A COLLEAGUE at Democracy in America cites Paul Krugman writing:
What do I mean by saying that this is already a Republican economy? Look first at total government spending — federal, state and local. Adjusted for population growth and inflation, such spending has recently been falling at a rate not seen since the demobilization that followed the Korean War.
And the New Yorker's John Cassidy:
From an economic point of view, this is misleading. Obama's policies helped prevent a Great Depression. Since the spring of 2010, payrolls have risen by more than four million. If the do-nothing Republicans in Congress had passed the Administration's American Jobs Act, which contained more financial help for cash-strapped states that are still laying off teachers and other employees, many more Americans would be working.
And he says:
On the one hand, Mr Cassidy wants to give Mr Obama credit for saving America from a second great depression, and for jumpstarting hiring. On the other, he wants to blame Republicans for blocking policies that might have helped even more, and that seems fair enough. But then shouldn't congressional Republicans share some responsibility for the heroic measures alleged to have saved America's economy from economic catastrophe?
Wait, should they? A bit of context: Barack Obama's ARRA stimulus plan passed the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. In the Senate, it just hit the 60 vote threshold needed to overcome filibuster threats. Getting there took the votes of two Republican senators. One, Arlen Specter, later switched parties to become a Democrat. The other, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, famously demanded a reduction in the size of the package, in the form of cuts to aid planned for state and local governments, in exchange for her vote.
Now, in the short window in which Mr Obama had a House majority and a Senate coalition potentially amenable to more economic stimulus, he could potentially have gone back to the trough for more. I'm inclined to think that that wouldn't have been particularly fruitful, given how badly data lagged the state of the real economy and the obvious criticism that would meet such efforts: the stimulus we just passed is only just ramping up. Several times since Mr Obama lost his Congressional supermajority a Republican here or there has joined votes to add a bit more stimulus, in the form of payroll tax cuts and extensions to emergency unemployment insurance. On the other hand, Republicans have frustrated much more than they've passed, and they arguably deserve the greatest responsibility for last year's very damaging debt-ceiling fight.
A different criticism might focus on the Fed. Republican Ben Bernanke is largely responsible for the precarious state of the recovery. One could therefore call this a Republican economy and blame him for upsetting Mr Obama's reelection bid. The problem there is that Mr Obama reappointed Mr Bernanke. He might have chosen someone else or been more aggressive in naming other Federal Reserve appointees. The president has, of course, had quite a lot of trouble getting people confirmed; nominee and Nobelist Peter Diamond was sent packing by Republicans (just one Republican, really, which is all it takes in the world's greatest deliberative body). Republicans have also attempted to jawbone the Fed into submission, which may have had a small chilling effect on policy.
In general, the case that Mr Obama has done almost as much as he might possibly have done to support the economy, mostly without Republican help and quite often in the teeth of intense Republican opposition, is pretty straightforward and more or less accurate. Republican legislators don't deserve much credit for the things that have gone right and do deserve considerable blame for blocking measures that might have helped.
The real rub for Mr Obama is, first, that there is only so much any president can do to combat business cycle fluctuations. Congress is always a bear to work with, and the real authority over the demand side of the macroeconomy rests with the Federal Reserve. And second, correct assignment of blame just isn't going to get Mr Obama very far come November. Job growth is what it is, and voters will hold Mr Obama responsible for that whether or not he convinces them that Republican obstructionism or the Fed's inadequate response to European crisis is to blame, and whether or not he's right about that. If he loses, Mitt Romney will be held responsible for what happens to the economy next, even though it will continue to be the case that Congress holds the keys to domestic policy issues and the Fed has its feet on the macroeconomic pedals. For better or worse, that's how it works.
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It is Mr. Obama's economy. He boasted he could cut the deficit in half and fix the economy his first term. I view his arrogance as the mark of an amateur. People like Tim Geithner, and others also bear much of the responsibility and were and still are part of the problem. But these experts work for Obama, making them his. Along with him they have created a very uncertain business climate, not to mention the unaffordable health care legislation. He had both houses of the Congress early on, but the demo led Senate even failed to pass a budget. No matter how you look at it, the buck stops with him on our current mess... He billed himself as the great uniter. We are still waiting for that and for him to actually show leadership instead of his divide and conquer strategy. The later seems more suited to his reelection than the good of the country, but then again, that is his number one job...getting reelected.
