State of the Union: Obama seals his fate

Great Debates
161

Yes, I am a smart cookie, thank you. You of course, being such a smart cookie, realize that these deficits are quite in part do to drastically declining governement revenue. Reciepts in 2009 were the lowest since 2004,a nd rising governemn t sepdnind. but then again we were in a recession when government spending always goes up, as it should. What is hard to fathom was the ridiculous deficits Bush was generating during strong economic times.

Because you said so? BYTW, where is your cite about entitlements, I mean are you referring to Medicare, Medicaid and SS or something else? But then again why you think that is WAAAAYYYYYY (i hope I got the right number of As and Ws there) is hard to understand. The stock market is very important, people have their pensions and retirement funds in there, for example, folks are investing in companies because they feel like things are going to turn around and this is a collective wsidom if you will. Is it bubble? Maybe, but foflks sure were ready to crucify Obama for killin ghte market when it went down the first month of his administration.

Well at least you acknowledge Obama doesn’t get all the blame. So what percentage to Obama and what to Bush, just curious? Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Obama has been working within a recession and very weak recovery, caused by the Bush administration, during his entire term and he has done a damn good job to keep it froom getting worse.

Fiscal nightmare of Obamacare? Nice…cite, please?

162

Well, first of all I was responding to your quote about Obama running us off a financial cliff. Iam not sure what you mean by the economic outlook of the Federal Governement. Oh wait, you mean deficit and debt…of course you do, Did you know that the US governement still carries a AAA bond rating? Did you know that US bond markets are not any more expensive now then when Obama took office?

Do you have any facts to back your rhetoric?

163

Well, since we’ve hopelessly jacked another thread, I guess I can take a shot at this one.

My personal opinion is that the financial meltdown 6 weeks before the election sealed McCain’s fate. Obama was also helped by many other factors, again in my opinion: he’s black, and there’s a lot of white guilt out there, the country was tired of both OIF and OEF and McCain was ID’d with those wars (while Obama made good on his pledge to unite both the ‘cut’ and ‘run’ wings of the Democratic party). :wink:

Further, McCain ran a lackluster campaign, real conservatives never believed that he was one of them (having screwed them on Campaign Finance Reform, amnesty, Gang of 7, etc), and he picked a VP with questionable experience (still more executive experience than Obama, but many liberals, again IMHO, vote and act emotionally, not logically, so it mattered more to the GOP base).

Now, make no mistake, Obama has done some conservative things - he’s frozen Fed salaries for 2 years, and he certainly talks the talk in his speechifying. I personally believe that he’d do a lot more liberal things if he thought he could get away with it, including cardcheck, cap and trade (or if you prefer, cap and tax), and the fairness doctrine.

But on the whole he’s vastly increased the size and scope of the Federal Government. Surely even a good liberal can agree with that statement. He bastardized TARP to engineer takeovers of 2 of the big 3, he inserted the Feds much further than the public wanted into the 1/7th of the American economy that is healthcare, etc. From where I sit, the latest compromise on extending both the Bush tax cuts and UI wasn’t conservative, although many self-proclaimed conservatives will tell you that lowering taxes=good. Not me - I believe in paying my bills and not passing them down to my kids. Maybe that violates my conservative credentials… but then again, I’m a moderate :stuck_out_tongue:

164

You mean besides the myriad posts I’ve cited, on this same thread page for chrissakes, to back up my statement that the Federal fiscal picture is a nightmare moving forward? Besides those?

165

Facts don’t go well with glurge, its like garnishing an ice cream sundae with sliced olives.

166

On that, you and I agree.

167

you mean your links to the debt and the deficit? Those are just numbers you realize, they have no context to them, what exactly are you arguing with respect to those numbers?

168

I think if you use “I’m a moderate” as a punchline going forward, it’ll work. So far you’re not doing too well with using it seriously.

169

Such things are relative. I’m actually a moderate by most standards. It’s just that in this den of pervasive liberalism that I appear conservative…and identify as such compared to the majority here.

170

I don’t want to try to assign some exact percentage, I doubt it would move the discussion forward. I will note, just to educate you because I’m that kind of guy, that the debt as a percentage of GDP (about the most meaningful number there is, when discussing the debt) was 57% when W took office in 2000, 69% in 2008 when the Democrats took over Congress, and 93% last year. Ouch.

Congress and Obama are borrowing 40% of every dollar they spend. By definition we don’t have the $ for a new entitlement, especially one that used wishful thinking to pretend to be self-paying (counting 10 years of tax increases against 6 years of expenditures, raising a whole bunch of taxes that a) could very well get overridden by Congress, if history is any guide, and b) money that should be paying down our massive debt in any case).

I’ve used this analogy on this board before: if a family is deeply in credit card debt, but they find $5k in the driveway, they are better off applying it to their debt, not taking a vacation to Europe.
Edit to add: realized that I swapped ‘deficit’ for ‘debt’ in a sentence

171

As another poster once wrote on these boards, if you are in Hawaii, even California looks East.

172

Yes, they are. And when Mr Smashy talks about liberals and Obama the way he does, he indicates his frame of reference is significantly more conservative than what I would consider moderate. I can’t remember which Doper has that signature about ‘everyone considers himself to be a moderate because he knows how crazy the extremist SOBs are?’ I think that would apply here.

