American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[QUOTE=Jackson]Can somebody please tell me the date that the state of the economy will become Obama's responsibility?[/QUOTE]January 20, 2009

[QUOTE=Jackson]Can somebody please tell me the date that the state of the economy will become Obama's responsibility?

Is it next month? Or sometime next year? Or perhaps, as the Obama worshipers apparently wish, the economy will be George Bush's fault for years to come, thus permanently freeing Obama of any accountability for the state of the economy.

Wait, I know the answer: The economy will be George Bush's fault until it rights itself in spite of the anchors that the current administration continues to throw in it's wake, at which point it will then be declared the "Obama Economic Miracle".

Thanks,

Jackson[/QUOTE]Jackson: When I suggest, "To blame Obama for all this BS is absurd," is to point out there is more than enough responsibility and accountability for the financial mess to go around. It is not to suggest Obama is off the hook. Furthermore, it not about "worshipping" Obama. The point is, Obama should not be your only whipping boy on the block for this debacle. It so difficult to comprehend how Senators / Congressmen can sit at a hearing and question and chastise an administration official when they are the very same individuals that turned a blind eye to all the creative financing of corporate America. What were they doing when all this started to unfold over the past eight years? They all get to speak with impunity and that chaps my ass. Have no idea how they can look themselves in a mirror. It is the largest body of hypocrites on the Planet.

[QUOTE=El Alamo]I am not sure who Dammon is but Dammon has my vote for someone destined to move up the corporate ladder. Perhaps President and CEO of General Electric. We will forget all about Jack Walsh once Dammon, the suave, debonair icon of corporate America, makes his presence known.[/QUOTE]Like a turd in a punch bowl

[QUOTE=Damman]It is the largest body of hypocrites on the Planet.[/QUOTE]Correction - the largest in the US. Put all the legislatures of all the countries together and you get the largest body of hypocrites on the planet.

It's why we need SMALLER government and not bigger. It's why what Obama AND the Democratic congress is doing is so bad for the country - they're going the wrong way. They're not trying to legislate fairness, they're trying to expand the government even bigger than Bush did, which was bad enough to begin with. They're trying to get their fingers into every aspect of life so people can sit back and say "now the government will take care of us."

THAT's what we blame Obama AND the Democrtic Congress for, and it's what many of us (though unfortunately not all of us) blamed Bush for as well.

BTW - has anyone been following "ClimateGate"? The world-wide greens, in our country predominantly left-leaning democrats (and by contamination even just-left-of-center democrats) have been pushing this crap based on bad science.

I read a very interesting paper last night by a group of scientists that were studying tropospheric warming in the topics (between 20 degres north and south) which is where the current science (rightlyfully so) concentrates their studies because it is where most warming occurs.

The paper starts off its introduction describing that the current models used by other scientists (the ones screaming about global warming) have NEVER EVER come close to matching the realities of the ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS of what is ACTUALLY HAPPENING!

In fact, they conclude in their paper that the current "accepted science" on global warming predictions, specifically on the predictions of temperature increases, needs to be adjusted WAY DOWN.

And Obama is trying to spend billions of government dollars (OUR FUCKING MONEY) on bullshit green stuff with subsidies and grants, for things that cannot be commercially viable without that money. Let's not foget that Al Gore, who went from having a couple of million dollars in the bank when he left office with Clinton, to being worth close to 500 million now, is poised on the brink of making severla more fortunes because he is so heavily tied and invested in projects that can't possibly make money unless the government throws money to the greens to "combat" this bullshit man-made global warming.

And the effects of many of these policies is much more likely to increase the chance of a global economic meltdown (pun intended) But Mr. Gore and his cronies will all be rich.

I'd rather have capitalists making the money, because at least that spreads wealth around a whole lot better than what's going to happen if Obama AND the Left get their way.

El Alamo,

I am not sure who you are referring to in your observations of Obama supporters. If anything, what I have seen is a continuous and at times zealous effort to attack and fault Obama and the current administration on numerous issues. Don't assume that people who respond back to such efforts do so blindly without thinking things through.

For myself, I am not a member of any political party. I have my own values and vision of how things should be. And I'm interested in good ideas and plans that support them. Where those ideas come from is not really important. On the current topic, it just so happens that there is considerable alignment between Obama's vision and thinking and my own. Any many others as well.

I know there are smart people on this board but I am not reading too many intelligent explanations of why Obama and the current administration are on the wrong path. The fact that some detractors have resorted to a form of name calling (worshippers, "the ONE", Obamination) and mocking is another sign to me that sound, reasoned arguments are just simply lacking.

Esten, it's because we are in the battle of paradigms.

People who think Obama and his folk are doing the right thing are the kind of people who think that big government is good because government will watch out for the little guy and that "unfettered" capitalism is bad because it takes advantage of the little guy.

The kind of people who are against Obama think the opposite - that it's up to the individual to take care of himself, that government gets in the way of that and makes things worse when it tries to "protect" and make things "equal".

It really doesn't make any difference as to the specific things that Obama and his folk do, because everything they do leads to what Obama and his people believe in (whether it's from their heart or from a desire for power over others) which is opposite from what the others believe.