Michael F. Kastre
author of Walking in the Clouds - Colombia through the eyes of a gringo
He did not have both houses of Congress. The only reason he was able to pass the stimulus that he did was because two Republican Senators crossed party lines and voted to help the American people to stimulate the economy. The rest of the Republicans vote against anything and everything that may help us since it may make President Obama look good and their only goal is to make him a one term President they do not care about the economy except in using it to make the President look bad when Congress is actually to blame! (Specifically the Tea Party members and Republicans.
Our capitalist system is very efficient.
When Obamacare passed, workers with a family in "middle income jobs" and provide very little marginal revenue product(work for a company that sell cheap stuff )stopped being hired. Companies could pay the $10,000 family health policy Obamacare was to require. Low income jobs don't get health care and high paying jobs make expensive stuff and services. It will get worse unless its delayed or changed.
See http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/Files/4217-att1-1-12._Job_polarisation_i...
For some reason, this article fails to state how Tim Geithner, and his role in both the crisis that brought about the economic collapse, and the fact that since there have been no real economic reforms, we are heading for a second collapse. Who is Tim? He is the former head of the New York Federal Reserve, which made him as powerful as Paulson back in 2008. He manipulated many various strategies such that his buddies at AIG and at Goldman Sachs got hundreds of billions. Obama appointed him to head the US Treasury,. In that post, he made it abundantly clear that the Federal Government could not help the states that have huge deficits, while not seeming too upset over a recent Fed Reserve audit which showed some 4 to 16 trillions of dollars offered up to the Wall Street elite! Calif. could not have 20 billion as a guldarn loan, while more money to Goldman and AIG! Meanwhile, in the following months, Aug 2010 to Nov 2011, some 255 billions of dollars got spent by the Federal government on modernizing the military and giving Israel and UAE states weapons. (This doesn't even consider the cost of the wars we are fighting.) Until my nation actually straightens out the situation with Treasury and the Fed, and curb the Military Industrial Corporate spending, the USA will remain in trouble. Unemployment will remain high (in my No Calif. county, it's at 18%...) Jobs will continue to flow to other places in the globe, and the consumer spending needed to restore the economy will continue to be non-existent. The only reason the word "recovery" can even be used is because the Big Industries are doing great - with Big Financial firms capturing 49 cents out of every dollar of profit.
Vote for Obama for the next election if you want this economy to prosper. Republicans are not gonna save us. All they care about is the tea party and cutting spending.
"Republican legislators don't deserve much credit for the things that have gone right and do deserve considerable blame for blocking measures that might have helped." - Great line. I agree, and more people should be talking about this. In my opinion, holding a country's economy hostage because you need to get re-elected is reprehensible.
LOL. R.A. threads a needle over different factors and totally misses the elephant in the room. I work at a major U.S. bank and it's plainly obvious that B.H.O.'s hostile, uncertain business climate (unknown health care ramfications, run away fiscal deficits, potential tax increases) has put a stranglehold around growth. Of course this is his baby now.
"Is it Barack Obama's economy?"
No, unfortunately it's OURS.
Barack Hussein Obama merely f*cked it up beyond all repair.
I suppose those 8 years of Bushenomics and two major wars were golden years?
What would you have done to reverse yet?
Carried on lowering taxes for the rich?
You seem very confused. Can you name one policy that has messed the economy up beyond repair?
youre the one whos f*ucked up. Obama saved us during the 2008 great recession. Economy is wonderful and CPI is within 2%. We all need to do our fair share to help this economy. What have you done lately? you should shut your face if youre gonna say something stupid.
Yes, bank deregulation.
Busheconomics created the longest continuous expansion of the US economy, surpassing even the Clinton one, which also ended in a bubble deflating.
The real crash happened in the summer\fall of 2008 - before he was President. Before the election even. He deserves all the criticism you deem applicable for his responses since he's been President, but not for causing it.
It's bizarre. The rabid right in this country seems to have a real difficult time with history and the timeline of events. Even recent history.
You Americans have really no idea, do you?? It was Bush who destroyed your wealth and status! Did you expect Obama to fix it within 1 term?? You know what your problem is.......he is not white like you. All the BS about him being a Muslim is rubbish! I have never seen such racism in a Nation, but there you go....it only happens in AMERICA.
