Oy!, I’m not quite the right-winger that people around here take me to be. I lean towards the conservative, and I AM immediately suspicious…not of Democrats in general, but certainly of those who were raised & nurtured in the Chicago/Cook County political machine.
I must say, some of the assumptions you make about me are among the funnier things I’ve read around here, though.
Guys, go argue about Obama’s policy somewhere else in the 100 other thread about him.
This is supposed to be about his personal flaws (not flawed policies). Is he greedy? Power hungry? Lazy? Lusty? Careless of his dental hygiene?
Everyone has flaws, what are his?
:rolleyes: Well, what the man said was simply that he’ll cut government programs that aren’t working.
Yes, if you like, you can imagine that what he really means by that is that he’ll be willing to cut non-working government programs only if he can replace them with other government programs. And for all I know, you could turn out to be right. But at present, it’s an inference that you’re completely making up out of your own head.
So I’m not prepared to join you or Rand Rover just yet in jumping to the conclusion that Obama will be too quick to look for a government-sponsored solution to every problem. Enjoy your worrying, though.
One of the programs he cited in your quote was the one that’s supposed to ensure that children learn how to read. Do you think once he cuts that program, he’s going to decide that it’s not the government’s job to ensure that children learn how to read?
Let’s turn it around. If children are not learning how to read, do you think the government should sit on its hands and do nothing, knowing that someday those children will grow up to be illiterate and probably untrained workers? If government is not the solution, what is?
As for assumptions, I have yet to meet anyone who was concerned about national level government spending who didn’t then turn around and vote for reductions in state and local spending as well. In my experience, people tend to either recognize that we need to pay taxes, or they don’t and do everything in their power to reduce them at every level possible. The latter have prevailed over the past thirty years, the politicians have pandered to them in order to be elected, and boy! are we paying the price at every level of government, but most especially in our infrastructure.
At the same time, I see the people who want lower taxes and who actually bother to justify it with ideology doing so by claiming they want smaller government. In general, they tend to agree that national security is a valid function for a national government to fulfil. Beyond that, my experience is that there is little to no agreement among them as to which functions are valid at a national level, but at the greatest extremes, there is a desire to bring in so little revenue as to “starve the beast:” to kill governmental functioning by having insufficient funding. Interestingly, our most conservative presidents of the past thirty years, Reagan and Bush 43, have apparently been ideological proponents of this, and have instead ended up with massive deficits instead, finding themselves unable to actually do away with the government they so despise in theory.
So, forgive me, Sarahfeena, if I made assumptions about your conservatism. I’ve met and talked with a lot of conservatives over the years, and when I hear words like “evaluating whether or not the government ought to be involved in solving a particular problem in the first place,” they sound very much like code for
and I ask again, if children are not learning to read at all, should the government sit on its hands? Does that make our society better, or even wealthier? How much unskilled labor can this society use before it becomes a burden rather than the deliciously rich supply of very cheap labor that, say, illegal aliens are to businesses today, and our own workers stand to become if this recession continues for any length of time.
You need to look a little further ahead than just this year’s tax bill when it comes to societal wealth, and you also need to consider what the alternatives are to government programs. If there are no alternatives whatsoever, which can often be the case, then a less than ideal government program may be the best we can do. No one will claim it’s the best thing theoretically. But just because something could be done in the private sector doesn’t mean it will be done in the private sector, and frankly I don’t see a lot of percentage in teaching poor children to read.
As for privatizing, if someone will explain to me the benefits of adding a profit layer beyond allowing employees to be treated poorly and accountability to be swept under the rug, I’d very much appreciate it. And don’t try to tell me how much better the caliber of employee is in the private sector. You get good and bad employees in both public and private life in equal number - I’ve worked for both, and I’ve seen both. It’s very much a matter of the individual department and the specific people involved. It’s harder to fire people from the government, but there are ways of laying them off or transferring them out, and it’s quite hard to fire people from large corporations too. In addition, if you contract something out, you then have to have a layer of government to monitor it and make sure the contractor follows the rules, or you end up with messes like Iraq, where literally billions of tax dollars have been wasted by contractors supposedly doing jobs for our troops. On no-bid contracts yet. I don’t see that it buys you much.
autz, I did list what concerned me about Obama’s character. But this discussion is important too.
I heard his left handed shot in basketball is weak.
Oy!, I’m not disagreeing that children need to be educated, and that it might be a good idea for there to be some sort of Federal involvement in that. I was only trying to point out that Kimstu’s argument might be a tad disingenuous when s/he says that we have no reason to believe that Obama might be prone to replacing the old, not-working programs with new, not-sure-if-they’ll-work programs. Your entire post here illustrates why…his entire Democratic base is going to demand it.
And, autz…to attempt to answer your OP…this is what I’m afraid his flaw is. I know he has made a lot of promises to reach across the aisle, but I think that he is a loyal person, and quite possibly to his detriment. He has already shown his loyalty to the Chicago Machine by appointing Rahm Emmanual his Chief of Staff. Emmanual is not a nice person, and not a compromiser. There are a lot of people here in Chicago who Obama owes a lot to, and most of them are extremely partisan. I don’t see them helping him in his quest to be a uniter.