I think both sides are wrong. As far as I'm concerned, I'm the only one that's right and everything else is going to lead one way or another to tyranny and / or a welfare state. But I'll never convince anyone fo that who doesn't already think that way, and you are not going to convince me that the government can do anything better than private enterprise except for a VERY SMALL class of things, and so on.

It's why I haven't posted in this thread for awhile, because at the end of the day it doesn't make one lick of a difference, but I find myself every once in awhile needing to anyway because we're all proselytizers in one way or another.

If "W" sent in 35k troops in the beginning instead of pussy footing around they would have gotten Bin Laden and the other high level goons at Tora Bora 8 years ago.

El Queso,

Insightful comments. I also have thought this and am glad to see someone else articulate it.

I would still argue though that despite fundamental differences in values, there is still plenty of room for intelligent discussion.

For example, saying or implying "big government is bad" is as empty as the opposite "big government is good". Instead of such sweeping generalizations, it would be more constructive to explain why a specific proposal involving the government is / is not a good idea.

Let me just add that this whole idea that Obama is for big government is a big distortion. He is for incremental involvement of government where it is needed or otherwise makes sense to achieve certain objectives. A strong private sector is still a key component.

BTW, I am 100% convinced that if the GOP had won the election there still would have been a stimulus package involving government spending.

Esten,

I appreciate your comments, and it is posible to have intelligent conversation on many of these issues, but the big government vs small government is a fundamental "meme" that conversation, even with plenty of examples, can't move one way or the other, in my opinion.

You can't tell me that Obama is not interested in growing the government to the point where it will have the say on how things are run. The biggest example is what his party is looking to put forward for healthcare, FORCING everyone to pay in one way or another for healthcare instead of truly making tort reforms (as an example) and other reforms that are desperately needed.

I have yet to see anyone name a single successful government program that really helps people and at the same time is cost effective. I'm not talking about something that just gives things to people. Those are the WORST sort.

Having lived in Argentina and seeing up close and personal what happens when government tries to control things to make things fair, instead of making laws and then making sure people obey them (which in my opinion is what government should do) to make things fair. It's a cluster fuck and the US is headed that way too. Too many special interest groups on both sides want to vote money and honey to their constituents so they keep getting elected.

There is NO interest in getting things right, not really. There is only a bunch of crap emmitted on both sides, scaring the shit out of everybody, to force people to think that they need things that they don't really need.

I see big corporations, who actually operate much more efficiently than the government can possible operate. I've been on the inside and I've worked with these corporations from the outside. I'm often amazed that they can make money, but yet they still do. But it's because they are FORCED to at least be efficient enough to make some money or they go bankrupt (or the leaders who are screwing things up are forced out by share holders, etc). Unless big brother comes in and wastes OUR money to prop them up, causing more and more problems down the line until things get too bad to deal with any more.

Government is many times larger than what I've seen in these corporations (Chevron being my biggest personal example of a company that is so screwed up on how they approach their problems and still manage to make money) and the government runs many times less efficiently.

I don't need examples of how government can make things better, because, firstly there are none, and secondly, if there happens to be an example that someone actually comes up with that turned out to be a good thing, it's the exception that proves the rule.

Government simply cannot and does not create wealth. People are not better off giving up some of their own responsibilities to the government instead of being responsible for themselves.

Most of the people who follow the Democratic party who are on the receiving end of government (I'm not saying everyone who is a democrat is like this, I'm talking about the people who vote democratic because they sense that they are "left behind" and get benefits from the government in some fashion, perceived or real) ***** and moan that they have no opportunities. But I remember having to work three freaking jobs to pay my way through school, on top of student loans I was able to get (but I was a white guy with parents who were not poor, even though they refused to pay for my college, so the loans I got were very small) and just working my ever-loving ass off the get where I wanted.

Now that I actually am making money (sometimes) and living fairly comfortable, after 25+ years of hard work, why would I ever be comfortable with giving my hard earned tax dollars to people who don't work as hard as I do to get ahead?

These are things that no example can sway from the mind. These are things that I look back on and say "you know, I did work my ass off, I sacrificed for decades, and there is no one in the US who should not be capable of doing the same if they so choose. " I don't need anyone to force me to have healthcare, and I'm not going to be someone who is a drag on the system because I present myself to a hospital without money expecting proper health care.

Big government is a scam. We should all be suspicious of ANYTHING our law makers do. Our founding fathers were. In fact, we should absolutely make things as difficult as possible for our law makers for that very reason.

But I'll never convince ANYONE of the correctness of that statement, who believes that government can do things well and actually make things better for anyone (again, except for a small list of things) The examples abound, it's up to everyone to think critically and make the right decisions. Whch is almost impossible to rely on because people see things differently.

Mike Pence mocked the idea of a jobs summit in the GOP Thanksgiving address. His solution? Lower taxes.

No president in any administration should be held 100% responsible for the unemployment rate. There are too many factors over which there is too little control. While many companies had to lay off people, many others are just trimming the bottom line and hoarding cash. Bringing people together to get all the best ideas on the table is a smart idea.

I expect annoucements in the next several months on initiatives stemming from the jobs summit and other subsequent followup meetings. In addition to the ideas themselves, I think there is some amount of 'be part of the team / solution' persuasion that will play a role and this is another good reason for in-person meetings.

The GOP's mocking of this effort is sad but not surprising. It is clear their primary motive is political gain.