The elephant in the room is federal borrowing and spending, basically for entitlements (privileges). Government is bigger and is growing faster than the economy that supports it. With a hypothetical 3% interest rate on gross public debt and 20 year amortization, we have to borrow and spend less than $14.88 per incremental income tax dollar collected in order to reduce the debt burden. The $14.88 inflection point requires quite a bit of "shared sacrifice" to attain, because the current ratio is about $48:1. Spending is increasing. Personal income tax collections are increasing slightly. Payroll withholdings for Social Security are decreasing. And corporate income tax revenue is decreasing.
Two policy changes we need to make are 1) achieve a truly stable price level, and 2) exempt AT LEAST a per capita GDP rate of return on private savings from income taxation. This would allow returns on private savings to mirror the growth rate of the general economy and lay a foundation for privatized Social Security which returns less than per-capita GDP. It's making us relatively poorer, and will, if "saved" in order to maintain solvency, probably achieve negative real returns within the next decade, thus making everyone absolutely poorer from the date their first dollar is withheld.
Couldn't you just cut defense spending? You know perhaps starting with the wunderwaffen that the military insists it neither needs nor wants?
Defense vs. entitlements? Personally, I'd like to see us reward, not penalize, people who work.
I do too. I think wages should rise across the board. Or better yet force companies to pay a bonus to their staff if they pay one to the men at the top. It would increase the tax base, pump demand into the economy, reduce social problems caused by financial stress, reduce governmental responsibility for said social problems, encourage people to work, and on and on and on
That however has nothing to do with this. Defense spending is unnecessarily bloated by the worst kind of pork barrel politics and needs to be cut objectively, regardless of external circumstances, and in real terms, now.
Defense spending, at a declining rate of 18.6% of total federal spending, isn't the elephant. Certain weapons systems, maybe, but not defense spending generally, which is relatively well controlled. That may not be saying a lot.
Medicare/Medicaid, at a rapidly rising 119% of defense spending, needs to be controlled. It's being funded by IOUs that are parked in an Enron-style off balance-sheet special purpose entity.
Defense spending is still more than the next 20 nations combined and 6 times that of our nearest potential rival who is at least two generations behind us in weapons technology.
Combined, the US and its allies account for nearly 3/4 of global defense spending (and this is already with a massive lead in logistics, materiel, and technology).
There is no extant definition of excessive that doesn't include those kinds of numbers.
While medicare and medicaid spending is rising, I'm not sure how you can control it without depriving needy people of healthcare. (Aside from going to an NHS style system which is far more efficient according to the OECD but apparently a non-starter for the American public)
Either way, the bottom line is medicare and medicaid serve a purpose, excessive defense spending does not. One can cut the defense budget painlessly; the same cannot be said for cutting expenditures for the disadvantaged.
One man's waste, fraud, and abuse is another man's lifetime employment security! Anything scarce has to be rationed. We either let supply and demand via voluntary market cooperation do it or we let a dictator/bureaucracy/legislative formula do it. The problem is that our current legislative formula has to match unlimited wants and needs to limited supply and is failing. It's failing in such a way that it may at some future date fail spectacularly, taking our entire economy with it. If creditors said "enough!" and stopped buying T-Bills today and we had to shrink the debt to less than one year's income tax collections, we could see 1,100% hyperinflation.
I happen to think we need a viable defense. Of course nobody wants to die. So there's a rationing process that occurs in the last couple months of life. We don't have adequate technology to engage in utopian socialist fantasy, and it's not government's role to attempt to supply such a thing.
rollswrangler, According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) historical data (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals) in Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 (before 9-11 and the Afghan and Iraqi Wars) the U.S. Government outlay for Defense was 16.5% of the total budget. Defense spending peaked in FY2008 at 20.5% of the budget, and as of 2011 it was down to 19.4% of the budget. Yes, the Defense budget is going down, but much of that has to do with ending our involvement in Iraq (mostly) and starting the draw-down in Afghanistan. Defense spending is still well above where it was in FY2000.
As for spending on Medicare/Medicaid, as of FY2011 the total outlays for those programs was $754,887 billion versus $699,463 billion for Defense. That means Medicare/Medicaid spending is 7.9% more than Defense spending, not ANYWHERE near 119%, as you’ve stated. Also, it’s interesting to note that during the last 10 years Defense spending was higher than Medicare/Medicaid spending in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008.
