just maybe that's the real reason...8 years of THE WORST PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION IN U.S. HISTORY just might be too much of a hill to climb for
anyone...all the job gains from 2000-2007 have been wipped away by this downturn...BUSH DID NOT CREATE ENOUGH JOBS TO WITHSTAND THIS DOWNTURN!...good job
bushie!
0 Kudo
the stimulas may not be working yet due to the HUGE HOLE BUSH PUT US IN!
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 mickeysquires |
the stimulas may not be working yet due to the HUGE HOLE BUSH PUT US IN! |
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Posts: 24177 (07/02/09 10:55 AM) |
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luvmuscl |
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Posts: 20423 (07/02/09 01:34 PM) |
plus it is a lagging indicator (I'm told)
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JasJames |
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Posts: 7564 (07/02/09 02:07 PM) |
Ah, but Obama has to be correct at all times while when Shrubbie screwed up (which was much of the time) he was standing by his principles which excuses the
disasters that occurred as a result.
JamesJames
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luvmuscl |
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Posts: 20425 (07/02/09 04:57 PM) |
all I hear is how obama is bankrupting the nation and dumbya had nothing to do with it!
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PhyllipMarlowe |
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Posts: 67 (07/02/09 06:30 PM) |
That's not right. There was a recession, absolutely. And, PRESIDENT BUSH (I gather we have to be respectful here) spent too much. On the other hand, his
deficits are dwarfed by what PRESIDENT OBAMA is now racking up.
As for the stimulus, it sort of stank from the gitgo. First, the administration rushed the Congress by telling them that it would be a catastrophe if they didn't do it right away, that moment, not a week later etc. So, as I recall, they passed it without reading it. Second, the administration fear-mongered, but left the details to a small group of Congressional leaders, who put every pet project they always wanted to do (but couldn't) in there. A dozen "kitchen sinks" were in there. There was all this talk of "shovel ready" projects, but that was BS. Very little of the money has been spent even now. Much of the remainder was spending but not of the type that would get the economy revved up. The neutral Congressional Budget Office even said the plan would harm the economy in the long run. So, here we are. Unemployment continues to rise, the stock market plunged today, and the stimulus is not working. I would have been all for a real stimulus plan that pure and simple spend funds ONLY in ways that would get the economy on the move. That was not the case. At some point, scapegoating PRESIDENT BUSH won't wash. I think that point is about here. |
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pandrmoderator |
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Posts: 120 (07/02/09 06:58 PM) |
No, Phyllip, you don't have to be respectful, you can't be bigoted and racist.
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PhyllipMarlowe |
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Posts: 72 (07/02/09 08:05 PM) |
I'm still going to try to be respectful even if it's not a requirement.
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xxbigjoeyxx |
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Posts: 1289 (07/02/09 08:08 PM) |
if you read my posts at the time, i said that the stimulus bill needed to be temporary, targeted and timely. instead congress and obama gave us a pork filled
bill that was none of the above. on CBS news tonight they said that only about 5% of the funds have been spent at this point in time. in otherwords about 95%
of the huge spending bill is yet to come so there has been very little effect at this point in time. as i recall, about 80% of the spending comes after this
year! the spending was not targeted to projects to create jobs but instead went to pork projects in many cases. as for temporary, some of this spending will
create permanent spending such as the new health care agency to compare results from different treatments of a health incident (gathering data to ration health
care?).
