2012 Elections in the USA

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426822]No, bills that the majority party supports get brought to the floor, but filibustered if they lack 60 votes. Whereas bills that the minority party supports don't get brought to the floor without 60 votes. In essence, there is no difference, as neither party can get a bill passed without 60 votes, so long as the minority party consistently uses the filibuster. All of this is why nothing gets done in the Senate when everything is hyperpartisan as is presently the case. Net net, neither party has control of the Senate sufficient to get a bill passed without significant crossing of the aisle, and only ultra-rare bipartisan bills get passed.[/QUOTE]Not entirely true, as usual. In fact, nothing gets voted on in the Senate unless Sir Harry Reid first permits it, which is why every Republican bill passed by the House and every Republican bill initiated in the Senate are immediately dead on arrival, this fact being in direct contrast to the liberal media's portrayal of the Republicans as the obstructionists.

[QUOTE=Punter 127;426820]Are you saying only bills with 60 votes get voted on? If so how does anything ever get voted down?[/QUOTE]Actually, there's an exception to this via a procedured called "Reconciliation": Bills regarding the budget only require 50% of the Senator's vote to be advanced to a full vote on the bill itself, this prooving necessary to prevent a filibuster from stopping the passage of budget (aka "spending") bills.

Of course, we haven't seen an actual Budget Bill since the beginning of the Obama Adminsitration, but that's another story.
Thanks,

Jackson

[QUOTE=Jackson;426826]Not entirely true, as usual. In fact, nothing gets voted on in the Senate unless Sir Harry Reid first permits it, which is why every Republican bill passed by the House and every Republican bill initiated in the Senate are immediately dead on arrival, this fact being in direct contrast to the liberal media's portrayal of the Republicans as the obstructionists.[/QUOTE]None of those bills had 60 Senators supporting them. If they had, they could have forced their way around Sir Harry.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426828]None of those bills had 60 Senators supporting them. If they had, they could have forced their way around Sir Harry.[/QUOTE]Yes, but many of those bills had 51 Senators supporting them, but we'll never know because Reid won't even let them come up for a vote.

That's just wrong.

[QUOTE=Jackson; 426829]Yes, but many of those bills had 51 Senators supporting them, but we'll never know because Reid won't even let them come up for a vote.

That's just wrong.[/QUOTE]It's not any more wrong than a minority party filibuster. They are the opposite sides of the same coin, and it's the way the Senate operates.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426830]It's not any more wrong than a minority party filibuster. They are the opposite sides of the same coin, and it's the way the Senate operates.[/QUOTE]One individual preventing a vote in the USA Senate isn't any worse than 40 out of 100 preventing the vote? Or does that just apply if the majority of the 40 are Republicans?

[QUOTE=Tiny12;426832]One individual preventing a vote in the USA Senate isn't any worse than 40 out of 100 preventing the vote? Or does that just apply if the majority of the 40 are Republicans?[/QUOTE]It's one person either way. Parties don't filibuster and vote in a bloc unless their party leader tells them to. Last I saw, Mitch McConnell was the same number of people as Harry Reid. They are each engaging in exactly equivalent preventions of simple majority rule in the Senate. You don't seriously mean to make the ludicrous suggestion that McConnell's maneuverings in the Senate and Reid's maneuverings are in any way different in legitimacy under the Senate's rules? If you are suggesting that, you need to dial back on the hallucinogens. Incidentally, the Dems aren't doing anything different from what the Republicans did when they held the majority (but not a super-majority) in the Senate in the 1990s under Trent Lott or in the early years of the Bush administration under Bill Frist. The difference was, the Democrats did not filibuster nearly everything in those Republican majority Senates.

You obviously don't understand how the senate rules work. So let me make this simple for you. If Harry Ried refuses to put a bill on the floor it does not matter if the other 99 senators would vote for the bill, no action can be taken on the bill since Reid will not permit it to be debated or voted on.

You seem to be as confused about the Senate rules as you were about Amendments.

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426840]You obviously don't understand how the senate rules work. So let me make this simple for you. If Harry Ried refuses to put a bill on the floor it does not matter if the other 99 senators would vote for the bill, no action can be taken on the bill since Reid will not permit it to be debated or voted on.

You seem to be as confused about the Senate rules as you were about Amendments.[/QUOTE]Actually, it's you who is quite obviously confused. I never once mentioned any Constitutional amendments in any of my posts.

It's true. There are at least 2 books on this:

Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives (by Robert Draper) (2012)
The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (by Michael Grunwald) (2012)

Republican strategist Frank Luntz organized a dinner for a small group of Republicans on January 20, 2009. The guest list included House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions; and Senate members Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Newt Gingrich was there too. From one review:

[QUOTE]The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.

"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority, ' said Kevin McCarthy, quoted by Draper. 'We've got to challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."[/QUOTE]The second book focused on the Stimulus:

[QUOTE]It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”[/QUOTE]Passage of health care reform would have been smoother with more Republican support, but based on these accounts you can see there was no way Republicans were going to help Obama.