Nope, not me. I’m a Christian.
I move to strike the answer as non-responsive. How, in real-world, 2008, not 1910, and not a politcal speech, will raising taxes “create wealth”? Mechanically, if you will, how does that work?
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you were already registered with barackobama.com, participated in the online community and kept abreast of events that were being organized in your neighborhood.
Are you that put out that I recommended coming to a new online community in addition to the Straight Dope and any others you might be a part of? Why do you act like I’ve slapped you in the face, as opposed to wanting to introduce you to a group of people you don’t know yet, and who may have something positive to bring to your life?
It’s GREAT you already do some volunteer work! I mean that sincerely.
But here’s the thing – President-elect Barack Obama and his massive team of grassroots organizers are about to embark on a mission to change the way this country does business. We’re trying to do it “from the bottom up.” We’d love it if you would join us in our efforts. BE part of the change we’re seeking. Make your voice heard someplace where it’s going to matter. The Straight Dope is awesome, but we aren’t really effecting real world change here, much as we’d like to think our verbal contribution is indispensable to the universe.
I’m sure you have a full and busy life. I’m sure it’s quite fulfilling and rewarding. I will not take any offense if you were to say that you have more than you can chew on your plate right now. I will still think you’re the bee’s knees for teaching me the toilet seat cover trick. But don’t act like I’ve insulted you by inviting you to join this movement for change. It’s going to happen with or without you. You’re perfectly free to be a bystander, hoping and praying that Barack Obama lives up to his words.
On the other hand, you have a golden opportunity at your fingertips, to let the Obama administration know your concerns, through participating in our online community, by going to www.change.gov and filling out the form he provides for your ideas and feedback, and by “joining” some online groups that are in your area so you can be informed of community events you aren’t already taking advantage of, or create one of your own!
Or don’t. Up to you.
This is the first time I’ve ever agreed with you about God. 
Funny way of showing it. Glass houses and all.
This indicates that he knows he has a weakness in not being able to play the bad guy to get stuff passed. Rahm can play the bad guy, and that is useful because sometimes (maybe always) asking nicely ain’t going to cut it.
This is off-topic, in a sense, but one of his big strengths is that he knows what his weaknesses are, and he’ll take actions, like naming Rahm, to address them.
The Newsweek article mentioned that when preparing for the debate he knew when he was too tired, and told everyone he was going to take 30 minutes off to get back in shape. That’s very impressive.
He’s a lefty, so if his lefty shot is weak, he sucks. 
Shayna, I’m sure you are a very nice person, and I’m also sure you don’t mean to come across as condescending as are here. If you are truly confused about why I’m feeling insulted, let me try to explain it to you: The insult is not that you are inviting me to be involved in this mission, it’s that you are coming across very much as belittling the work I and so many others have already been involved in. I do not appreciate you characterizing me as a bystander. I have been involved in my own community as a volunteer in many different efforts to help the community & the individuals in it. These efforts have never required Barack Obama before, and they don’t now. I am glad that so many people are inspired to help, but these efforts are not new, and Barack Obama did not invent them. Signing up at barackobama.com to find events being organized in my neighborhood is not somehow radically different from contacting the volunteer committees at my parish in order to find events being organized in my neighborhood.
And incidentally, I don’t much care, never mind hoping & praying, that Obama lives up to his words. I don’t expect him to…most politicians don’t, and yet the world keeps on spinning nonetheless. Volunteers will still feed, clothe, and shelter people…through churches and other community organizations, no matter what happens in Washington.
I give up.
That was an excellent response, Sarahfeena, especially since it was offered without venom. Kudos to you.
As maybe you should, since you can’t explain how raising taxes will create wealth.
Say you have a bunch of rich people and you’re going to increase their taxes by $10 million - not each, but spread among them.
What would they do with the money if you didn’t tax them? They can’t figure out what they need beyond what they have. The could build a factory, but these days people have stopped buying, so that would be stupid. So they put it in the market, and bid up stock prices so the PE ratio gets absurdly high, or they put it in hedge funds which buy mortgage backed securities, and lose it when the housing bubble crashed.
Now what happens if you gasp redistribute that wealth, giving $1,000 to 10,000 families. Their income has been stagnant for eight years, so there is a lot of pent up demand. They might be able to pay off some debt, freeing the money for productive investment, but a lot will go into buying things, since they don’t have any problem finding stuff to buy. This increases sales of companies, who finally need to hire more people. Those people, now employed, can spend more also. Eventually this results in higher profits, which drive up stock prices, so our rich friends eventually make out fine anyway. Plus, they can invest their money to build new factories that are actually needed.
Cutting taxes for the rich clearly didn’t work. Why not try it the other way around for a bit?
Because keeping money moving helps the economy moving, as does getting it into the hands of the common people; as opposed to letting rich people hog most of the money in the country and sit on it or send it out of the country. In a consumer driven economy like ours, the common people need to have the money to spend to keep the system working. Instead, we’ve had decades of the rich having a bigger and bigger portion of the economic pie.
Even Henry Ford knew better than to think that he didn’t need the working class to keep the economy going and buy his cars; and he’s an old dead plutocrat.