worst of all, the stimulus bill spent BORROWED money which increased the debt and resulting interest costs for future years and for future generations to pay. the stimulus bill created a permanent burden on the future economy and well being of the united states. now, i even hear talk of another stimulus bill; only congress could look at something that failed and want to do more of it!!! we can have the discussion in five or ten years when the bill's full effect can be seen, but to me it looks like the stimulus bill was a terrible piece of legislation. congress needs to have a rule in their procedures that congress persons have to actually read the bills on which they vote; this one was rushed through like a freight train at full speed with no real time to debate it let alone read it in full. sorry mickey, but even though you are correct that bush was a terrible president, everything bad that happens today can not be blamed on bush. the stimulus bill it can be argued is actually making things worse. the stimulus bill is a democratic creation. yes, things were bad but it looks like nancy pelosi and harry reid did their part to make things worse. mind you, the stimulus bill came after nancy pelosi's increased fiscal year spending bill; it was pork on top of pork. one final irony to the stimulus bill; it may help doom health care reform. as the administration looks for a trillion dollars plus to pay for health care, the overspending on the stimulus bill may make that money hard to find, especially when you consider that the added debt permanently adds to the yearly interest costs to be paid. |
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 vwpatterson3 |
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Posts: 2851 (07/02/09 09:48 PM) |
People can bitch and moan about what the stimulus did or did not do...but the funds, IMO, helped the US avoid a major Depression and the naysayers should be
grateful about that. Additionally, Paul Krugman thinks we need another BIGGER stimulus in the fall. See article from The NY Times below:
___________________________________________________________________________________ O.K., Thursday's jobs report settles it. We're going to need a bigger stimulus. But does the president know that? Since the recession began, the U.S. economy has lost 6 ½ million jobs - and as that grim employment report confirmed, it's continuing to lose jobs at a rapid pace. Once you take into account the 100,000-plus new jobs that we need each month just to keep up with a growing population, we're about 8 ½ million jobs in the hole. And the deeper the hole gets, the harder it will be to dig ourselves out. The job figures weren't the only bad news in Thursday's report, which also showed wages stalling and possibly on the verge of outright decline. That's a recipe for a descent into Japanese-style deflation, which is very difficult to reverse. Lost decade, anyone? Wait - there's more bad news: the fiscal crisis of the states. Unlike the federal government, states are required to run balanced budgets. And faced with a sharp drop in revenue, most states are preparing savage budget cuts, many of them at the expense of the most vulnerable. Aside from directly creating a great deal of misery, these cuts will depress the economy even further. So what do we have to counter this scary prospect? We have the Obama stimulus plan, which aims to create 3 ½ million jobs by late next year. That's much better than nothing, but it's not remotely enough. And there doesn't seem to be much else going on. Do you remember the administration's plan to sharply reduce the rate of foreclosures, or its plan to get the banks lending again by taking toxic assets off their balance sheets? Neither do I. All of this is depressingly familiar to anyone who has studied economic policy in the 1930s. Once again a Democratic president has pushed through job-creation policies that will mitigate the slump but aren't aggressive enough to produce a full recovery. Once again much of the stimulus at the federal level is being undone by budget retrenchment at the state and local level. So have we failed to learn from history, and are we, therefore, doomed to repeat it? Not necessarily - but it's up to the president and his economic team to ensure that things are different this time. President Obama and his officials need to ramp up their efforts, starting with a plan to make the stimulus bigger. Just to be clear, I'm well aware of how difficult it will be to get such a plan enacted. There won't be any cooperation from Republican leaders, who have settled on a strategy of total opposition, unconstrained by facts or logic. Indeed, these leaders responded to the latest job numbers by proclaiming the failure of the Obama economic plan. That's ludicrous, of course. The administration warned from the beginning that it would be several quarters before the plan had any major positive effects. But that didn't stop the chairman of the Republican Study Committee from issuing a statement demanding: "Where are the jobs?" It's also not clear whether the administration will get much help from Senate "centrists," who partially eviscerated the original stimulus plan by demanding cuts in aid to state and local governments - aid that, as we're now seeing, was desperately needed. I'd like to think that some of these centrists are feeling remorse, but if they are, I haven't seen any evidence to that effect. And as an economist, I'd add that many members of my profession are playing a distinctly unhelpful role. It has been a rude shock to see so many economists with good reputations recycling old fallacies - like the claim that any rise in government spending automatically displaces an equal amount of private spending, even when there is mass unemployment - and lending their names to grossly exaggerated claims about the evils of short-run budget deficits. (Right now the risks associated with additional debt are much less than the risks associated with failing to give the economy adequate support.) Also, as in the 1930s, the opponents of action are peddling scare stories about inflation even as deflation looms. So getting another round of stimulus will be difficult. But it's essential. Obama administration economists understand the stakes. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Christina Romer, the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, published an article on the "lessons of 1937" - the year that F.D.R. gave in to the deficit and inflation hawks, with disastrous consequences both for the economy and for his political agenda. What I don't know is whether the administration has faced up to the inadequacy of what it has done so far. So here's my message to the president: You need to get both your economic team and your political people working on additional stimulus, now. Because if you don't, you'll soon be facing your own personal 1937.
