Stimulus Package - Debate & Discussion

[cjh]

<snip>

And when we overdose, you and your party's leadership should be prepared to take complete responsibility and reap the miserable consequences.

bitter medicine the republican party is still swallowing.

spoonful of sugar?

 

[KingOrfeo]

bitter medicine the republican party is still swallowing.

spoonful of sugar?

More like a cube of sugar, ifyaknowwhattimean.

 

[cjh]

More like a cube of sugar, ifyaknowwhattimean.

heh.

talk about making the medicine go down.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

[insert personally disliked President of choice here] only support comes from the same people who elected a president on empty rhetoric and rock-star packaging. Much of the same in this boring speech.

And when we overdose, you and your party's leadership should be prepared to take complete responsibility and reap the miserable consequences.

http://southdakotapolitics.blogs.com/south_dakota_politics/images/reagan-thumb.jpg

 

[MeeMie]

Seated in that prime front row, though, were some newcomers. Along with reporters from NNPA and BET were Sam Stein of the archly liberal Huffington Post and Ed Schultz, star of the "Ed Schultz Radio Show," an unabashedly liberal talk-show host, who boasts 3 million listeners dubbed "Ed Heads."

Although the packed East Room held 166 seats - with more than 100 others standing around the perimeter - two of the nine front-and-center seats were empty throughout the hour-long press conference. For some reason, no reporter from el Nuevo Dia, a newspaper written in Spanish based in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico and distributed daily throughout Puerto Rico and some parts of the US mainland, bothered to take their seats next to Miss Thomas.

Salem Radio, a conservative radio station that is also part of the tight pool with the big wire services, also checked in and then never took their seat.


None of it mattered, though, Obama was clearly working from a seating chart, calling on certain reporters and ignoring increasingly frantic shouts of "Mr. President!" from some others who apparently didn't realize there was a list they weren't on. Obama called reporters from a list on the podium, and reporters buzzed afterward about how he didn't seem to know a single reporter he called on - at least in the front row.

"And let me go to Jennifer Loven at AP," the president said, looking to his left, and then back a row or two before finding the AP reporter front and center, about eight feet from the podium. "Ah, there you are."

"Caren Bohan of Reuters?" he said after finishing a long economics tutorial. He looked left and right before finding the red-headed reporter - right next to Miss Loven.

"All right. Chuck Todd. Where's Chuck?" Mr. Obama said before finding the goateed reporter in the third row. "Ed Henry. Where's Ed? CNN. There he is," he said shortly after Mr. Henry stood up. "Major Garrett. Where is Major?" he said before finding the reporter back in the cheap seats.

While Mr. Obama didn't call on Mr. Schultz in the front row, he did skip giant national newspapers like USA Today and The Wall Street Journal in favor of the Huffington Post, which didn't disappoint.

"Sam Stein, Huffington Post. Where's Sam?"

"Right here."

"There. Go ahead."

"Today, Senator Patrick Leahy announced that he wants to set up a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the misdeeds of the Bush administration. He said that before you turn the page, you have to read - read the page first. Do you agree with such a proposal? And are you willing to rule out right here and now any prosecution of Bush administration officials?"

The first post-partisan president paused, then answered. "My view is also that nobody's above the law, and if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen."



Stimulus package, indeed.

 

[MeeMie]

bitter medicine the republican party is still swallowing.

spoonful of sugar?

Quite the contrary. Review recent history. What happened to Clinton's stimulus package that was shoved through without bipartisan support?

Shall I remind you?

When it failed (as all indications are that Obama's will, too) it resulted in a Republican majority in the House and Senate.

 

[Wok]

Quite the contrary. Review recent history. What happened to Clinton's stimulus package that was shoved through without bipartisan support?

Shall I remind you?

When it failed (as all indications are that Obama's will, too) it resulted in a Republican majority in the House and Senate.

Obama is hanging his hat on this bill. As I said before, the other massive spending plans have not worked so far. I am going to guess this plan is in question as well.

This is all about "now, now, now"...

 

[cjh]

Quite the contrary. Review recent history. What happened to Clinton's stimulus package that was shoved through without bipartisan support?

Shall I remind you?

When it failed (as all indications are that Obama's will, too) it resulted in a Republican majority in the House and Senate.

so what did the 108th congress do with the budget and the deficit?

 

[Wok]

Oh, and the last GOP majority was a piece of shit too.

 

[Wok]

so what did the 108th congress do with the budget and the deficit?

They were fiscally responsible.

Terror ass licker.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Oh, and the last GOP majority was a piece of shit too.

That it was, indeedy.