I’m afraid I have to agree with King of Bats; Defense spending is excessive. Thank You.
The way I see it is that the long ago industrialized west has used it's growth potential for now. Without some kind of new sectors that would add jobs and growth (like the industrial sector did after agriculture was saturated and the services sector after that) the current situation has probably been unavoidable. Governmental institutions have some influence to the situation but the global economy is a juggernaut. EU zone is having fundamentally similar problems although the symptoms vary. The west will be growing slowly (at least for now) and other countries are the ones on the rise until they run out of their potential. One can blame the GOP or democrats or the presidents, but the way I see it, there's not that much any single institution or individual can do.
If you think Obama and the democrats are not to blame you are a fool. First of all, The democrats ruled from 2006 on. They had majorities in the house and senate, including senator obama and after 6 and then 8 years of media biased attacked on Bush, he ended up being a lame duck and for anyone to sit there and blame republicans for the recession is either blind or stupid. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid a majority democrat congress and a SINGLE republican president does not make this a republican economy or problem.
Then we get to 2008, when Obama and the democrats have everything with filibuster proof control. If you cant get things done with total power, then you are proven an incompetent fool.
So yeah, this is a democrat economy, a democrat problem, democrats in fact have ruled most of the last 90 years, all of the ridiculous government programs, the socialism and etc are all democrat problems.
And with Obama pushing HIS Keynesian economics for socialism government on everyone he damn well is to blame. He is the one who decided more socialism, a proven failure of a government and Keynesian economics, also proven a failure and in fact exacerbates recessions into 4 year nightmares and the totally on him increase in spending of 1.3T or so a year(no that is not bush's part, which is another 300 billion or so), it is all on Obama and all on the democrats.
The only thing the Republicans are guilty of is screwing up in 2006 and handing power back to the democrats and their screw up was turning left and moving away from the Constitution.
I know I know, you idiot democrats are still going to keep Blaming Bush, amazing how your party can have total control and it is someone else's fault.
Sorry democrats, Obama is out and you will be out of power in November. You should have stuck with Nikita Khrushchev's advice and slowly pushed communism on Americans, so most of the people would not notice. Obama is out because Presidents dont get re-elected when recessions are dragging on and getting worse and the unemployment rising and it is IN FACT the guy in the White House who takes the blame, whether is guilty or not.
As the Duke of Wellington once said to someone, "Sir if you believe that you will believe anything."
I would add unbelievably ignorant.
As the Duke of Wellington once said to someone, "Sir if you believe that you will believe anything."
I would add unbelievably ignorant.
Clearly you have not read the article? In real terms the tax ratio under Obama is less than that of Ronald Reagan on average. More government jobs are cut under him than Bush. How is that socialism?
On the other hand, ideologically you realise if there is very small government, ie, the opposite of "socialism", then big enterprise and the upper class rich forms monopolies that controls the economy without the responsibility of government? Isn't that worse? Doesn't the new wave of republican party economic libertarianism seem to support this system?
The government is spending over 50% of the GDP, doesnt matter if that is taxes or borrowing or printing, it is taking money from the productive people and removing it from the economy. That is big government. There are more employees and people on the government pay as contractors than ever before and their salaries are going up, not down. Not sure what tax return you are filling out by my taxes are significantly higher than they 6 or 7 years ago.
The next thing is your claims on socialism and things like monopolies. Not sure if you ever heard of countries like the Soviet Union or in general the millions of dead and destitute socialism has caused but I would think avoiding that would be a goal, not the desire to bring it here. China is successful today because they are backing off socialism as an economy. The 4 most economically free places, like Singapore has low unemployment and the highest growth or Australia with decent growth and low unemployment.
And please point to a single monopoly that formed without government help. The old AT&T for example, was put together by the government and laws passed making it illegal to form a phone company, Major league baseball, a monopoly, there is a law in place banning the creation of a different baseball league. The fact is monopolies cant be created under free capitalism precisely because any kind of over pricing for bad service is what causes the creation of competitors. Only the government can get in the way of that and prevent competition.
It is in fact the other way around. Under socialism, you have a collapse of all people into poor and a few elites who monopolize the entire economy.
