“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
– Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate, 1940, 1944 and 1948
In a FoxNews interview, Lindsay Graham pointed out Obama’s penchant for avoiding real work and instead performing for the press in the so-far lucrative public opinion venue he relies on so much. Lacking leadership isn’t a new thing from what I can tell, but now that he’s got the job, you’d think he’d want to at least appear presidential.
President Obama has been “AWOL” in negotiations over the economic stimulus package, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday in a scathing rebuke of the new president.
The South Carolina Republican told FOX News that Obama has not been providing leadership, and he criticized the president for giving TV interviews and writing an editorial touting the package, rather than addressing the complaints of lawmakers.
“This process stinks,” Graham told FOX News, before repeating a lot of his criticisms on the Senate floor. “We’re making this up as we go and it is a waste of money. It is a broken process, and the president, as far as I’m concerned, has been AWOL on providing leadership on something as important as this.”
Republican senators and congressmen have been reluctant to direct any criticism at the president since his inauguration. They mostly have fired shots at Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, saying they have obstructed the bipartisan process Obama sought.
But Graham broke that practice after Obama granted a round of interviews defending his plan Tuesday and wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post Thursday in which he warned of disastrous consequences if Congress does not pass the stimulus bill.
“Scaring people is not leadership. Writing an editorial that if you don’t pass this bad bill we’re going to have disaster — we’ve had enough presidents trying to scare people to make bad decisions,” Graham said.
“I like President Obama, but he is not leading. Having lunch is not leading … and doing TV interviews is not leading.”
Obama renewed his plea for the bill at the Energy Department Thursday, shortly after Graham spoke.
“The time for talk is over. The time for action is now,” Obama said.
Obama, in his op-ed, wrote that inaction could lead the economy into an irreversible decline.
“Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes,” he wrote. “And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.”
It’s really telling that a sitting president actually thinks that the economy “may not be able to reverse”. That just shows shocking misunderstanding for economy in general. Does he think we’re all going to lay down and die? It’s embarassing that he’s so naive. Four long years to go, dealing with a beginner.
This is from an interview Karl Rove gave to Greta Van Sustern. The transcript is on the website:
You know, I was reading something, rereading Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council in the Obama White House, some remarks that he made earlier in this process, I believe it was in December. He said, As with any potent medicine, stimulus if mis-administered could do more harm than good by increasing instability and creating long-term programs. A stimulus program should be timely, targeted and temporary.
Timely — we now know that more money in both the House and Senate versions is going to be spent in the years 2011 and beyond than in 2009. Think about that. We’re going to be spending more of this so-called stimulus money in 2011 and to 2019 than we’re spending in 2009.
Targeted — I mean, how targeted is it? You know, we’re losing jobs in manufacturing, and what we’re doing here is just throwing every dollar we can against the wall. It’s sort of like trickle-down Democratic economics. Give $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health. What is that going to do to employ somebody in a manufacturing plant?
And temporary? This is not going to be temporary spending. This is going to be the largest increase in discretionary non-security spending in the history of the United States. It will be an 80 percent increase over this year’s budget. This year’s budget is roughly $393 billion in discretionary non-security spending. This will add $307 billion into the budget this year.
Who thinks that next year, Congress is going to come in and say, You know, what? That $40 billion we added to education in 2009, for the FY 2009 budget, oh, that was just a one-year thing. How many people are going to say, That’s built into the baseline of the budget and we’ve got to start from that point for the 2010 budget? I mean, this is ridiculous, what we’re looking at here. It is the biggest expansion of government all in the name of the stimulus, and it’s not going to end up creating jobs.
In yet another article about the Democrat responsibility for events that led to the hell we’re in now (and frankly most of the hell this country’s ever been in). Read the full article here. Excerpts are included below…
Mr. Bush wanted to limit systemic risk by raising the GSEs’ capital requirements, compelling preapproval of new activities, and limiting the size of their portfolios. Why should government regulate banks, credit unions and savings and loans, but not GSEs? Mr. Bush wanted the GSEs to be treated just like their private-sector competitors.
But the GSEs fought back. They didn’t want to see the Bush reforms enacted, because that would level the playing field for their competitors. Congress finally did pass the Bush reforms, but in 2008, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed.
