Tea Party has more in common with the (ha!) Whiskey Rebellion than the Revolution

[Loring2]

Nonsense

Transportation infrastructure.

Which looks like it might have to wait, but it remains on the agenda, which is why I said "soon."

Your link proved the abject stupidity of the entire Dem Party as it is used by Obama.
The First link is to campaign claptrap and the second to the Wash. Post which lives in Obama's hip pocket. Who the hell are you trying to kid?

Your motto seems to be "If you can't dazzle 'em with footwork"
" blind 'em with bullshit".

 

[Ham Murabi]

Even the relatively small amount left to road construction was a porkapalooza.
My town tried to nail down about $40M for a parkway that will be nice to have already paid for in 20 years, but probably not really needed until then.
It's the kind of project that cities should pay for.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Obama's first three years' combined deficits will total more than $3 trillion. (Almost $4T, probably.)

This infrastructure spending is perhaps $100B, or 3% of that.

What's your point? I said Obama has spent money on stimulus and he has. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is $787 billion. He has also been obliged to spend a lot of money on Iraq and Afghanistan (and if you say he should be extricating us faster, I agree).

But, a whole lot was spent not even to stimulate the economy, but just to save it from collapse. In that field, President McCain would have done much the same for much the same cost. A hypothetical third-term Bush would have done the same. So would President Ralph Nader, President Ron Paul, or President Pat Buchanan. Only President Palin could conceivably have been stupid enough to do otherwise.

Once again:

In the same way, the Tea Partiers who denounce the TARP and the 2009 stimulus fail to understand that the alternatives to those much-demonized policies would have been much worse. In a financial crisis, the government must rescue the financial system on which the rest of the economy depends. Progressives can plausibly argue that it would have been better to nationalize the banks, while recapitalizing them. But Tea Party conservatives who argue that the government should have allowed the national and global banking systems simply to collapse are, to be blunt, ignorant fools. And they are ignorant fools, too, when they argue that the 2009 stimulus was too large, when in fact it was too skewed toward tax cuts and too small to play its necessary role in boosting aggregate demand when consumer spending had cratered. The depth of their ignorant folly is demonstrated by the fact that most credible Republican conservative economists supported both the TARP and some sort of stimulus.

 

[off2bed]

In making that comparison, bear in mind that we have proof that Rand Paul, at any rate, is an idiot-crank.

Uh, as if most of the Dems in power aren't even bigger idiot cranks?

 

[KingOrfeo]

Uh, as if most of the Dems in power aren't even bigger idiot cranks?

How many of them are members of science-denying organizations like the AAPS?

And, no, none of the organizations you almost certainly are immediately thinking of are science-denying organizations.

 

[off2bed]

How many of them are members of science-denying organizations like the AAPS?

And, no, none of the organizations you almost certainly are immediately thinking of are science-denying organizations.

What you think is science is merely politics in a white lab coat.

 

[KingOrfeo]

What you think is science is merely politics in a white lab coat.

No, it isn't. The anti-vaxers, climate-change deniers, creationists, and Rand Paul's "Association of American Physicians and Surgeons" are the ones who practice or cite "science" that is "merely politics in a white lab coat."

 

[KingOrfeo]

Shop Rockets aren't in the Elite.

"Shop Rockets"?

 

[firespin]

What's your point? I said Obama has spent money on stimulus and he has. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is $787 billion. He has also been obliged to spend a lot of money on Iraq and Afghanistan (and if you say he should be extricating us faster, I agree).

But, a whole lot was spent not even to stimulate the economy, but just to save it from collapse. In that field, President McCain would have done much the same for much the same cost. A hypothetical third-term Bush would have done the same. So would President Ralph Nader, President Ron Paul, or President Pat Buchanan. Only President Palin could conceivably have been stupid enough to do otherwise.

Once again:

Most of the "save the economy from collapse" spending, e.g. TARP, occurred before Obama even took office, dummy.

Even if we have a lobotomy and think all the stimulus is, well, stimulative...considering much of it is tax cuts, for example...it's still only maybe a quarter of the aggregate deficit expenditures.

You can't in good faith make the case that Obama's deficits are good spending. They're just plain old ordinary spending. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[The_Trouvere]

When KingOrfeo goes up against the right wing circle jerk gang, the those in the gang just have to take their chances.

 

[unregistered]

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

Just a Single Quote on Government Stimulus

FDR's secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, who served from 1934 to 1945, wrote in 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

At the time of the quote unemployment stood at about 25% and had been for several years and continued so until the beginning of WWII.

Mike C.

 

[KingOrfeo]

FDR's secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, who served from 1934 to 1945, wrote in 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

At the time of the quote unemployment stood at about 25% and had been for several years and continued so until the beginning of WWII.

Mike C.

And the year after he wrote that, FDR won a third term. Apparently the people saw some value in all that spending. It had saved some of them from starvation, provided some of them with employment, and built lot of highly visible and highly beneficial public works.

 

[firespin]

And the year after he wrote that, FDR won a third term. Apparently the people saw some value in all that spending. It had saved some of them from starvation, provided some of them with employment, and built lot of highly visible and highly beneficial public works.

Imagine if the economy had collapsed and the government didn't do any of those things!

Oh, wait, it did, in 1873 (33% GDP drop), 1893 (37%), 1907 (29%), 1920 (38%)...and yet the economy recovered from each of these, more quickly than it did in the 1930's (26% GDP drop). Hmm. Most interesting.