I am not from the US nor did I ever live there so I dont claim to know about the real picture. I told you about those data quoting articles and economists I have read from. Perhaps you are more correct than them, and they are just saying these false information for their own political gain. Or maybe you are somehow misled. I dont know. Won't really comment. orz
The Soviet union has big government, and that is clearly too big. It is not true if one person advocate moving to one direction he also favors taking that direction to absurd extremes. However, I agree with you that many successful economies has smaller government than the USA and it seems to have worked well for them.
However, there are also plenty of examples of reasonable government interference that has worked well too. For instance Korea's business has a lot of government protection, and now many of them have turned out to be successful. One of the reason for China's fast economic growth in the past is the government's big taxation big investment policy. It accelerates growth by pumping up the investment/consumption ratio. (This mode now however is becoming a source of danger for China, yes, it tells us that often big government has probably more flaws than small government, which I totally agree.) Government interference in education has also worked well in many countries. Just recall that historically "free" education market means the majority of people are illiterate.
I think the key point is that what the big government is motivated by, and different motivation brings very different outcomes. It the big government is motivated by giving out welfare freely, then big government clearly is then a hinderance. If the big government is motivated by growing the country, then government interference in moderation can be beneficial.
I am sorry for the misunderstanding, but by monopolies I do not mean one company control the market, but a class of people controlling the shares of companies. Without government's taking care of the middle and lower class taken to extreme, the wealthy will "monopolise" the resource so that they could stay rich by being "landlords" in a generalized sense. If the lower and middle class cannot balance that out through their vote on the government, the power will become more concentrated through the cumulation of capital and inefficiencies of a different kind will emerge.
It is true that under many cases of dominant government control, corruption and lack of work incentive is so pervasive that it is disastrously inefficient. However, all I am saying is that there should be a balance of power between private and public sector, between political and monetary currency, and between the wealthy and the poor. I would say simply that if any of the two extremes are too dominent the country will be less efficient.
Have you ever been to a socialist country or looked up the meaning of the word in the dictionary?
Sorry I hope your "facts" didn't come from a comic book. First of all, the Soviet Union is NOT a country. It was group of countries united by Russia which dominated the union. Secondly, the soviet union was not socialist, it was communist trying reading a real book to learn the difference. Communism didn't leave millions destitute or dead, it was psychopaths like Stalin during WWII who did the killing.
Your definition of socialism descibes America under a Replican president. Filthy rich republicans running the country at the expense of the average American continously exploiting ways to enrich themselve in push millions of American below the poverty line. But America is not socialist. Please learn the meaning of the terms you are using before using them.
Todd T: I'm glad to have finally found someone who knows more about economics than the Economist--or any Economics 101 textbook for that matter. We've been learning it wrong all these years! Obviously the problem with deficit spending is that it risks exacerbating recessions (and not, say, inflation).
That explains why we're in recession--except for the part where we're not actually in recession. (No inflation either, incidentally.)
As in any marriage, the blame lies almost equally in each party. As in any marriage, blame laying does nothing to solve the problem, it just makes it worse. America is broke, and yes, printing money seems to be the only POLITICALLY viable quick fix, until the next party comes into power... after a successful blame laying campaign. America sooner or later will default on its debt, formally or via runaway inflation.
That's a load of bunk. When it comes to governance, we do need to know who's to blame. That way we make informed choices on who to vote out of office for being derelict in their duty.
Currently the US has $1.274 trillion in corporate + personal income tax receipts. We're spending $1.348 trillion more (deficit) while not taking into account an additional $587 billion in 3% 20 year principle amortization on the gross public debt. If someone made us, today we would have to raise taxes 152% which is 12.7% of GDP. Or we could default and endure 1,140% hypoerinflation to reduce our debt to a manageable amount equal to one year's income tax receipts.
"Quantitative easing" is defacto default. We're already defaulting by manipulating the fundamentals. The cost is inflation, loss of retirement income, lower exchange rates, higher import prices including petroleum, etc. With a flat yield curve finance (borrowins short and lending long) ceases to work.
There is no way out other than austerity or a technology breakthrough.
What all this really means is we are back to that damn silly idea of supply side economics improving the economy. That is hogwash now and was hogwash then just as the so-called Laffer curve was and is. Toto: we aren't in Kansas anymore!!!