Republicans strategized right from the beginning to completely obstruct Obama, irregardless of how it affected the country. And that's just sickening and pathetic behavior on their part.

Reid does not control every Senate vote, there are exceptions. Such as the fake "Obama budget" that was voted down 99-0, which I explained before. It is truly staggering how much misinformation comes from the right.

[QUOTE=Esten; 425310]The budget introduced by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions was a a small 56-page document with the same topline numbers as Obama, but no specifics. So it had a connection, giving some cover to call it Obama's budget. But without specifics it was just an empty shell. From the White House: "For example, rather than ending tax breaks for millionaires his budget could hit the revenue target by raising taxes on the middle class and rather than ending wasteful programs, his budget could hit its spending target with severe cuts to important programs."

Predictably, nobody voted for this perverse gimmick.

[url]http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/[/url]

Wrong. Republicans used a Senate rule allowing any lawmaker to require votes on a budget if the chamber's Budget Committee hasn't produced one by April 1. Senate Dems did not produce one because they considered the Budget Control Act the de facto budget.

When you dig into the details, you learn this was nothing but a Republican stunt for headlines. Anyone who believes Congress voted on Obama's budget, has been duped by the Republican party.[/QUOTE]

I keep thinking if Ryan and Romney wins.

They would have to have meetings with Foreign Countries, negotiating treaties, trade agreements, defense problems, etc.

But, what would the other Countries think about our new government?

One that used misinformation and Lies to win.

How could they Trust the USA any more.

A Governor that has changed his position more times than his age and a new young guy that says he ran a Marathon in 2 hours plus: which really was around four hours.

The Countries watch what is going on in our politics. They know they Lie and Change positions, how can They Trust Us?

Romney has already insulted a few countries already.

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/romneys-foreign-policy-offers-more-rhetoric-than-content/2012/09/26/9a892138-073d-11e2-858a-5311df86ab04_story.html?wprss=rss_national-security[/url]

I keep thinking if Obama and Biden wins.

They would have to have meetings with Foreign Countries, negotiating treaties, trade agreements, defense problems, etc.

But, what would the other Countries think about our new government?

One that used misinformation and Lies to win.

How could they Trust the USA any more.

A President that has changed his position more times than his age, and a old guy that couldn't run a marathon, period.

The Countries watch what is going on in our politics. They know they Lie and Change positions, how can They Trust Us?

Obama has already insulted a few countries already.

[QUOTE]'We've got to challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."[/QUOTE]How is this different from the Democrat's own strategies in the past?

[QUOTE]. in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency.[/QUOTE]I know that this is hard for you to envision, but the fact is that Cantor and McConnell fought to stop Obama because they genuinely thought that the Obama Stimulus Program was a waste of money. As it turns out, they were right.

However, here's the real issue: A [u]REAL[/u] leader would have met with, schmoozed, backslapped, buttonholed and otherwise used his innate people skills to bring his detractors together to get things done, much like Clinton did with Gingrich on a number of issues.

Unfortunately, Obama does not possess these leadership skills. This is his failing.

Thanks,

Jackson

[QUOTE=Jackson;426857]I know that this is hard for you to envision, but the fact is that Cantor and McConnell fought to stop Obama because they genuinely thought that the Obama Stimulus Program was a waste of money. As it turns out, they were right.[/QUOTE]There's no evidence whatsoever that Obama's stimulus package was a waste of money. Much more likely is that the Stimulus prevented the USA economy from falling into a worse depression than that of the early 1930s, given the magnitude of the job losses and wealth losses that occurred at the beginning of the crisis (the wealth loss is the one that is under-appreciated. The nation lost more than half of it's aggregate wealth, in terms of stock equity, housing equity and savings. But over 2/3 of that lost equity has been restored in the intervening years of the Obama Presidency). If the stimulus was a failure in any way, it's that it was too small, and not enough oriented toward infrastructure investment on the energy front to put a dent in our dependency on foreign oil.

And there is a big difference between objecting to one bill (which actually passed) and obstructing everything, including the positions that they themselves had previously espoused, simply because it came from Obama.

BTW, I completely agree with you, Jackson, about what Obama's main failing is, as I said earlier, in that regard, he's no Bill Clinton. The best evidence of this was how he got rolled during the debt ceiling fiasco. Clinton basically stated that Obama should have made the public statement at the outset that he had the Constitutional power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling to meet the nation's obligations through executive order, and then said, given that, what he PREFERRED to do was to reach a grand bargain that lowered the deficit and raised revenue over time. Instead. Obama said up front that he wouldn't do that, thus completely handing the leverage to Cantor and McConnell, and he got played, and lost his ability to get that deal done. That being said, while Obama is no Bill Clinton, thankfully, he's no Mitt Romney either, and Romney has not advocated a single, solitary economic policy that hasn't already proven to be a failure under prior administrations.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426864]There's no evidence whatsoever that Obama's stimulus package was a waste of money. .[/QUOTE]Hahahahahaha!