 

[Wok]

That it was, indeedy.

What makes this hilarious is, it is answering more spending with... spending. "Arrgh, you got yer war! Now it is OUR turn!!"

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Most Americans, including me, desperately hope so. The Literotica General Board wingnuts desperately hope not. They want millions more Americans to lose their jobs and homes. If that happens they will celebrate, and say, "We told you so."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Sean Hannity would have called emboldening our enemies and undermining America!

 

[IrezumiKiss]

What makes this hilarious is, it is answering more spending with... spending. "Arrgh, you got yer war! Now it is OUR turn!!"

But the difference is, we're not spending money to kill people for control of resources in other countries underneath a twisted lie of threatened liberty. Spending to create jobs and improve life is a better investment in the future than destroying things.

 

[Wok]

But the difference is, we're not spending money to kill people for control of resources in other countries underneath a twisted lie of threatened liberty. Spending to create jobs and improve life is a better investment in the future than destroying things.

I agree the war expenditures and other spending plans were huge. Now there is even more spending. Are you sure these are good investments? Time will tell on that end, but I am still very skeptical.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Quite the contrary. Review recent history. What happened to Clinton's stimulus package that was shoved through without bipartisan support?

Shall I remind you?

When it failed (as all indications are that Obama's will, too) it resulted in a Republican majority in the House and Senate.

If you are referring to the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, (1) it was not a "stimulus package" nor billed as one, it was a deficit-reduction package; (2) it did not "fail" in any sense; (3) there was no grassroots voter backlash against it; (4) the Republican victory in 1994 had nothing to do with it but was based mainly on a widespread perception of corruption and complacency among long-serving Congressional Dems, and on a conservative cultural backlash (the latter, at least, will not happen again in your lifetime or mine). The Contract With America did not even mention tax issues, except for a proposed requirement (never implemented) of a three-fifths majority for any tax increase.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I agree the war expenditures and other spending plans were huge. Now there is even more spending. Are you sure these are good investments? Time will tell on that end, but I am still very skeptical.

Well then maybe we should just stand back and let it all fall apart like they did in Japan.

Anyone know how that worked for Japan?

 

[Wok]

Well then maybe we should just stand back and let it all fall apart like they did in Japan.

Anyone know how that worked for Japan?

Hmm, if I recall correctly, did Japan answer their financial crisis with spending too? I will have to look that up to make sure...

 

[Wok]

Looks like it, but the results are under heavy debate. However, while it appears the spending did some good, some mistakes were made.

I can see why people are looking into the lost decade. Hmm, this is interesting.

 

[Slowlane]

More Klein




We told you so, ALWAYS BLAME REPUBLICANS and your myrmidons will follow suit, even if the Emperor is Buck Nekkid...

If we can shout "I HATE BUSH" long enough and loud enough all the ills of the world will fade away

 

[IrezumiKiss]

If we can shout "I HATE BUSH" long enough and loud enough all the ills of the world will fade away

Ha! See there? Even you can crack laughing-on-the-outside-but-crying-on-the-inside jokes about your party and its failed leader of eight years at your expense!

 

[MeeMie]

Let's go back to 1993 for the answer to why Obama wanted a "bipartisan bill."

1993, Bill Clinton's first budget, not one Republican vote. That was one of the many ingredients that led to the Republicans taking the House back for the first time in 40 years in the campaign of 1994.

Bill Clinton passed his "economic package", the tax increase, the retroactive tax increase on people. He did that without Republican support. There was a distinct conservative message, and that distinct conservative message coupled with the fact that not one Republican had compromised his conservatism by agreeing with Clinton's tax increase, allowed for a great contrast to be drawn, and along with a lot of other factors, the Republicans won the House for the first time in 40 years in the 1994 election.

That's what Obama is desperate to have Republican support for this is to see to it that what happened in 1993 does not happen here in 2009, and that is also why no conservative alternative supported by the Republican Party is to get traction.

He wants Republican cover.

Obama could finish off the Republican Party forever if he thought this bill was going to do all he proclaims it will, but he knows this bill won't do any of that, and that's why he wants cover. He's trying to co-opt the Republicans. He wants them to take some of the heat here.

This bill is being jammed through without much detail for the debt it incurs. WAIT! until the waste becomes known. This is debt like we haven't seen in an annual budget deficit.

Obama said during his campaign that he was gonna cut wasteful government spending.

Where's that list?

You remember he said that he was going to go through every line and find out the programs that weren't necessary, gonna get rid of them.

Haven't seen that in this stimulus package, have you?


