Is Georgie Boy relaxing rules and throwing around bailout money as recklessly as he can just to make things more difficult for Obama to succeed? Or is he just being his usual boneheaded self?
I think both.
I was wondering about that when I was watching the news this morning. I thought maybe he was passing out candy before class ends so we’d think of him as a nice guy in the future. Or maybe he’s trying to buckup the image of the Republican party for next November’s elections.
Bush is an idiot, but not an intentionally evil idiot. So no, he is not trying to make things more difficult for Obama. In the end, if things get better under Obama, Bush’s failures will not seem quite as colossal in long run than if they get worse.
When you look at the various regulations he had changed at the last minute, an intentionally evil idiot.
Are you saying he is knowingly trying to screw up the country? That’s ridiculous.
The country? Of course not. The country is the GOP.
Everybody else is the enemy. Not-the-country. Yer-with-us-er-agin-us.
So the fact that (yes) he is deliberately trying to screw up Obama’s first term is pretty far from ridiculous.
I’d like to say that since no specific instances of Bush’s actions have been given, I’m not sure exactly what we are talking about. But in a general sense, there is no way that Bush is knowingly doing things he hopes will harm Obama’s first term. That would be the same as trying to screw up the country. I would even call it treasonous. Are there specific examples anyone would like to give? Otherwise, this discussion is pointless.
edit: Actually, this isn’t Great Debates, so I shouldn’t say it’s pointless.
Stuff like easing up on as many governmental regulations as he possibly can in order to pave the was for big business to increase their profits; possibly handing out billions in bail out money that Obama might not have or at least would have wanted to review; you know, the regular old GOP vs the Democrats: That isn’t trying to mess up the country; that is just regular old politics. Is is illegal? Probably not. Is it unethical? Almost definitely.
Why not? He’s been doing it for nearly eight years. Yes, he is consciously trying to gut every environmental rule on the books. If he could, I am sure he would give bales of money to all his rich friends. And had he been a conscious agent of the Iranian government (which I am not claiming) he could not have acted differently. Imagine he destroyed Iran’s worst enemy and left much of the country as an Iranian satelite.
As for the bailouts, he (or Cheney) realizes that Obama would be exacting conditions, like get rid of the failed executives, no dividends or bonuses and so on and Bush just wants to throw money at them, to use (or lose) as they see fit.
Which bailouts are we talking about here? Wasn’t this money voted on by Congress?
If I am not mistaken, the use of the money has changed several times for that which it was originally intended.
Source: Washington Post, 31 Oct 2008
Source: Raw Story, 13 Nov 2008
Source: NPR Morning Edition, 21 Nov 2008
So which uses are you talking about?
I believe Bush is pushing pretty hard to split off a chunk of change for the Big Three Automobile manufacturers and I believe those people did not figure in the original plans. Besides which, we are not in great debates so I believe I am within the rules of the game to ask you to read a few newspapers; preferably some published within the last couple of weeks. If I am mistaken, I will apologize
I believe there were originally words thrown around about helping people who were on the brink of losing their homes and I don’t believe so much as a single nickel has been so allocated; in the meantime, one mismanaged corporation after another is lining up with their hands out, screeching 'Me, too, me, too." Especially those institutions who are simply “too large to be allowed to fail.”
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
It wouldn’t be the first treasonous thing the Bush Administration has done. Blowing a CIA operative’s cover to punish her husband, for example.
These are people who simply have no ethics whatsoever, and no loyalty towards, or concern for America; they care about the Republican Party, profit, pushing their religion, and hurting their enemies.
Maybe he thinks that easing up on regulation will cause big businesses to self-regulate? That’s worked so well thus far in his administration.
Originally, the plan was to buy up suspect mortgage backed securities. That is, simply take the bad assets off the hands of financial institutions; the idea was that this would free up their capital, as it no longer needed to be held aside to back the bad securities. That way, banks could go back to doing what they had been doing (i.e., operating “normally”…you can see why this is a bad idea, right?).
That was changed, even before the bailout bill was passed. Instead, the money was/is being used to buy up portions of the companies. This is meant to do a similar thing as buying up the bad securities – free up capital to allow the financial institutions to function again. As I understand it, this worked to a certain degree, although credit is still “tight”, particularly for the average person (that is, lending standards are much higher than they were). The thing here is that the government’s contribution (taxpayer money) is now tied to the institutions’ performance – if they do well, the shares will be worth more and the taxpayer (well, the government, anyways) will actually benefit; if they fail, then I’m pretty sure we’ve got even worse problems.
There’s also been some of the bailout money loaned out to companies; I seem to recall 5% interest. Again, assuming these companies don’t fail, the money spent will be recouped with interest, which is good for the taxpayer/government. My understanding of the Citi bailout is that it was partially a loan, but there’s also a guarantee to absorb any losses – and that’s a complicated situation that I don’t fully get (Citi absorbs the first $29 billion; then, if there’s more loss, the government absorbs 90% of it and Citi loses 10%, but only (?!) up to $300 billion; after that, there’s some other situation).
For the Citi bailout, there’s also some strings attached, which was a huge flaw with the way the money was originally given out – it’s not to be used to pay stock dividends, there are caps on executive compensation, and perhaps some other conditions.
At no point (other than chatter) was the idea to directly pay for or help with individuals’ mortgages, beyond some further restrictions to force renegotiation of the terms (e.g., banks must renegotiate ARM loans and convert them to fixed rate loans at a better-for-the-consumer rate).
That’s all according to my understanding. Which is also that the Bush administration doesn’t want additional, separate funds allocated for the auto makers – any support for them should either come from the already allocated bailout package or from previously allocated funds for “green” research/development. Seems like a good principle – don’t throw even more money at the problem – but it also seems like it’s just a wee bit late for that.
Well, I’m not skilled at debate, which is why I didn’t want this in GD; I will probably have to abdicate my position to those who are skilled. Per your last point, I didn’t claim new money for the Auto jerks, I said Bush wanted to split off money for the Auto jerks; if I didn’t make it clear, Congress got in the way. I expect the Auto jerks will get the money they want anyway; I also expect they will burn through it, walk away with tons of it for themselves and put their respective companies into bankruptcy on their way out the doors. Per your other points, if I understand, then the money that was allocated or supposed to be allocated for specified uses was jacked around with before the bill was even passed. In short, I remain convinced that Bush and his ilk are as nefarious and underhanded as ever.
Do you really think the proposed Big 3 bailout is a Bush initiative? Hasn’t it received stronger support from Dems than from Pubs?