Regarding your comments about the state of the economy, lots of countries have been through tough recessions in the last 20 years that chopped chopped their aggregate wealth in half. Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. They acted responsibly, took their medicine, and set stable bases for growth going forward. The United States under Obama and Bernanke on the other hand seems to be following the southern European model. It won't work.

[QUOTE=Tiny12; 426866]Hahahahahaha!

Regarding your comments about the state of the economy, lots of countries have been through tough recessions in the last 20 years that chopped chopped their aggregate wealth in half. Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. They acted responsibly, took their medicine, and set stable bases for growth going forward. The United States under Obama on the other hand seems to be following the southern European model. It won't work.[/QUOTE]Oh yeah, Mexico's economy is really booming now.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426867]Oh yeah, Mexico's economy is really booming now.[/QUOTE]Yep. 3.9% GDP growth last year, despite having us as their largest trading partner. Perhaps I should have said "bases for sound economies" instead of "bases for growth." If you look at government debts and deficits, the countries on my list are in good shape, while we, Japan and much of Western Europe are headed for financial Armageddon in the long term unless something changes. Obama's 4 years accelerated this in the USA.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;426868]Yep. 3.9% GDP growth last year, despite having us as their largest trading partner. Perhaps I should have said "bases for sound economies" instead of "bases for growth." If you look at government debts and deficits, the countries on my list are in good shape, while we, Japan and much of Western Europe are headed for financial Armageddon in the long term unless something changes. Obama's 4 years accelerated this in the USA.[/QUOTE]Growth from a catastrophic base level does not mean an economy is sound, Mexico is a basket case. Oh, and BTW, the percentage of overall economic activity that comes from government spending vs. the private sector, excluding defense, in Mexico is FAR greater than in the U.S. In any case, the fact is, other than South Korea, every economy you mentioned is only growing because they started out as a 3rd world country, with well below average prosperity. South Korea happens to have the biggest increase in manufacturing productivity in the world over the past several years, which is the basis for their growth. Indonesia is similar but to a lesser degree. Thailand is not by any means healthy, and Russia is benefitting from moving to being an open society from a formerly totalitarian one. The simple fact is, under policies such as those that Mitt Romney espouses, by definition, poor countries will do better than affluent countries moving forward, because every nation will drift toward the mean, and ALL affluent economies will do poorly relatively speaking. In that scenario, there is no possible way that an affluent country can do well, it can merely slow the drift toward the mean. But Romney's policies accelerate that process as the manufacturing jobs are aggressively outsourced. Only tax policy and trade barriers can slow that down, while aggressive education and training policies for the middle class. Which Romney opposes, can actually allow the country to maintain some sort of comparitive advantage worldwide. That's what has happened with South Korea.

Basically, any poor country, that has any infrastructure at all, unless it has a repressive regime that limits mobility and communication, such as North Korea or Burma, will by definition have far more robust growth than will advanced, developed nations, as all of their high-value jobs tend to get outsourced. And policies such as Romney's tend to accelerate that process, thus allowing only the wealthiest people to benefit who can leverage that, at the expense of the vast majority of the populace. Suggesting that the loss of half of the U.S. wealth, without much of it being restored as quickly as possible, would have been beneficial for the U.S. in the long haul is utterly ludicrous. If Mitt Romney's policies were to really be implemented in the U.S., in a couple of decades there really would be very little to distinguish the U.S. economy from that of Mexico, except that the poor and the middle class in Mexico do get basic healthcare at little to no cost.

Provide any proof what so ever Obama's Stimulus package 'saved' the country from a worse recession.

Well, well, now are we finding it difficult to prove a negative? Liberals demand this of conservatives all the time. How does it feel to now have the proverbial shoe on the other foot?

As you cannot find any creditable definitive data to support your assertion it would have been worse without the Stimulus, let us deal with the reality.

1. Obama promised, if enacted, his Stimulus package would prevent unemployment from rising over 8% and be a little over 5% by this date. Unemployment increased beyond 10% and is still above 8.

2. Obama also promised prosperity and a thriving economy by this date as well. Our current anemic growth rate is so low it will not even provide enough jobs for those entering the work force each year much less recover all the jobs lost, not to mention the growth rate is so low it barely keeps us above a second recession.

3. Not to mention Obama promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term in office, which means the deficit should be at $5 Trillion and change by this date, but he instead increased the national debit by 50% all by his little self in just 3. 5 years.

Get a grip, it's a bust and the money was wasted in real terms of promised performance vs actual results.

I know, I know, Bush did it, the Republicans did it, the rich did it everyone is to blame except the Democrats and Obama.

Usually senate leaders do not "block" important agendas from floor debate since members could retaliate it by filibustering other legislation the leaders want to debate and pass. However, they may not introduce an agenda opposed by 40plus senators to the floor, since the bill would meet filibuster and waste time otherwise. A report or allegation that Reid blocked a bill seems to be unfounded.
[QUOTE=Jackson; 426829]Yes, but many of those bills had 51 Senators supporting them, but we'll never know because Reid won't even let them come up for a vote.