Last Edited By: vwpatterson3
07/02/09 11:49 PM.
Edited 1 times.
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thosholm |
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Posts: 8532 (07/03/09 04:41 AM) |
"On the other hand, his deficits are dwarfed by what PRESIDENT OBAMA is now racking up."
Errh, NO. Take a look at this: 
Pres. Obama's programs cost about 10% of what Pres. Bush's programs, exempting the wars, have cost the US. Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party - however numerous they may be - is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of "justice" but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when "freedom" becomes a special privilege. R.L., Germany |
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xxbigjoeyxx |
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Posts: 1290 (07/03/09 06:15 AM) |
dear vwpatterso3,
before congress gives us another stimulus bill, how about spending the last one. think about it a minute, if less than 10% of the first bill has been spent, the first bill is 90% still to come so the effect seen is only 10%. of course it is not working, it has not been deployed! that is why i said the original stimulus bill would fail as it was not timely. to get the full impact, it needed to be spent. i would not mind a new stimulus bill if all of the unspent money from the first one was cancelled! fat chance. dear thosholm, the graph is an example how to distort "facts". some examples: 1)the graph compares 8 years of bush policies at -$673 billion but compares it to only 1 year of stimulus spending at -$145 billion but not only is comparing 8 years to 1 year visually not correct but the stimulus is over $700 billion and exceeds the bush TOTAL deficits by itself before adding the current -$56 billion and to be fair estimates of the future 7 years of the obama presidency policy deficits need to be added. time wise, the graph mixes apples and oranges. current estimates of a total addition to the deficit of 8 obama years is in the trillions of dollars and dwarfs the terrible bush record. 2) the early 2000's deficits from the down turn which actually started before bush was sworn in are fair to include in his totals as they did occur in his years but the cause (the down turn) was started by clinton. to treat the numbers equally, current down turn deficits of -$479 billion need to be split between bush and obama; it is not clear this is done. treating the numbers can be argued either way but it needs to be consistent: if part of clinton's down turn can be attributed to bush then part of the bush down turn numbers should be attributed to obama for the deficit part that occurs during his presidency. 3)i am not sure where the 10% figure comes from. the cost of the war is not listed separately so i am not sure how to pull that figure out. the AMT "patch" has been on-going for decades as congress refuses to admit it made a mistake and does now not want to "bite the bullet" and permanently undo the damage the original AMT bill did. as the AMT now include over 25 million taxpayers, any congress that does not end the AMT or "patch" it faces the wrath of voters that would defeat them all at the polls. the accounting for the AMT tax is part of the smoke and mirrors. 4)it is interesting that at the end of the clinton presidency, they are estimating a yearly surplus of $850 billion for the term of the president after 8 years of the following president (assuming an 8 year term). such forecasts are as worthless as they come. it depends on the assumptions made to get the estimate; what were those assumptions: no new programs (think medicare drug bill); no wars (if that is the assumption, why spend for any military); no major weather events (katrina); no economic down turns (one had already started); a smart president (bush); a smart congress passing only good legislation in a wise way. you get the idea: long range forecasts of the following 12 years are too long to be really meaningful and really depend on the assumptions. 5)the whole idea of "surplus" in the federal budget needs to be a thread for itself. much depends on how you count social security revenue. i am old enough to remember when social security was "off budget" and not counted one way or the other as part of the deficit or surplus of a current year. johnson merged the budget with social security as part of the smoke and mirrors of his day to create defense spending as a smaller percentage of his budget (people were complaining that a huge percentage of his budget was going for the military). right now, social security takes in more money than it pays out so including it helps paper over the picture of what is really a larger deficit than actually appears. capital spending is not accounted for separately and this is an issue for me but to do so would open the budget to all types of games. 6)the wall street bailout of -$185 billion is a strage figure and i am not sure where it originates. the TARP money was a larger amount but is now being paid back. this figure needs explaination. what about the auto industry bailout; where is it shown? i do not mean to pick on this one specific graph and what it claims to represent; i do not want to be in a position to justify bush or make that terrible presidency seem better. my training is to look at anything like this and question it. often when you start to look at specifics and question assumptions a presentation will fall apart. 2) |
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PhyllipMarlowe |
Of Course PRESIDENT OBAMA Is Blowing Up The Deficit/Debt | ||
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Posts: 74 (07/03/09 09:19 AM) |
I don't know where the guy above got his graph, but here's one from the Washington Post, hardly a friend to PRESIDENT BUSH. This graph is based on
independent CBO numbers, and came out before PRESIDENT OBAMA and his supporters rolled out a new health care plan that will add another trillion or so to the
deficit pile over the next decade.