Both parties are jaywalking and don't feel responsible to work and restore the economy to health except blaming the President.Running the country is the responsibility of congress through the institution of President. It's the responsibility of Congress to enable by passing the required laws for the President to do it,instead the Senate Republican leader pronounced on day one that his role is to make this President a one time affair.In fact he is the person who should be damned for the non-functioning of Congress and the Republican house actively cooperated with him. The republican administration before Obama is responsiblre for the mess we are in and voters should wake up and adequately respond in the coming elections by voting out theunpatriotic legislators out and none of them know how the economy operates or wars are waged.
Kruggman is a economic communist and other than the NYT no ones pays him any mind. His statement that spending is falling taking into account population growth and inflation???? What business could ever use those metrics to justify spending. Since when does got need to grow when in fact with modernization their costs should be dropping. What Krudman would have you believe is that govt needs to keep adding programs because there is more $$ coming in. Under his general philosophy $$$ in the hands of the taxpayers is just being wasted and he and his ilk know how to spend it better
Krugman is a communist? That's really original. Do you even know what the word means? Did you ever read a history book? My guess is, no.
Oh, and another thing...before your opinion can be taken seriously, please learn to write.
You really don't gain credibility by misspelling Paul Krugman's name. "...no one pays him any mind." Huh? He won a Nobel Prize for heavens sake!
Denial isn't a river in Egypt
so did barak obama hmm hmm hmmm
Cutting one's nose to spite one's face is what the moronic Repugs have been doing ever since Obama won the elections. What a crying shame! They don't give a damn for the country.
so true Barak and his hordes of Dem's have only added $10 Trillion in new debt to this country so that unborn now face a debt of $130K when they are born.
Dumping your IOU's maybe a Dem core belief but its hardly a family value or for that matter an American one
A typically clueless response from the folks on the right that totally ignores the FACT that the policies of President Obama have added little to the debt or deficits most of the debt and the deficits are the result of the policies of G W Bush that are ongoing and will take decades to lose their bad effects.
Reallly??? Lets see the Dem's have been in power since 2007 that's when they started their legislative armageddon for the US. There are FEWER people working in the US than during the last 4 years of W's administration...but hey your a left wing socialist and refuse to take credit for your accomplishments
It will take us as long, to see a stronger economy, as it took us to get here. From as far back as Reagan's "Vooduh-economics". One presidency will not solve a train wreck foreseen as far back as ten, fifteen(?) years ago. Good luck watching Mitz try to pull a juggling act cum hat trick to solve the mess that McCain deliberately avoided.
It won't happen overnight. If it does, I"d be very suspicious.
Conspiracy theorists aside, short term profiteering, screw-ball lobbying efforts, and extreme party loyalties, ahead of the welfare of the constituencies, has driven the USA into a muddy ditch. Accusations abound. Solutions are aplenty. The time and efforts to regain the stability of the economy are dependent on truths being spoken and dealt with.
Unfortunately, during elections, truth is often one of the first casualties. -Eh!
A LEADER , BY ANYBODY'S DEFINITION ,IS SOMEONE WHO LEADS, TAKES CHARGE,ASSIGN DUTIES AND SUPERVISES,SHOWS COURAGE AND TAKES THE BLAME FOR THINGS THAT GO WRONG !! PRESIDENT OBAMA, UNFORTUNATELY, FAILS MANY OF THESE CRITERIA !! THE PUBLIC AT LARGE DO NOT HAVE A PHD IN ECONOMICS !! ALL THEY WORRY ABOUT IS THEIR JOBS, THE MONEY COMING IN AND THE FOOD ON THE TABLE ! THE DISCUSSIONS REGARDING THE REPUBLICAN VS OBAMA ECONOMY, THE EUROOPEAN IMPACT ON THE US ECONOMY, THE CYCLICAL NATURE OF THE MARKETS ETC; ETC; ARE TOO ESOTERIC AND ACADEMIC FOR THEM !!IT IS LIKELY THAT IF THE ECONOMY DO NOT SHOW SIGNIFICANT UPWARD CHANGE IN THE NEXT THREE MONTHS, OBAMA WILL LOOSE THE RE ELECTION ; THAT IS THE VERY SAD REALITY. THIS IS VERY UNFORTUNATE FOR A VERY GOOD, WELL EDUCATED, CARING AND THOUGHTFUL PRESIDENT !!I AM A CARD CARRYING MEMBER OF THE PROGRESSIVE WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND I FEEL VERY SADDENED. VENKAT WARREN.M.D.