That's just wrong.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426874]Provide any proof what so ever Obama's Stimulus package 'saved' the country from a worse recession.

Well, well, now are we finding it difficult to prove a negative? Liberals demand this of conservatives all the time. How does it feel to now have the proverbial shoe on the other foot?

As you cannot find any creditable definitive data to support your assertion it would have been worse without the Stimulus, let us deal with the reality.

1. Obama promised, if enacted, his Stimulus package would prevent unemployment from rising over 8% and be a little over 5% by this date. Unemployment increased beyond 10% and is still above 8.

2. Obama also promised prosperity and a thriving economy by this date as well. Our current anemic growth rate is so low it will not even provide enough jobs for those entering the work force each year much less recover all the jobs lost, not to mention the growth rate is so low it barely keeps us above a second recession.

3. Not to mention Obama promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term in office, which means the deficit should be at $5 Trillion and change by this date, but he instead increased the national debit by 50% all by his little self in just 3. 5 years.

Get a grip, it's a bust and the money was wasted in real terms of promised performance vs actual results.

I know, I know, Bush did it, the Republicans did it, the rich did it everyone is to blame except the Democrats and Obama.[/QUOTE]As far as the 8% number. That's a canard, because it was already significantly worse than 8% before the Stimulus was enacted. That's simply an example of how much worse the economy was at the time than anyone, even Obama's economists, had realized. It was close to 10% by the time the Stimulus actually came into law and the first stimulus dollar was actually spent. So, all of those projections were irrelevant, as well as obviously wrong because the situation was already far more dire than was recognized at the time. That's why the Stimulus was too small - because the unemployment was already far worse than believed at the time it was architected.

As for proof. The fact is, there is exactly the same amount of proof available for both sides of the argument, about how effective it was. There is, and cannot be, any proof either way. But what we DO know, is that the stimulus DID stop job losses in their tracks. When it took effect, we were losing over 800K jobs per month. Within 8 months, that number was flattened to nearly zero, and within 12 months, the economy was gaining 150-200K jobs per month. Any economist will tell you that Unemployment lags the economy by 6-12 months, so, that's as good as could possibly have been expected. It would have been nice if the jobs being added were at the 400-500K per month rate that was hoped for, but as I said, the Stimulus was actually too small, relative to the actual magnitude of the problem, which was far worse than was understood at the time, by either Republicans or Democrats and their preferred economists. Unfortunately, the Debt ceiling fiasco stopped that mini-recovery in it's tracks, for perhaps a year, but obviously, that was what McConnell and Cantor hoped would happen, and they were successful in doing so - because, as I said earlier, Obama played into their hands, IMHO, the great failure of his Presidency. The unemployment data is clear

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

If one looks at the unemployment statistics, the obvious inflection points - at the start of Q2 2009, where the slope of the job losses finally decelerates, coincides with the first expenditures under the stimulus act, and the start of Q4, where unemployment actually finally drops, corresponds to ~6-7 months in from that point - which, as any economist would tell you, is what was hoped for. The small unemployment hump in 2011 corresponds to the debt ceiling fiasco. And as can be seen, at the time the first dollar was spent by he Stimulus, unemployment was already at 9.4% - hence, the prior claim that the stimulus would keep it below 8% was obviously rendered moot at that point in time. Heck, on the day Obama took office, unemployment was already 8.3% and we were losing 850k jobs per month (i.e. it was increasing at ~1/2 percent per month).

As for the debt. More than half of the added debt during Obama's Presidency was baked in well in advance of his taking office, by virtue of the two wars Bush engaged in but never funded. Those two wars alone added some $3 Trillion of the debt incurred during Obama's Presidency, and Obama scaled back the Iraq war as soon as was possible.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426822]No, bills that the majority party supports get brought to the floor, but fillibustered if they lack 60 votes. Whereas bills that the minority party supports don't get brought to the floor without 60 votes. In essence, there is no difference, as neither party can get a bill passed without 60 votes, so long as the minority party consistently uses the fillibuster. All of this is why nothing gets done in the Senate when everything is hyperpartisan as is presently the case. Net net, neither party has control of the Senate sufficient to get a bill passed without significant crossing of the aisle, and only ultra-rare bipartisan bills get passed.[/QUOTE]And yet Obamacare got passed. How exactly did that happen? They circumvented the rules.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;426881]And yet Obamacare got passed. How exactly did that happen? They circumvented the rules.[/QUOTE]Something that they learned from the Republicans during the Clinton and Bush administrations.

What an intelligent, insightful analysis. But it is too technical for me.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;426881]And yet Obamacare got passed. How exactly did that happen? They circumvented the rules.[/QUOTE]

Clinton was not a "REAL leader". He was same as Obama and other presidents. He, just like other presidents, told the GOP majority Congress that he would veto the (ideologically extreme) bills he strongly opposed. Many bills were amended "by the Republicans" to avoid a veto, some bills without amendments were succesfully vetoed, and a few bills were vetoed but enacted through overide of the veto. The same old story without Julius Caesar.

