that’s $38 million that could have gone to direct payments to the needy or to actually creating jobs.
I’m sure I find your constant defense of the status quo system equally as insulting as you find me.