Isn’t that interesting. Surrender Poodle Pelosi and the Freddi Mac executive’s boy-toy Barney Frank should be run out of the country on a rail. I don’t understand why fools in those states keep fools in power, but I guess I guess that explains it.
When Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed for comprehensive GSE reform in 2005, Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut successfully threatened a filibuster. Later, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed, Mr. Dodd asked, “Why weren’t we doing more?” He then voted for the Bush reforms that he once called “ill-advised.”
But Mr. Dodd wasn’t the only Democrat to heap abuse on the Bush reforms. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts defended Fannie and Freddie as “fundamentally sound” and labeled the president’s proposals as “inane.” He later voted for the reforms. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York dismissed Mr. Bush’s “safety and soundness concerns” as “a straw man.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” was the helpful advice of both Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware and Rep. Maxine Waters of California. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York berated a Bush official at a hearing, saying, “I am just pissed off” at the administration for raising the issue.
…
The housing meltdown is largely a story of greed and irresponsibility made possible by government privilege. If Democrats had granted the Bush administration the regulatory powers it sought, the housing crisis wouldn’t be nearly as severe and the economy as a whole would be better off.
That’s why some mythmakers are so intent on denying that Mr. Bush worked to rein in the GSEs. But facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan used to say, and in this instance, the facts support Mr. Bush and offer a harsh judgment on key Democrats. Perhaps that explains why so many in the media haven’t told the real story.
The Comptroller of the Currency issued the following report regarding mortgages that were modified in 1Q 2008 in order to supposedly help the homeowners stay in their homes. The results are dismal. Yet I’m sure our President-Elect and Democrat Congress will push forward with plans to do this on a large scale, backed by government (our) $’s.
WASHINGTON — Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said today that new data shows that more than half of loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 fell delinquent within six months.
“After three months, nearly 36 percent of the borrowers had re-defaulted by being more than 30 days past due. After six months, the rate was nearly 53 percent, and after eight months, 58 percent,” the Comptroller said in remarks at the Office of Thrift Supervision’s National Housing Forum today.
Mr. Dugan spoke during a panel discussion with OTS Director John Reich, Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart.
A key question, Mr. Dugan said, is why is the number of re-defaults so high? “Is it because the modifications did not reduce monthly payments enough to be truly affordable to the borrowers? Is it because consumers replaced lower mortgage payments with increased credit card debt? Is it because the mortgages were so badly underwritten that the borrowers simply could not afford them, even with reduced monthly payments? Or is it a combination of these and other factors?”
Read the full report here.
This all makes such perfect, logical sense. I can’t believe they refuse to see it.
From the Wall Street Journal . . . .
The incoming Obama administration and congressional Democrats are now considering a second fiscal stimulus package, estimated at more than $500 billion, to follow the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. As they do, much can be learned by examining the first.
The major part of the first stimulus package was the $115 billion, temporary rebate payment program targeted to individuals and families that phased out as incomes rose. Most of the rebate checks were mailed or directly deposited during May, June and July.
The argument in favor of these temporary rebate payments was that they would increase consumption, stimulate aggregate demand, and thereby get the economy growing again. What were the results? The chart nearby reveals the answer.
The upper line shows disposable personal income through September. Disposable personal income is what households have left after paying taxes and receiving transfers from the government. The big blip is due to the rebate payments in May through July.
The lower line shows personal consumption expenditures by households. Observe that consumption shows no noticeable increase at the time of the rebate. Hence, by this simple measure, the rebate did little or nothing to stimulate consumption, overall aggregate demand, or the economy.
These results may seem surprising, but they are not. They correspond very closely to what basic economic theory tells us. According to the permanent-income theory of Milton Friedman, or the life-cycle theory of Franco Modigliani, temporary increases in income will not lead to significant increases in consumption. However, if increases are longer-term, as in the case of permanent tax cut, then consumption is increased, and by a significant amount.