[QUOTE=Jackson;426857]: A [u]REAL[/u] leader would have met with, schmoozed, backslapped, buttonholed and otherwise used his innate people skills to bring his detractors together to get things done, much like Clinton did with Gingrich on a number of issues.[/QUOTE]

It looks like you are learning from Ryan and Romney.

Just change the names, even if they are wrong.

Kind of reminds me of a Parrot.

You might want to check this site out.

[url]http://www.factcheck.org/[/url]

[QUOTE=Jackson; 426853]I keep thinking if Obama and Biden wins.

They would have to have meetings with Foreign Countries, negotiating treaties, trade agreements, defense problems, etc.

But, what would the other Countries think about our new government?

One that used misinformation and Lies to win.

How could they Trust the USA any more.

A President that has changed his position more times than his age, and a old guy that couldn't run a marathon, period.

The Countries watch what is going on in our politics. They know they Lie and Change positions, how can They Trust Us?

Obama has already insulted a few countries already.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Member #2041; 426870]Growth from a catastrophic base level does not mean an economy is sound, Mexico is a basket case. Oh, and BTW, the percentage of overall economic activity that comes from government spending vs. The private sector, excluding defense, in Mexico is FAR greater than in the USA In any case, the fact is, other than South Korea, every economy you mentioned is only growing because they started out as a 3rd world country, with well below average prosperity. South Korea happens to have the biggest increase in manufacturing productivity in the world over the past several years, which is the basis for their growth. Indonesia is similar but to a lesser degree. Thailand is not by any means healthy, and Russia is benefitting from moving to being an open society from a formerly totalitarian one. The simple fact is, under policies such as those that Mitt Romney espouses, by definition, poor countries will do better than affluent countries moving forward, because every nation will drift toward the mean, and ALL affluent economies will do poorly relatively speaking. In that scenario, there is no possible way that an affluent country can do well, it can merely slow the drift toward the mean. But Romney's policies accelerate that process as the manufacturing jobs are aggressively outsourced. Only tax policy and trade barriers can slow that down, while aggressive education and training policies for the middle class. Which Romney opposes, can actually allow the country to maintain some sort of comparitive advantage worldwide. That's what has happened with South Korea.

Basically, any poor country, that has any infrastructure at all, unless it has a repressive regime that limits mobility and communication, such as North Korea or Burma, will by definition have far more robust growth than will advanced, developed nations, as all of their high-value jobs tend to get outsourced. And policies such as Romney's tend to accelerate that process, thus allowing only the wealthiest people to benefit who can leverage that, at the expense of the vast majority of the populace. Suggesting that the loss of half of the USA wealth, without much of it being restored as quickly as possible, would have been beneficial for the USA in the long haul is utterly ludicrous. If Mitt Romney's policies were to really be implemented in the USA, in a couple of decades there really would be very little to distinguish the USA economy from that of Mexico, except that the poor and the middle class in Mexico do get basic healthcare at little to no cost.[/QUOTE]Uh, what's your point? Mine was that the USA has gone trillions and trillions of dollars deeper into debt and has very little to show for it. This started under Bush and went into overdrive under Obama. Other countries, including Russia, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, went through deeper recessions but didn't emerge having mortgaged their futures. Yes, some stimulus spending was merited. But much of what was spent was wasted, and now we've got a deep hole that will be very difficult to dig out of.

[QUOTE=Matt Psyche;426885]Clinton was not a "REAL leader". He was same as Obama and other presidents. He, just like other presidents, told the GOP majority Congress that he would veto the (ideologically extreme) bills he strongly opposed. Many bills were amended "by the Republicans" to avoid a veto, some bills without amendments were succesfully vetoed, and a few bills were vetoed but enacted through overide of the veto. The same old story without Julius Caesar.[/QUOTE]While I disagree with you about both Clinton and Obama, this worked well for Gary Johnson when he was Republican governor of New Mexico. He was detested by both pork-loving Democrats and Republicans. But the citizens of New Mexico, who are overwhelmingly Democrat, liked him and he left the state in great shape when he left. Too bad he doesn't have a snowball's chance of winnning this November. Johnson vetoed more legislation than all 49 other governors combined.

Member 2041, umemployment was 7. 3% according to BLS when Obama took office and he promised the stimulus would keep it from going over 8, the facts speak for themselves, it has not dropped to 8% yet much less the 5% promised by now and that is with the constantly shrinking workforce. He lied.

Member 2041, Obama said he would cut the deficit by 50% during his first term yet he increased it by 50%. The facts speak for themselves. He lied.

Bush added 7+Trillion fighting two wars in 8 years, Obama added $6 Trillion in less than 4 years. I did not agree with Bush "financing" the wars, we should have paid for them as we went but still Obama has out done him in spades, sorry for the pun!

Why did they bother to pass so many bills which were told to be vetoed anyway? (Ans. political demonstration to their constituencies.)

