Dear brother, just out of curiosity, how often have you voted for a Democratic candidate in a national election?
Well, my first election was Mondale/Reagan. I voted for Mondale (I could not understand how anyone could vote for President Reagan. Since then, I had voted democratic, except for President Bush on his second term (I missed voting in the Bush/Gore election, as I was going through a personal event in my life at that time - but had I voted, I would have for Bush as I was not happy with President Clinton). Last election I cast a protest vote against the Republicans, because I was totally against the way President Bush ran the domestic policy.
Of course, you have your reasons
!!! Interestingly enough, some of these are the reasons why I am not voting for him, but from a more fact based angle.
Gosh! Sorry if what I have laid out is not fact based! After all, that's all my small brain could muster.
The only major outlay that could have benefited Union jobs was 53.6 billion to State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Compare this against individual tax relief of 246.8 billion.
Wasted/ineffective is a political opinion, I can counter this by saying it was a grand success. Instead of exchanging our opinions let us look at what the Congressional Budget Office says.
"...through the third quarter of 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created or saved between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs and added between 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent to GDP." -- for more click here.
These
facts fly in the face of your claims.
Of course when close to a Trillion $ is spent, there should be some beneficial economic activity. Success and failure of a government program is always measured by the objectives/targets set for the program and this is not political. In that respect, obviously the stimulus has failed, both on the objective of getting the unemployment rate below 8% and having a sustained recovery.
Talking about politics, please read this very interesting article about how Obama went about deciding on stimulus; he did not seem to do what bhis economic advisers asked him to do. Instead he based his decision on what is good for him politically, not what is good for the country. My take on this is that when he was considering the stimulus package, the unemployment rate was already going down from it's peak and the growth was showing improvement. So, he figured, he can have his cake and eat it too - that is why he chose a package based on political considerations:
The political failure of Obama’s stimulus package : The New Yorker
The reason I am not supporting the president on this issue is not because it was ineffective, but it was tepid, because it was not large enough. There were Nobel prize winning economists of his own progressive persuasion who were warning him that if the stimulus is not big enough the recovery will be inimical and the whole notion of short-term stimulus spending will be blamed, and they were right.
Not only Krugman and Stiglitz, others also wanted bigger packages. Again, given that the republicans would not vote for any stimulus of the size he eventually decided on, I do not understand why he did not go with the higher amount, even though that would have increased the deficit.
This boild down to his inexperience. I personally am not sure whether the Keynesian theory works very well in a globalized economy anymore (even Krugman says that there is a old Keynesian and a new Keynesian models). But the rub here is that he chose not to hear them on political grounds.
Most Economists Told Obama to Pursue Bigger Stimulus
Now you and fiscal conservatives may reject the views of the economists list Krugman and Stigletz, but you guys lost the election. My complaint is, having won the election on the enthusiastic support of the progressives, he turned his back on us and surrounded himself with Bankers and Corporatists. The stimulus worked, but it was not large enough because Obama listened to his Banker friends and not to economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.
I agree, though I don't think it is the 'Bankers and Corporatists' he listened to. It was his political advisers.
TARP was passed under Bush. His Treasury Secretary wanted a blank-check for over $700 billion for his Banker friends. But for the Democrats in Congress, with some help from sensible Republicans, an endangered species, he would have gotten it. Not prosecuting these Banker criminals is one of the prime reasons I oppose Obama.
Banks did not do anything illegal. The issue was with Fannie&Freddie and the Fair Housing Act of Congress. When you guarantee a mortgage and don't examine the underlying risks of derivatives (which are legal) to the tax payers, then it is the problem with the government, not with the Corporate entities whose sole objective in life is to make money and increase the shareholder equity. By the way, I mainly blame the Bush Administration for this.
Fed is an independent agency under no direct control of anybody. Only a partisan will try to link Fed with Obama, but you are an Independent, so I don't get it, why are you hanging Fed around Obama's neck.
Yes, Fed is independent, but please don't tell me that their policies are seperated totally from the Administration in power.
Dodd/Frank legislation was intended to reign in the Banks and protect consumers. One of the objectives was to resurrect Glass/Steagall act that kept the financial system safe from greedy bankers. It was a greedy nexus between Democrats and Republicans that got rid of Glass/Steagall. You oppose the attempt to put some of these protections back in place, amazing!
But I oppose Dodd/Frank too, but for reasons altogether different from yours. Once again, in a very predictable fashion, Obama caved to Republican bullying and stalling tactics and watered down the legislation so much so that the bills that initially roared like a tiger was a mere mouse when amended and finally passed into law. The Republicans are not satisfied with even this, they are trying their best to impede its implementation. This failure of Obama to stand up to the Republicans is one of the reasons I won't vote for Obama.
I know a bit about Corporate regulations and their costs. I was part of a team that implemented a very bad regulation called Sarbanes-Oxley in my company. That one is a joke as it won't prevent Enron like instances to happen again. It just added enormous cost to American enterprises and put them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis their competition. In fact, I know of a few companies abroad that will not list in America because of this.
Todd-Frank is ten times more of a monstrosity and more importantly was passed on strictly a partisan vote. Acts as big as these that impose costs on any business sector should be crafted with bipartisan support. Again, because of this act, our community banks are going out of business because of the cost.
I am for regulations (I think this is a valid and necessary government function), but any regulation should be based on risks and cost/benefit. Seems to me that any act passed by Congress in response to a populist reaction os a negative event are based on political considerations not on merit.