After years of study and debate, theories based on the permanent-income model led many economists to conclude that discretionary fiscal policy actions, such as temporary rebates, are not a good policy tool. Rather, fiscal policy should focus on the “automatic stabilizers” (the tendency for tax revenues to decline in a recession and transfer payments such as unemployment compensation to increase in a recession), which are built into the tax-and-transfer system, and on more permanent fiscal changes that will positively affect the long-term growth of the economy.
Why did that consensus seem to break down during the public debates about the fiscal stimulus early this year? One reason may have been the apparent success of the rebate payments in 2001. However, those rebate payments were the first installment of more permanent, multiyear tax cuts passed that same year. Hence, they were not temporary.
Read the full article here.
Another great op-ed from the WSJ on the random tax numbers quoted by the Obama campaign and the loving press’ unwillingness to put up a question mark. Some highlights:
In the last debate, Sen. Obama said, “We both want to cut taxes, the difference is who we want to cut taxes for. . . . The centerpiece of [McCain’s] economic proposal is to provide $200 billion in additional tax breaks to some of the wealthiest corporations in America. Exxon Mobil, and other oil companies, for example, would get an additional $4 billion in tax breaks.”
That $200 billion figure is false. Yet FactCheck.org and most reporters never bothered to ask Mr. Obama where he came up with it. FactCheck.org did discover that Mr. Obama’s claim about “$4 billion in tax breaks for energy companies” came from a two-page memo from the Center for American Progress Action Fund — a political lobby headed by John Podesta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, with tax issues handled by two lawyers, Robert Gordon and James Kvaal, former policy directors for the John Kerry and John Edwards campaigns. Those lawyers confused average tax rates (after credits and deductions) with the 35% statutory rate on the next dollar of earnings, so that cutting the latter rate from 35% to 25% would supposedly cut big oil’s $13.4 billion tax bill by 28.5%, or $3.8 billion. That is not economics; it is not even competent bookkeeping.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, by contrast, correctly notes that, “Senator McCain has called for the repeal and reform of a number of tax preferences for oil companies,” which would raise the oil companies’ taxes by $5 billion in 2013.
Read the full article here.
From the WSJ…
The most basic explanation for why Barack Obama may win next Tuesday is that voters want economic deliverance. The standard fix for this in politics everywhere is to crowbar the old party out and patch in the other one. It is true as well that the historic nature of the nation’s first African-American candidacy would play a big role.
Push past the historic candidacy, however, and one sees something even larger at stake in this vote… The real “change” being put to a vote for the American people in 2008 is not simply a break from the economic policies of “the past eight years” but with the American economic philosophy of the past 200 years. This election is about a long-term change in America’s idea of itself.
I don’t agree with the argument that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government is a one-off, that good old nonideological American pragmatism will temper their ambitions. Not true. With this election, the U.S. is at a philosophical tipping point.
The goal of Sen. Obama and the modern, “progressive” Democratic Party is to move the U.S. in the direction of Western Europe, the so-called German model and its “social market economy.” Under this notion, business is highly regulated, as it would be in the next Congress under Democratic House committee chairmen Markey, Frank and Waxman. Business is allowed to create “wealth” so long as its utility is not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system.
…
This would be a historic shift, one post-Vietnam Democrats have been trying to achieve since their failed fight with Ronald Reagan’s “Cowboy Capitalism.”
Of course Cowboy Capitalism built the country. More than any previous nation in history, the United States made its way forward on a 200-year wave of upwardly mobile, profit-seeking merchants, tradesmen, craftsmen and workers. They blew out of New England and New York, rolled across the wildernesses of the Central States, pushed across a tough Western frontier and banged into San Francisco and Los Angeles, leaving in their path city after city of vast wealth.
The U.S. emerged a superpower, and the tool of that ascent was simple — the pursuit of economic growth. Now China, India and Brazil, embracing high-growth Cowboy Capitalism, are doing what we did, only their cities are bigger.
Now comes Barack Obama, standing at the head of a progressive Democratic Party, his right hand rising to say, “Mothers, don’t let your babies grow up to be for-profit cowboys. It’s time to spread the wealth around.”
READ IT HERE, [an itemized list of European yoke-style government policies Obama-Reid-Pelosi will install.]
“I’ve got two daughters, nine years old and six years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Johnstown, PA 4/1/08