Projected DeficitIn the first independent analysis, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that President Obama's budget would rack up massive deficits even after the economy recovers, forcing the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade.
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mickeysquires |
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Posts: 24180 (07/03/09 11:00 AM) |
he's gone, but one reason the figures are so much higher...PRESIDENT OBAMA is not hiding the costs of the 2 wars we are fighting, that BUSH LED US
INTO...THOSE WAR FIGURES ADD BILLIONS MORE
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luvmuscl |
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Posts: 20430 (07/03/09 12:04 PM) |
no, no, mick, ya got it wrong (according to my repig "friends"): the total deficit we're in is solely due to Obama, dumbya has nothing to do with
it.
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SpareChange1 |
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Posts: 4072 (07/03/09 01:17 PM) |
That's part of the problem, luvmuscl - ya got repig friends. I don't and I feel my life's better off because of it. Who needs Sanford, Palin et
al doing their fake rejection of the funds alloted to their states? Such silly little people with silly little ideas.
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farmerbill |
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Posts: 22906 (07/06/09 12:02 PM) |
as usual, if bambi/phyllis didn't like something, there had to be a ring of truth to it, and thos' chart from the NY times is no exception. it
clearly shows that the largest portion of the existing deficit is attributable to bu$hit-era policies.
and joey, is the current stimulus package not preferable to the bu$hit-era "stimuli," which amounted to cramming his square peg of a long-proposed tax cut into the round hole and calling it a "stimulus," and then allowing the irresponsible tax breaks to continue year after year, instead of expiring when times were better? |
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xxbigjoeyxx |
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Posts: 1293 (07/06/09 07:15 PM) |
dear farmerbill,
first, please read my post on the new york times graph; it is misleading as it compares 8 years to one among other things. when obama's 8 years in office are up, the graph will look totally different on the deficit with the lion's share belonging to obama if current spending is not cut. i did not mention in my comments on the graph that it only shows the deficit but not the unfunded liabilities which are larger than the debt and growing!!! if you really want to be frightened, examine the unfunded liabilities. as to the current stimulus package, it has nothing to do with the bush tax cuts and comparing the two is comparing apples to oranges. as i have said, i hate to defend anything about the bush presidency which i consider one of the worst in our history. however, his tax cuts did stimulate the economy and government revenues not only grew to record heights but the rich paid more income taxes than ever before not only in absolute amounts but as a percentage of the total. there was a long thread on this back before the election with appropriate links to the relevant figures. the growth in the deficit was caused by over spending first by a republician congress out of control and then by the democrats. there are two sides to a deficit: income and out go; the tax cuts raised the income but the out go grew faster. no matter what you think of the bush tax cuts (good or bad), they do not make the terrible stimulus bill better. the bush tax cuts may smell worse than shit but that does not make the stimulus bill purfume. it is my belief that history will rank the stimulus bill as one of the worst economic policy blunders of all time. however, we will have to wait and see and only the passage of time will tell. just remember that a classic stimulus bill needs to be temporary, targeted and timely and this bill was none of these things. now to make matters worse, talk of a new stimulus bill is being heard. that is right, if the first stimulus bill is not working, let's have another dose of wanton spending of borrowed money. spending is easy, paying for it is hard. |
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babsjim |
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Posts: 2546 (07/07/09 06:05 PM) |
We really need to get an ALL NEW CONGRESS that will stop spending and taxing like there's no tomorrow. From Clinton on all they have done is....let
everyone think they were entitled to own a home....deregulate the banking laws so the wall street vultures could infect the financial markets and send us into
a war that is costing billions. All they do is pass the pork. It's disgusting.