Well, you, the Republican right-wing base and those candidates who want to garner their votes must be the only ones who think GM bail out was a mistake. One of the reasons Mitt Romney was about to lose Michigan, but managed to squeeze through because of Satorum's own ineptitude, was his opposition to the bail-out in his own trademark naked pandering style.
Obama wanted to save union pension plans, and that is your complaint? Your concern for non-union Delphi workers is very touching. Given union pension plan was saved and non-union workers lost out, would you then support the card-check bill that would remove the barriars the Republicans put in the way of workers to organize? I am sure your answer is no. Your real concern was for bond-holders and share-holders. That is fine. But GM is now posting record profits, that must mean something to millions of folks. Michigan is now firmly in Obama's column thanks to the bail out.
I am a firm opposer of unionization, based on the way they hamper competition. But I am not opposed to voluntary unionization, if that's what the workers want.
Regarding the auto bail out, most Americans are still opposed to it. My issue with it is the way it was implemented and I think it was unnecessary.
As far as the numbers are concerned, 2 million, 1/2 million, let it be, that is not a major issue, playing the number game is nothing new and it is bipartisan.
I oppose this pipeline which you call "no-brainer". But never mind my opposition, the Republicans wanted to embarrass the president with liberals like myself by imposing an arbitrary deadline. This tactic backfired. Also, I think you are getting the facts about exploration, oil production etc., from the same place you are accusing Y of getting his numbers.
Institute for Energy Research | The Obama Administration Is Slowly Reissuing Offshore Drilling Permits
Now, you may want more drilling of the drill-baby-drill kind, that is your political position and on that basis you may want to not vote for Obama, that is understandable. My political position is that Obama must go further and have very strict rules for issuing new drilling permits, and his refusal to go further is the reason I don't want to vote for him.
Another number from where you think Y gets his numbers from. The loan guarantees were for $535 million, still a large number, unconscionable that WH would put pressure to get this project approved quickly. But this is part of the push for renewable energy, a commendable goal, and it is unfortunate they got this one wrong.
Contrast this with billions that were lost by way of fraud and theft in Iraq and Afghanistan, that is still continuing. It is illustrative to take a look a story CBS's 60 Minutes ran in 2006.
I have no comments on the above, as your own words speak for themselves.
I am not condoning Obama WH for Solyndra, they should not have pushed for it. But I find it disingenuous to say the least that those who condemn Obama for 1/2 billion somehow defend W's tens of billions that were stolen outright.
I did not support Bush domestic policies in his secong term. One can not justify one wrong by pointing to another wrong committed by someone else.
Another partisan canard, surprised it is coming from you an Independent. Legislation after legislation Obama bent over backwards to accommodate Republicans in the hope of one or two votes, always to be snubbed. This is one of the primary reasons why I am so vexed with Obama. He just turned his back on progressives and liberals and compromised even some of the things he passionately campaigned on, like the so called Public Option, yet he got nothing for it. Even when he agreed to Republican demand they simply moved the goal posts. To say he did not work with the Republicans in congress one has to be ultra-partisan, but you are an Independent, does not compute for me
I don't need to elaborate - the results speak for themselves.
I think you get your facts from FoxNews.
FactCheck.org lists 35 Czars under W and 32 under Obama, some of these Obama inherited from W's administration. To blame he has too many Czars is nitpicking.
I did not approve Bush doing it. I don't approve it now.
When the other side is doing everything possible to block Obama -- declaring that their prime goal is to deny a second term to Obama -- I see nothing wrong in blaming those who are so imminently blame-worthy. W gave an economy that was teetering on the verge of disaster, and Republicans were hellbent on denying Obama whatever it was that he wanted to do to plug the leak, stabilize, and turn the economy around. Take a look at
this graph of the employment statistics and true independents will be persuaded with what Obama has achieved.
Brother, no need for the snide remarks - okay, I am not a TRUE independent - have it your way, if it gives you satisfaction. In my opinion, the President is the driver of Bi Partisanship, not the other way around. Because he has the tools and the power to drive this.
Yes, pathetic foreign policy I agree, he should have supported the Egyptian protestors much more vigorously, should have condemned Saudi Arabia when they invaded Bahrain, must have condemned Israel when they invaded Gaza and mercilessly murdered an American in the Mari Marmara flotilla incident, he continues to offer unconditional support to the murderous Israeli regime, he still acts as the world police, a role W played even more arrogantly that the sympathy the world had for USA evaporated quickly. Bad as it is under Obama, a Republican President will be that much worse, going to war willy nilly.
Spoken as a true progressive. Obviously we are diametrically opposed in our views on this, but agree on the result.
Under Bush the national debt increased by $4.9 trillion, and it went mostly for (i) two wars, (ii) tax cut for the rich, and (iii) an unpaid Medicare Part D program. (i) and (ii) brought the country to its knees. The debt increase of $4+ trillion under Obama has been for the continuation of Bush's wars and investments that will pay dividends later on. Giving a pass to Bush's wasteful debt increase and lambasting Obama for the debt that is more investment and saving the economy, is irrational.
I don't give a pass to Bush. What gave you that idea? Again, please come off these baseless assumptions on your part.
Wow, you hate Obama don't you?
It is clear to me from all this that you are as much an Independent as FoxNews is Fair and Balanced
!!!
I don't hate him. I hate what he is doing to this country. It is going to take years to get rid of the bad effects.
Yes, I watch Fox, in addition to CNN, MSNBC, CBS and PBS. I don't care what you call me. Call me whatever you want and have fun.
Cheers!