[QUOTE=Tiny12;426890]While I disagree with you about both Clinton and Obama, this worked well for Gary Johnson when he was Republican governor of New Mexico. He was detested by both pork-loving Democrats and Republicans. But the citizens of New Mexico, who are overwhelmingly Democrat, liked him and he left the state in great shape when he left. Too bad he doesn't have a snowball's chance of winnning this November. Johnson vetoed more legislation than all 49 other governors combined.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;426890]While I disagree with you about both Clinton and Obama, this worked well for Gary Johnson when he was Republican governor of New Mexico. He was detested by both pork-loving Democrats and Republicans. But the citizens of New Mexico, who are overwhelmingly Democrat, liked him and he left the state in great shape when he left. Too bad he doesn't have a snowball's chance of winnning this November. Johnson vetoed more legislation than all 49 other governors combined.[/QUOTE]Gary is fantastic and has my vote this NOV! LIVE FREE.

Fred

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426891]Member 2041, umemployment was 7. 3% according to BLS when Obama took office and he promised the stimulus would keep it from going over 8, the facts speak for themselves, it has not dropped to 8% yet much less the 5% promised by now and that is with the constantly shrinking workforce. He lied.

Member 2041, Obama said he would cut the deficit by 50% during his first term yet he increased it by 50. The facts speak for themselves. He lied.

Bush added 7+Trillion fighting two wars in 8 years, Obama added $6 Trillion in less than 4 years. I did not agree with Bush "financing" the wars, we should have paid for them as we went but still Obama has out done him in spades, sorry for the pun![/QUOTE]Nope, the number was 8.3% end of January 2009. By the time the first actual dollars were being spent on projects under the stimulus package in Q2 2009, the actual number had already reached 9.4%. In any case, the specific number is a moot point because the Stimulus package almost immediately flattened the job losses from 850K per month to less than half of that, and within 7 months, led to unemployment actually was falling, as jobs were being added. No economist who knows anything about unemployment numbers ever expected anything different from those timeframes. Again. 8% was based upon erroneous projections that both Republicans and Democrats were using at the time. The fact is, all of those projections were 1. 5-2% low at the time - and not just the projections Obama was using, but also the projections that Republicans were using as well. So, the 8% number is irrelevant, from a perspective of whether or not the Stimulus actually worked, because unemployment was already at 9.4% when the stimulus actually kicked into effect, rather than the 7.5% that it was believed it would be at the time it was proposed, and which had been the basis for that 8% number being stated as the hoped-for unemployment cap. The forecasts were wrong and had been VERY wrong at the time the Stimulus was proposed, but the Stimulus DID work to knock down unemployment, as the inflection points on the graph I cited earlier make clear. Unfortunately, it should have been significantly larger, and it would have been, had the severity of the employment crisis been appreciated at the time it was being architected in Q4 2008 and early Q1 2009.

And the simple fact is, at least $3 Trillion of Obama's added debt comes from Bush's two wars, that were not paid for with any source of revenues. An additional Trillion came from the Stimulus, which, had we NOT spent it, we'd have seen 12% unemployment for sure, looking at the actual data from that time, without the job-losses being flattened almost immediately, as actually did happen in Q2 2009 with the stimulus kickng in.

As far as Obama cutting the deficit - the sad reality is that the Republicans, led by Eric Cantor, walked away from a deal that Obama and Boehner had brokered that would have made major inroads in doing that. Cutting the deficit requires the Congress and the White House to work together, and there is no doubt that Cantor torpedoed that from happening, even as Boehner was willing.

[url]http://kdvr.com/2012/09/28/colorado-gop-dumps-firm-with-ties-to-voter-fraud/[/url]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_IMT1xr__0

Cheating is the only way Romney wins.

Member you just can not get your facts straight. Here is the link to the BLS, you and Obama share a trait, neither one of you has been formally introduced to the truth.

[url]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000[/url]

Member I am only repeating what your boy Obama promised. What no answer to his lies, come on you can up with some sort of wild ass excuse I know you can

[QUOTE=Jackson; 426857]I know that this is hard for you to envision, but the fact is that Cantor and McConnell fought to stop Obama because they genuinely thought that the Obama Stimulus Program was a waste of money. As it turns out, they were right.

However, here's the real issue: A [u]REAL[/u] Leader would have met with, schmoozed, backslapped, buttonholed and otherwise used his innate people skills to bring his detractors together to get things done, much like Clinton did with Gingrich on a number of issues.

Unfortunately, Obama does not possess these leadership skills. This is his failing.[/QUOTE]Given that Republicans made a pact to oppose Obama on everything, it's hardly credible they opposed the Stimulus just because they didn't agree with it. The Stimulus was 1/3 tax breaks, so Republicans should have at least been able to support that part. Even the US Chamber of Commerce said a big Stimulus package was needed, surely Republicans could have backed an organization representing American business. It turns out the USCoC was right, and multiple economists have concluded the Stimulus was a success.