173

Of course, the best use of that money isn’t to pay off their debt, but to send one of the adults to school so they can get a better-paying job. Or to buy a car so they can get a job that requires a car to drive to work, or to spend part of it on some nice clothes to wear to an interview. Or even, if they need to, to buy some food so that they can make it through the next week: it does no good to pay down part of the debt if you don’t ensure that you can make it to next week.

Similarly, if we’re in a recession, the first priority is to get out of that recession by whatever means necessary. Paying down the debt is what you do during years of plenty (unless you’re a Republican): it’s not what you do during lean years (unless you’re a Republican).

So what we should be doing right now is putting people to work, so people have money in their pockets to spend, so businesses will have a market, so businesses will hire people, so people will get to work. It’s the equivalent of buying interview clothes: spending money now means you get more money later.

If Obama was asking for a trillion dollars in order to hire workers from Mumbai to build luxury airliners, your analogy would be accurate. But that’s not where stimulus money would go. It’s being used to start the cycle in the previous paragraph.

174

I didn’t say that you are out of touch, I think your political positions as you have described them are all over the map – and that doesn’t mean that they cancel themselves out to find some kind of moderation.

For example, you suggested raising marginal tax rates (I assume you mean across the board). That’s not a moderate position, that’s actually on the lefty side of left-left. Now, if you have some very right leaning position on some other issue (let’s say only for the sake of argument that you think Medicare should be privatized), one extreme liberal position (tax increases) and one extreme conservative position (privatize Medicare) doesn’t average out to be moderate. Extreme positions on different issues moves people OUT of the political mainstream, not into it.

ETA: And just because you self-identify as a moderate doesn’t really make you one. Lots of Americans self-identify as fiscal conservatives, but they don’t support large tax cuts for the rich when we are in a deficit.

175

Well, I thought this thread was played out so i hate to bump it. But your post is actually articulate and reasoned (a rarity on this board, to be sure).

I agree that it’s unwise to raise taxes or slash spending during a recession. You’ll notice my earlier comments about getting ‘greener shoots’ in the recovery. I also believe, and I’d guess you’d agree, that both GOP and Democrats both were the party of the free lunch to a large extent - neither were interested in paying for their goodies.

Your investment argument works, up to a point. But surely there’s an economy of scale, and a level at which you diminish your returns (I believe we’re well past that level). Families deeply in debt don’t often invest in the market, or fund 401ks, etc. They GTFO of trouble first. The country should do the same. I know that it’s SOP in lefty circles to frame virtually all spending as ‘an investment’ (or even better: ‘for the children’). But that’s a primitive way to discuss it. I personally think that education is plenty ‘invested in’ at the federal level, and there’s good evidence that increasing funding, either loans or grants, generates massive tuition inflation. Feel free to research it - my old company was a huge contractor for both Big Ed and FSA and ran several of the programs you are familiar with.

There are other problems with increasing spendi… ahem, ‘investments’… as a way to grow out of the recession, especially generation of moral hazards, but we don’t need to muck with those now.

176

Raven, you actually said something that is both reasonable and makes sense. And I agree with it, pretty much. If you want to apply some other label (‘independent’ has too much political ramifications, although I certainly am one) then I’m OK with that. I’d argue that my ‘moderate’ positions gives me more credibility than many, who both voted for Obama and agree with most of his agenda, to judge the SOTU. But so be it.

I think your saying my philosophy is mostly incoherent is pretty insulting though; who’s to say what’s right or wrong? This is an opinion forum, no? And I think that my version of moderate has just as much validity as yours. You’ll notice I didn’t insult you.

I’ve done a pretty good job of backing up my positions with fact and data, and the only people I insult are those who have it coming by posting something intellectually dishonest (well, except Lobo, but virtually the whole board hates that guy, and with good reason). Usually when I provide irrefutable proof of something on this thread, you NEVER get that person to concede a point. They simply don’t respond (**Ganster’s **inability to understand our fiscasl woes is case in point here, despite me laying it out for him). I always concede if I’m shown proof of something.

177

I told you to stop this this afternoon in Post 157. Take this stuff to the Pit or else do not post it. This is a formal warning, so please do not do it again.

178

FWIW, given your posts in this thread, I don’t take this as much in the way of praise. I’d prefer you just address the content, and leave assessment of the caliber to yourself.

Of course there’s diminishing returns. But on what basis do you say that we’re well past that level? It seems to me that we never even approached that level: the stimulus package was way too small, and it’s ending way too quickly. It’s possible that as ARRA money runs out this year, we’ll see a double-dip.

To continue your analogy: your family finds the $5,000 in the driveway. The mom says, “Let’s spend it on tuition so I can get my CFA certification!” The dad says, “No, let’s spend $100 so I can buy a new shirt and pair of slacks to wear to interviews!” The dad wins, he doesn’t get a new job with his new clothes, and the family’s income doesn’t improve.

The in-laws conclude that they should have put all the money toward the debt.

179

Uh, if they go Dad’s way, he has the clothes, they have $4,900 and Mom is still certifiable.

180

Moms are always certifiable. I thought it went without saying that Dad’s plan was to put the money toward paying down the debt, so they no longer have that money.