So where IS this new spending going, then? Federal employees had their wages frozen, most departments had their budgets frozen or cut. The money’s got to be going somewhere, right?
Tax cuts – payments to S.S. fund to make up for the extended S.S. cut.
Here was one of the previous proposals for healthcare reform. Of course, that was Socialist Medicine, which is why we rejected it. Only sharing the social costs of health through insurance is Capitalistic. Except no, turns out that a policy advocated by a conservative think tank is also Socialist. So we’ll let the free market take care of our healthcare needs, like in Somalia. Which is experiencing a leap in lifespan now that its Communist government has been deposed!
That’s common sense. How does the government raise revenue? Tax, borrow or print money. Each of these results in an equivalent decrease in private spending. Taxes remove money from the private sector. Printing money decreases the value of the currency. Borrowed money needs to be paid back through one of the other two mechanisms. Make sense?
Those are your words not mine. There is a lot of uncertainty whether business is involved or not. The regulations are still being written. Even if business has a seat at the table they cannot know the final outcome in advance. This has been a significant source of uncertainty over the last year or more.
The spending went directly to a number of agencies. I posted a link to ARRA upthread. That increased spending has been frozen. Get it?
That PDF makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a pen. Perhaps that’s by design, though. Unfortunately, that’s too much work to go through. I was hoping someone had some easily digestible figures handy, but it seems not.
I didn’t let it go… But I am done responding to the person who spouts opinions without citations and ignores citations that show his opinions are wrong.
Nice attempt to tap out while trying to save face. The only citations you provided are opinion polls and an opinion piece from Ezra Klein. Good luck next time!
The main point is that a whole lot of the money went to individual agencies. Some of the programs are temporary like extending unemployment benefits and health coverage for the unemployed. The problem is that the money was folded into individual federal agencies. When Congress passes continuing resolutions the same amount of money is spent in each agency. So, even though government froze spending in its agencies it did so after the stimulus money was added to the bottom line.
From The Maddow Blog:
So here’s a Republican strategist who admits that they are sabotaging the economy…
Their excuse (and the one that I predict will become the prevailing “wisdom” from such folks) is similar to that of fans of sports teams who hate their current manager or coach who root for their teams to lose in order to get the guy replaced.
I never saw the logic in this, but there is no shortage of “fans” who feel that their current coach will never win a championship so they root against small successes (regular season wins or early playoff victories) because they don’t want to encourage ownership to keep the bum. So they hope to get the guy fired and replaced with someone who can take the team the distance.
So Obama is bad for the economy for years from now, so sabotage him now because Romney will be better for the economy years from now.
Even if this logic had merit, it’s still outright sabotage. And here’s someone admitting it.
That’s not even in the neighborhood of sabotage. Obviously the republicans feel that Obama’s economic policies do more harm than good. Republicans expect the economy to be in the toilet when such policies are implemented.
I’m sure most Republicans feel that Obama and the Dems slowed any recovery we should be experiencing. But, regardless of policy, eventually the economy will improve on its own. Of course any republican would rather see the economy recover after Obama’s ass is out of office because, regardless of the reason for the recovery, the current administration always gets the credit. It’s kinda like the Dems rooting for us to lose the war in Iraq in order to make Bush look bad.
I’m sorry, but…what?
The difference would be that some Dems may have hoped we’d clusterfuck in Iraq. But they weren’t setting the bombs and killing our soldiers.
Republicans in power are not only *hoping *that the economy stalls. They are actively working to damage the economy. See the debt ceiling, Bush tax cuts, and unwillingness to pass a job’s bill.
Party before country, and ideology before facts.
You can’t imagine that Republicans consider opposing Obama on all of those things to be good for the economy? Do you even know what was in the “Jobs” bill? Why would we want to raise the debt ceiling without trying to get some cuts in government spending in return. Oh, and have you forgotten that Republicans believe tax cuts are good for the economy.
I’m sure you disagree with all of that but sabotage it ain’t.
That’s a great description of the modern Left.
“I know you are, but what am I?”
The new conservative bumper sticker.
I don’t doubt that some Republicans are true believers. Especially the people voted in on the Tea Party surge of 2010. But the leadership doesn’t believe. Because both McConnel and Boehner aren’t stupid. They understand what’s happening and are doing what they do on purpose.
Not enough to quote it from memory. But I did read this page.
Because every other congress had. Also, defaulting on the debt ceiling would destroy the world economy. That’s a fact. And what the Republicans did is threaten the world economy so they could get what they want.
Let me say that again. The Republicans threatened the world economy, so they could get what they want. Do you hold a knife to your wife’s throat and say, “Hey babe, how about pizza tonight?”
Nothing is good in every case. The fact that taxes are lower than they were in decades, should tell you that cutting them further isn’t necessarily smart.
A valiant attempt to gild the turd, but the Republicans have been acting in a destructive manner.
So, say you have an infection in your finger. Pretty bad, doctor says take all of this big ol’ bottle of antibiotics, and you’ll get better. But you figure you are smarter than him, and just take a third of the medicine. And you get worse and then you say “Good thing I didn’t take it all, I’d be in real bad shape!”