So it's abundantly clear that Republican opposition to the Stimulus was a case of 'party over country'.

Now let me get this straight. Even though Republicans made a pact to oppose Obama, the fact they didn't work well together is Obama's fault because he wasn't a good schmoozer? ROTFLMAO !!!

It is to Gingrich's credit that he had enough humility and common sense to work with Clinton on many issues. I'll agree schmoozing helps, and Obama probably could have tried harder. But when you pro-actively make a pact to oppose a president, as Republicans did in 2009, all bets are off. In this case the blame is squarely in the court of the side that refuses to work with the other side.

[QUOTE=Jackson;426857]I know that this is hard for you to envision, but the fact is that Cantor and McConnell fought to stop Obama because they genuinely thought that the Obama Stimulus Program was a waste of money. As it turns out, they were right.[/QUOTE][QUOTE=Esten; 426929]Given that Republicans made a pact to oppose Obama on everything, it's hardly credible they opposed the Stimulus just because they didn't agree with it. The Stimulus was 1/3 tax breaks, so Republicans should have at least been able to support that part. Even the US Chamber of Commerce said a big Stimulus package was needed, surely Republicans could have backed an organization representing American business. It turns out the USCoC was right, and multiple economists have concluded the Stimulus was a success.

So it's abundantly clear that Republican opposition to the Stimulus was a case of 'party over country'.[/QUOTE]I agree with Jackson. This is why,

[url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444813104578016873186217796.html?mod=googlenews_wsj[/url]

An excerpt, because you have to read to the end to get their line of reasoning,

"In reality, the biggest difference between this recovery and others hasn't been the nature of the crisis, but the nature of the policy prescriptions. Mr. Obama's chief anti-recession idea was a near trillion-dollar leap of faith in the Keynesian "multiplier" effect of government spending. It was the same approach that didn't work in the 1930s, didn't work in the 1970s, didn't work in 2008, and didn't work in such other nations as Japan. It didn't work again in 2009.

Ronald Reagan also inherited an economy loaded with problems. The stock market had been flat for 12 years, inflation rates neared 14%, and mortgage rates almost 20%. The recession he endured in 1981-82 to cure inflation sent unemployment to 10.8%, higher than Mr. Obama's peak of 10%. But the business and jobs recovery by early 1983 was rapid and lasted seven years.

Reagan used tax-rate cuts, disinflationary monetary policy and deregulation to reignite growth—more or less the opposite of the Obama policy mix. Liberals tried to explain the Reagan boom that they said would never happen by arguing that there was nothing unusual about the growth spurt after such a deep recession. So why didn't that happen this time? "

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426925]Member you just can not get your facts straight. Here is the link to the BLS, you and Obama share a trait, neither one of you has been formally introduced to the truth.

[url]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000[/url]

Member I am only repeating what your boy Obama promised. What no answer to his lies, come on you can up with some sort of wild ass excuse I know you can[/QUOTE]I already acknowledged that the forecasts of unemployment were significantly low, both before and after the Stimulus. An incorrect forecast is not a lie, it's an incorrect forecast. YOU claiming unemployment was 7. 3% when Obama took office, now THAT, is a lie. That doesn't mean squat though, with respect to whether or not the stimulus worked. The shape of the unemployment curve is what tells that story: The passage of the stimulus, and the first expenditure of funds under it on projects, corresponds directly with the first inflection point in the curve, where the slope of the dramatically increasing unemployment is significantly decelerated for the first time in Q2 of 2009. And 7 months later, in Q4 of 2009, which is exactly when it would be expected given the employment numbers well known 6-12 month lag on economic conditions, Unemployment finally is actually dropping, as 150K or so jobs are added to the economy for the first time in well over 1. 5 years, a trend that continues to this day. The curve does not lie, although you, apparently have no problem lying (or else, perhaps, you don't comprehend the actual data?. But I tend to believe that you are being disingenuous here, rather than stupid).

I used that link for the data I quoted. The fact is, you claimed that unemployment was 7.3% When Obama took office. He took office END of January 2009. 7.3% was the unemployment rate for December of 2008, according to that link. At the beginning of January, it was 7.8, and at the beginning of February, it was 8.3% and growing at 1/2 percent per month. Which means, that when Obama took office 3 weeks into January, it was AT LEAST 7.8, and as much as 8.3%. Which makes YOUR claim that he took office when the rate was 7.3%, to be factually incorrect. Read the data series in that link, and actually look at the curve that is shown - the Unemployment number crosses 8% and is continuing to rise upward at the beginning of January in 2009 - BEFORE Obama took office. It establishes that your claim is factually false, by at least 1/2, and as much as 1 percent. That being said, this is still a canard - the issue is not the specific rate, it's what happened to the rate once the stimulus actually kicked in. And what happened was, job losses IMMEDIATELY decelerated, and by 7 months out, jobs were being gained, and continued to be gained in each subsequent month in the private sector to this day. Yes, they were fewer jobs than hoped, but that is because the stimulus was architected to address a less severe spate of unemployment than we actually had - as reflected by that too low 8% forecast you keep harping on and misrepresenting as a lie, rather than simply the erroneous forecast it was, from Republican, Democratic, and impartial economists, all of whom missed the number by at least 1%.

