Obama keeps talking essentially the same line “vote for my bill, I don’t know what’s in it yet (it hasn’t been written), but it will cost a LOT of money”
Really, Mr. President?
I am reminded of the classic scene in the movie “The Wizard of Oz”-when Dorothy and her friends finall get to see the wizard: “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”.
Sorry, Mr. President, your time is up…bye. We’ve had three years of no leadership and no direction, time for a change (no, not "Hope and Change"©
What are you babbling about?
Obama laid out particular proposals, AND a price tag, AND HOW it was paid for. Did you watch the same speech as everyone else?
Sounds like you wrote that last week.
I rather doubt that the political process got easier for Clinton after the GOP took over Congress.
By “political process” I mean getting legislation passed.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s paid for by spending cuts in future years - which historically fail to actually materialize. Skepticism about this point would be warranted, and I want to see the actual details.
Which we don’t have, since there isn’t a bill anyone in the public or even most members of Congress have seen.
Well, we have to hurry up and pass it. How else to see what’s in it?
I certainly do. And it would sure help if that twit in the Oval Office didn’t try to jack up spending by $450 billion and shove the responsibility off on someone else.
This is an act of political cowardice. Obama wants the credit for increasing spending without having to make the tough choices he talked about in his speech.
If and when this passes, it won’t be his fault if it is loaded up with pork and earmarks. It won’t be his fault if somebody else can’t take the heat for significant spending cuts. It won’t be his fault if somebody else can’t clean up his mess.
Best case scenario is if it isn’t his fault because he isn’t in office anymore.
Regards,
Shodan
I am utterly baffled as to what you could possibly be basing that on. The speech was of course a complete waste of time, we know what the Republicans are going to say, hell they’ve been repeating that “the stimulus was a failure” mantra for so long that by now it is taken as truth.
As someone who has tried to do so (home value <50% of original now), the qualification window is a very thin needle, loaded with “oh, we’re so sorry” trip-wires. In my case, because we also have a second mortgage carried by a separate lender than the primary, we fail for refinancing on anything.
Or he could be, you know, listening to mainstream economics, which says not to cut demand in a recession and instead schedule those cuts for the future. But I guess since Republicans don’t believe in science anymore, that idea might not have occurred to you.
When Obama announces exactly how he’ll pay for it in the coming weeks, will that satisfy you? I expect not, as you’ll have forgotten your protestations here and move on to telling us how raising taxes on the rich is the real cause of our economic problems.
No, it’s only the Republicans who believe that a President can’t be held responsible for effects he creates after his term in office ends. The rest of the world is perfectly comfortable with that theory of responsibility.
I want them. But your logic still does not follow.
There is economics and then there is political science.
I would have no issue with scheduling payments at the back end if I had any confidence that they would actually be made. Our political system sorta sucks at this - proof of that is in an accumulated multi-trillion dollar debt that both parties have had a hand in running up.
And if the claim were that we should be skeptical of Congress’ ability to lock in cuts before they actually make them, I would be with you fully. It is a very difficult task and we should be very skeptical of those claims until they actually come to fruition.
But I was responding to Shodan’s different and incorrect claim that the goal of the timing is to shove responsibility onto others.
No, that would imply that Obama was a Keynesian, instead of a big-spending liberal blowhard with no original ideas.
No, it just means I have not drunk the Flavor-aid.
He said in his speech how he was going to pay for it - he isn’t. He’s shuffling off the debt onto the super committee. IOW, he is doing what he can to fuck up the debt ceiling deal.
I already gave you the quote, which is this -
Next time try reading for comprehension.
If you are going to make shit up, try to make the shit correspond at least a tiny bit to reality. If possible.
Regards,
Shodan
Quoted for irony. If you kept reading just past the part you selectively quoted (which you probably did, but chose not to quote), you’ll see this:
He then summarizes that plan, which will include: additional spending cuts including changes to Medicare and Medicaid, raising taxes on the wealthy, and reforming the corporate tax code to cut deductions while lowering the rate.
There is a critical gamble here. He explicitly asks for the public help, a general clamor to show the Pubbies that their position is not so solid as they would like to believe. And they do believe it, they do believe that Obama is a spent force, that he has nothing. If that public clamor does not materialize, then he’s totally boned. As are we. Hell, they were flat out laughing at him
So do it. Take the minute, e-mail your Congressvarmint, your Senator, most especially if they happen to be Pubbies. My Rep is Kieth Ali Muhammed bin Ellision, my Senators Klobuchar and Franken, so I’m preaching to the choir. But still. Do it. Now’s a pretty good time. Real soon would still be OK.
Obama’s speeches are kind of like Tyler Perry’s movies. One is pretty much like the other. If you liked the last one, you will like the next one. If you didn’t, there won’t be anything to win you over.
Politically, I don’t see this helping him. This speech is not going to win over any converts. If he would have proposed something new and big, then maybe. But this was pretty thin gruel.
I realize that this was pure political theater to allow him to pull a Truman and rail against Congress, but all this has been said before. He has been whining about Congress for a while now, and his approval rating keeps slipping. Outside of liberal wishful thinking, I don’t think this will benefit him.
Actually, it’s perfectly sound. It’s easy to invest all variety of romantic ideas in “coming to America to taste freedom” etc. but the main incentive is simple economics. There are jobs there, which means tightening the border thwarts (though how effectively is a matter of debate) not only job-seeking immigrants but worker-seeking employers who, by all indication, will not (or at best grudgingly) hire native-born Americans as substitutes, for work the native-born Americans will not (or at best grudgingly) do.
But I see no indication that the Half Sigma blogger (or Chen019, who cited him, and may BE him, for all I know) has thought that deeply about the issue.
Have you ever actually read Chen019? At least the result of what I said was just some squabbling over my posting style and not a derailment into several pages of arguing over race.
What do liberals have to do with it? Liberals despise Obama.
I don’t think despise is the right word. We’re disappointed with him.