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vwpatterson3 |
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Posts: 2886 (07/07/09 06:35 PM) |
Don't fly off the handle, Babsjim. What would BJS say? lol
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xxbigjoeyxx |
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Posts: 1294 (07/08/09 04:13 AM) |
babsjim,
i agree with you. the way to get a new congress is with term limits. there is no reason for these people to be there until they die. for example, kennedy and byrd in their current conditions are not effective and not doing their jobs. yes, acknowledge their decades of service but at some point, there does come a time to retire and bring in someone who can actually work. i do not want to debate how good or bad these two men were in the decades they were there but what they are capable of doing NOW. the longer people serve, the more corrupt they seem to get. originally, going to washington was a part time job but now it is permanent. the monied interests seem to rule the place. over time, good people seem to be corrupted. legislation seems taylored to who can pay the congress persons the most. supporters get rewarded with earmarks. the dislike for congress seems to be universal. if memory seems ro serve me right, during the end of bush's presidency, when he had the lowest poll numbers for any president (well deserved), nancy pelosi was polling even lower! how do you get numbers worse than the worst president? that is a real accomplishment. there seems to be a realization that congress is broken. people seem to have no respect for congress. people seem to expect the worst from congress. |
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babsjim |
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Posts: 2548 (07/08/09 07:25 AM) |
We'll never see term limits but perhaps a mandatory reading requirement would be nice.
"We need to be open to whether or not we need further action," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada countered that "there is no showing to me that another stimulus is needed." President Barack Obama underscored the dilemma by addressing both sides of the argument. In an interview with ABC News yesterday, he said unemployment approaching 10 percent is something "we wrestle with constantly." He added that spending more borrowed money is "potentially counterproductive." The split reflects two major challenges facing the Democrats: Record budget deficits that make additional spending much tougher to pass and a 26-year-high unemployment rate of 9.5 percent that is expected to rise to double digits. "They're between a rock and a hard place," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report in Washington. The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June, exceeding economists' forecasts, while the federal budget deficit is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to top $1.8 trillion this year and $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2010. That's provoked criticism of the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in February as either wasteful or not large enough. Borrowing Surge The Treasury is increasing debt sales to pay for the spending. After more than doubling note and bond offerings to $963 billion in the first half, another $1.1 trillion may be sold by year-end, according to Barclays Plc. The second-half sales would be more than the total amount of debt sold in all of 2008. The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the bill approved in February was "a bit too small," said Laura Tyson, an adviser to Obama during last year's presidential campaign who now sits on the White House's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat whose home state has a 12 percent jobless rate, told ABCNews.com that a second stimulus is "probably needed." Action by Congress would "probably take place towards the end of the year," Whitehouse said. With the White House and congressional Democrats focused on a major health-care overhaul and a climate bill, some lawmakers expressed pessimism about the likelihood of such legislation. Deferring to Obama "I'm not sure how you would do it," said the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois. He said he would leave any decision on the need for a fiscal stimulus to "the president's evaluation." Republicans seized on the unemployment rate and job losses of about 6.5 million since the recession began in December 2007 as validation of their vote against the measure in February. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a floor speech yesterday that Democratic proponents of the stimulus program "over-promised on results and now their predictions are coming back to them." McConnell mocked the idea of another stimulus. He called it "mind-boggling" and a worse idea than the previous one, which he said "has been demonstrably proven to have failed." He added, "There is no education in the second kick of a mule." Bernstein Defense The White House dismissed calls to augment or alter the initial legislation. "It's working, it's demonstrably working," said Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden, whose office is overseeing the rollout of the first stimulus. Bernstein said about $200 billion of the $787 billion allocated in the bill has been obligated or spent, adding that the effects of the spending and tax cuts will continue to ramp up in the next few months. "There is no conceivable stimulus package on the face of this earth that would fully offset the deepest recession since the Great Depression," Bernstein said in a telephone interview yesterday. The Obama administration may have to stick with that argument, as more spending is unlikely in the face of record deficits, said Stan Collender, a former House and Senate budget analyst. "Adding additional spending or tax cuts right now would be very difficult," Collender said. He added, however, that if the economy deteriorates, another bill to juice the economy may become possible. "Right now it doesn't seem to be justified," said Collender, managing director of Qorvis Communications in Washington. "Come September, it might be." To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Benjamin in Washington at Mbenjamin2@bloomberg.net Last Updated: July 8, 2009 00:19 EDT
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