In any case, you continue to argue an irrelevant strawman in that 8% number. And not JUST a bogus strawman, but an impossible metric by it's very definition, since Unemployment was already WELL above 8% before the stimulus was even passed, and well above 9% before the first dollar of stimulus was ever actually even spent. The forecast being too low, does not in any way alter the fact that the stimulus did what it was designed to do, as the curve makes clear. The stimulus worked, by knocking unemployment down from well over 9.5%, to just above 8%. Had it been larger, as the actual unemployment problem was larger than forecast, it's effect would have been even greater.

Of course, it's hardly surprising that Doppleganger is playing fast and loose with the actual factual data - despite it being right there in front of him - that's exactly what Romney and Ryan have been doing as well. It seems to be a pathological trait of conservative Republicans, that when their narrative is at odds with the truth, well, then, the truth be damned while the righties are weaving a story that they like the sound of.

You did not disappoint with your dodging of the origianl question regarding Obama and the Stimulus with total B / S.

Where is your defense of Obama's own promises in his own words regarding the upper level of unempolyment if the Stimulus was enacted and the rate of unemployment he promised by this date. You don't even dispute his promise of cutting the deficit by 50% during his first term, when he entered office the deficite was $10. 5 Trillion, now it's over $16 Trillion and growning. Answer? You don't really have one for a failed president and a failed policy.

You are just like Team Obama, crowed about 94, 000 jobs created in August while sweeping under the carpet the 368, 000 people who fell out of the work force. We have argued this point on the board before, sure unemployment is coming down not because the economy is creating jobs but because the BLS keeps reducing the size of the workforce, which is at a 30 year low. If you counted all the folks who want a job but can not fine one the unemployment rate is way over 10, more like 14 to 15.

I guess the next thing you are going to tell me is how it's a good thing the workforce is decreasing in size as it means more people now need to depend on the government, free food, free housing, free cell phones, free money!

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426937]You did not disappoint with your dodging of the origianl question regarding Obama and the Stimulus with total B / S.

Where is your defense of Obama's own promises in his own words regarding the upper level of unempolyment if the Stimulus was enacted and the rate of unemployment he promised by this date. You don't even dispute his promise of cutting the deficit by 50% during his first term, when he entered office the deficite was $10. 5 Trillion, now it's over $16 Trillion and growning. Answer? You don't really have one for a failed president and a failed policy.

You are just like Team Obama, crowed about 94, 000 jobs created in August while sweeping under the carpet the 368, 000 people who fell out of the work force. We have argued this point on the board before, sure unemployment is coming down not because the economy is creating jobs but because the BLS keeps reducing the size of the workforce, which is at a 30 year low. If you counted all the folks who want a job but can not fine one the unemployment rate is way over 10, more like 14 to 15.

I guess the next thing you are going to tell me is how it's a good thing the workforce is decreasing in size as it means more people now need to depend on the government, free food, free housing, free cell phones, free money![/QUOTE]

A missed forecast is not a promise, broken or otherwise. Could Obama have done better? Of course, but you continue to harp on a missed forecast that reflected a failure by just about everyone to grasp the serious of the crisis that Obama inherited at the time he inherited it. Would the USA have been worse off economically had McCain won? Clearly, yes it would - McCain had no grasp whatsoever about what was going on, and the folks who led his Economic team were some of the key folks that CAUSED the financial collapse, such as Phil Gramm, who actually authored the law repealing Glass-Steagall, and who presided over the sub-prime collapse as a major VP in charge of the collateralized mortgage business at at UBS, a line of business that was enabled by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act, and that was the catalyst to the financial crisis. I simply ask myself, am I better off than I was 4 years ago when the last election was playing out? And the answer is, yes, by far. My personal net wealth has been largely restored to the level it was prior to the financial collapse under Bush. As I said, Obama is no Clinton. But sadly, Romney's policies are very much a return to what Bush brought us, which was a complete economic collapse.

I said earlier, that I was disappointed in Obama. Particularly in his failure to leverage the American public and it's opinion against Republican intransigence in Congress, but I am thoroughly terrified with what Romney and his policies would bring for the vast majority of Americans. I certainly prefer staying the course we are on, and a weak, but still real recovery, to reverting back to the disaster we had under Bush, where government does nothing other than cut the safety net and taxes to the richest Americans, and that is the choice Americans have.

The Job Creators with their Tax Breaks are NOT CREATING JOBS!

THAT IS THE TRUTH!

So, tell us Why THEY should Get Them?

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426925]Member you just can not get your facts straight. Here is the link to the BLS, you and Obama share a trait, neither one of you has been formally introduced to the truth.

[url]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000[/url]

Member I am only repeating what your boy Obama promised. What no answer to his lies, come on you can up with some sort of wild ass excuse I know you can[/QUOTE]