It will become obvious soon enough that the so called "stimulus" bill was nothing more than the pay-off to greedy liberals by forcing their wish lists that could never stand alone.

 

[MeeMie]

Ha! See there? Even you can crack laughing-on-the-outside-but-crying-on-the-inside jokes about your party and its failed leader of eight years at your expense!

Failed leader of eight years had nothing to do with the crisis existing today. That can be directly blamed here:


The quantum leap in the number of affordable, low-to-moderate-income loans that the two mortgage banks (known collectively as Government Sponsored Enterprises - Fannie & Freddie) would have to buy.

The GSEs don't actually sell mortgages to borrowers. They buy them from banks and mortgage companies, allowing lenders to replenish their capital and make more loans. They also purchase mortgage-backed securities, which are pools of mortgages regularly acquired by the GSEs from investment firms.

The Democrats raised the number to 50 percent and dramatically hiked GSE mandates to buy mortgages in underserved neighborhoods and for the 'very-low-income.' Part of the pitch was racial, contending that Fannie and Freddie weren't granting mortgages to minorities at the same rate as the private market.

"We believe that there are a lot of loans to black Americans that could be safely purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if these companies were more flexible.'" While many saw this demand for increasingly 'flexible' loan terms and standards as a positive step for low-income and minority families, others warned that they could have potentially dangerous consequences.

Two years ago the Democrats, great fanfare, took control of both the House and the Senate, promising great changes and great advances.

So on January 5th, 2007, just about the time Pelosi and her cronies took control of the House, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 12,400, the New York based Conference Board said its consumer confidence index was 110.3, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had the unemployment rate at 4.6%

What changed?

Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd took control of the House and Senate banking committees, Representative George Miller, Democrat, California, Senator Ted Kennedy took over their respective labor committees, John Dingell, Democrat, Michigan, Jeff Bingaman, Democrat, New Mexico, became chairman of the energy committees.

There has been not only no oversight from the Democrat-controlled Congress on any of these things, there has been an active effort to prevent oversight while at the same time blaming capitalism and the fact that there has been no regulation.

They want as many of you thinking that capitalism brought this about when in fact all roads lead to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Democrats who enabled them and ran them.* They keep saying that people didn't believe in regulations. This was a policy imposed by law and enforcement on the private sector. Just as Obama wants to nationalize the private sector.

What we want is good change... change of those responsible.

Change the chairman of the banking committees in Congress, get rid of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. They are a disgrace. They are lying about their roles in all of this. They shouldn't be anywhere near addressing this problem now. They should resign from their posts.

To sweep this thing under the rug is some sort of bipartisan failure or some kind of private sector meltdown or what have you, removes responsibility from the kingpins behind this. The tendency is of the Washington governing class to circle the wagons and protect themselves.

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd need to step down from these committee chairmanships, and they need to be demanded that each day by taxpayers.

Barney Frank:
"The private sector got us into this mess; the government has to get us out of it. We do want to do it carefully."

The private sector didn't get us into this mess, Congressman Frank, you did!

YOU, and the your party of greedy, crooked politicians.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Let's go back to 1993 for the answer to why Obama wanted a "bipartisan bill."

1993, Bill Clinton's first budget, not one Republican vote. That was one of the many ingredients that led to the Republicans taking the House back for the first time in 40 years in the campaign of 1994.

No, it wasn't, as explained in post #241.

 

[Ham Murabi]

"On page 151 of this legislative pork-fest [the 'stimulus' bill] is one of the clandestine nuggets of social policy manipulation that are peppered throughout the bill. Section 9201 of the stimulus package establishes the 'Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.' This body, which would be made up of federal bureaucrats will 'coordinate the conduct or support of comparative effectiveness and related health services research.' Sounds benign enough, but the man behind the Coordinating Council, Health and Human Services Secretary-designate [since withdrawn] (and tax cheat) Tom Daschle, was kind enough to explain the goal of this organization. It is to cut health care costs by preventing Americans from getting treatments that the government decides don't meet their standards for cost effectiveness. In his 2008 book on health care, he explained that such a council would, 'lower overall spending by determining which medicines, treatments and procedures are most effective-and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags.' Once a panel of government experts decides what is and what is not cost-effective by their definition, the government will stop paying for treatments, medicines, therapies or devices that fall into the latter category. ... Mind you, they are not simply looking to exclude treatments that don't work, but to exclude treatments that are effective, but whose cost, in their opinion, does not justify their use. You, the patient, and your physician don't get a vote. This would make the federal government the single most important decision-maker regarding health care for every patient in America." --public affairs consultant Douglas O'Brien