It's truly pathetic how the navel-gazing masses are so easily swayed by infantile rightwing rhetoric..
"......President Obama, Unfortunately, fails many of these criteria........" Pleeeeeeeease!!!name those "many criteria" he fails and why!
Obviously to anyone who has seen people given credit for something not of their doing( ie clinton) or be blamed for bad economies that are no fault of their own. The american economy is neither a presidents, a republican, a democrat, a bank throttled, chinese borrowed, money printing addled or wall street economy. It is an American economy. Which is to say a free country of people. We the people in order to form a more perfect union...
And the fundamental problem is we have more takers than makers. Ethics and laws have shifted to accept being a taker as ok, and indeed laws facilitate the takers making an easier living with little risk. People are proud if they unethically get over on someone. Survivoresque philosophies have become the norm. If a bad economy is always an enemy of a free nation. Being a collaboratative facilitator of fundamentally bad ecomonic principles should be interpreted as a soft form of Treason. If treason is defined in the constitution as lending aide to an enemy. Obviously the silent enemy of any country or society are greed graft corruption and selfishness.
The way this country survived is the Makers outpaced the Takers. Of course this was easier for the first hundred and fifty years when most people in the country were agricultural, or highly involved in manufacturing.
Makers: Provide essential value to society, Agriculture, Restaurant, Hotels, Mining, Manufacturing, R & D., Medical, some of pharma.
Takers: People who don't create essential value, but instead are people who provide SERVICE and thereby take or skim from the Makers. Takers include the portion of civil servants that are undedicated ineficcient and self serving, Most Lawyers, Many judges, Prostitutes, Drug Dealers, Most accountants, Tax dodging investors Especially short term investors, profit first corporations. Social security recipients past their own contributions. Medicare recipients past their own contributions, welfare recipients, FEMA recipients. Any industry that hides societal life saving information and moneysaving advances in fields such as energy or health care to ensure their own profits.
But hey I guess that is obvious to everyone else too.
What is right is right and allows you to sleep well at night. what is wrong is wrong, and requires a lawyer or some form of rationalization to justify.
Hear! Hear!
Fully with you, Nobody!
The problem with the dog and pony show is that President O'Bama represents all minorities. AS such, the baseless name calling visited on him by Republicans implies that he is incompetent because of his race and culture. By association it then also applies to all minorities.
The cleverness of such attacks is that it calls up a visceral response by minorities and cultivates the opposite compliment by poor ill-educated white folk.
It fortifies the status-quo to the disadvantage of poor white folk and minorities.
Whatever policies one believes should/could have been adopted to reverse the Bush era economic collapse, the Republican congress deserves absolute condemnation for undermining public confidence over the past several years and, thereby, slowing the recovery. The spectacle of Republicans blocking the inevitable increase in the federal debt limit was a low in Congressional politics. Democrats should be campaigning against the GOP congress - not Romney.
The US economy has in fact been slowly and steadily recovering but the media would have one believe otherwise.
Soiunds like President Obama wrote this message. Blame everyone else (primarily President Bush) for his shortcomings, but when something goes right (not much has) he takes full credit (and almost always uses the big "I" when he does so).
When will the public catch up with his blame game and when will President Obama take resposibility for his numerous shortcomings.
"Democrats should be campaigning against the GOP congress - not Romney."
As a matter of strategy, you are absolutely correct.
No, not a big Obama fan - just extremely fed-up with the current GOP dishonesty.
"Our #1 goal is to make Barack Obama a 1-term president."
That's your Senate majority leader on day 1. And in terms of reversing the unregulated mortgage mess? Nothing Obama could do about the credit crunch he inherited but it would be nice if he had a filibuster-proof senate!
Many cooks; spoil the meal. Obama has similar dilemma in his financial department, he has appointed several economical advisers who were crossing each other and giving timely and untimely advises to Obama; including old President Bill Clinton, who behaved like his chief financial consultant.
In my opinion, Bush-Cheney and party has looted and wasted the American Treasury to that extent before leaving; there was no hope for any one to make it good again. Obama deserved credit for at least stopping the down fall and retain the name of America otherwise another Bush like (McCain) could have started another Iran war and America would have been a History.