Campaign mode seems to persist in this paragraph about spending:
Who are the recipients of such largesse? International
organizations and foreign aid recipients, including millions for reconstruction in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Labor union bosses participating in a new “green jobs” program. The National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Americorps, Title X Family Planning, and a host of spending programs that will do nothing to help our economy recover. And even community organizers, such as ACORN, performing “neighborhood stabilization.” Hundreds of programs deemed ineffective by prior Administrations are funded, despite promises from the President to go “line by line” to examine each program’s effectiveness.
It’s so sloppy and ill-constructed that we have the illogical idea of labor union bosses (as opposed to actual unionized workers) participating in the green jobs programs. (Note scare quotes above, too.)
Delicious irony too from the Bush Administration sycophants:
Republicans believe that future generations should not be burdened by mountains of debt for the misguided choices made by Democrats today.
Their discussion of tax reductions on p. 10 takes no note whatever of the effect on government revenue. Is it sustainable or not? They don’t say, but there is a lot of sloganeering.
They express strong disapproval of even a cap-and-trade approach to carbon emissions. Their “proposals” make no mention of climate change.
On the economic crisis we get some breathtaking stupidity (again cast as electioneering):
Democrats assume that the free-market system has failed and that a more robust federal government must now rescue the nation. The American people reject that notion and know, as Republicans do, that government has failed and that this financial crisis is the result of decades of misguided government policies that interfered with the free-market. In addition to a loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve that fueled a housing boom, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and federal mandates that weakened lending standards contributed to a perfect storm of government-induced failure.
If Republicans think that “the American people” agree with that analysis, they are not looking at polls, are they?
They finish their economic section with a concern with inflation. Faced with the much worse risk of a deflation during a recession, the Republican budget pamphlet continues to fight yesterday’s battles.
Conclusion. This whole exercise shows Republicans are ready to campaign but they aren’t ready to govern.
here
is intellectually bankrupt!
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p>AIG is using TARP to lobby Congress in effect publicly funding their agenda. Maybe the GOP should privatize its ideology and hire the company most likely to come up with a saleable idea.
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p>How sweet it is!
How about we call them ‘Licans (Lycans?) until they reinstate the “ic”
Setting aside the “temporary” deficit created by the stimulus bill, why is it liberals complain about Bush’s deficits but are totally silent on Obama’s?
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p>Barry’s Budget looks to increase our total national debt threefold, so much even the CBO says it isn’t sustainable. How is this going to work? 50% marginal tax rates?
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p>If it weren’t for double standards, progressives wouldn’t have any standards at all.
Maybe because Bush’s deficit included millions of dollars spent in Iraq that remain unaccounted for, a war without a clear purpose, an offshore torture facility, and illegal wiretaps. These items produced nothing of value to the general public.
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p>Compare these with SCHIP (children’s health insurance), blocked by the Bushies but passed by the Democrats. Healthy children improve our long-term prospects.
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p>By the way, many prominent economists (who happen to have anticipated the current mess) are not against deficit spending in principal. It greatly depends on how the money is spent and what kind of future payback is likely. Two Nobel laureates, Krugman and Steiglitz, strongly advocate deficit spending to pull the country/world out of recession.
I don’t mind deficits if they actually are used to pay for something.
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p>Maybe George Bush shoulda left those taxes in place and funded the SEC. Then they’d have caught Madoff and Standford and a whole lot of formerly rich people would still be rich. Then, everybodies happy!!
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p>Specific example I know … Lipitor is not available on the Canadian’s health system formulary last time I checked. For me, after having tried every statin on the market, Lipitor is the only one that works. Pfizer wouldn’t discount it enough for our neighbors to the north so it was added to the list of approved Rx drugs. (There may be a generic version now, I cannot say, but I’ve been on Lipitor for 15 years.)
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p>If I were in Canada, I’d have to come to the US to get a US doctor to prescribe Lipitor and have the Rx filled at a US pharmacy, paid out of pocket (retail is around $3 a pill.)
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p>Otherwise my serum cholesterol would be in the 400’s instead of around 200 (still too high.) I’ve had this condition all my life, it’s hereditary and not controllable through diet or exercise. Relatives on both sides of the family has readings is the 400’s and 500’s.
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p>It would suck for me to be in the Canadian system, perhaps even fatal. $3 bucks a day denied? Is this what we want for the US?
Private insurance has bureaucrats too. By moving to a single-payer, government-run system, one doesn’t acquire bureaucrats so much as exchange them. Who do Republicans believe works for insurance companies?
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p>Good fairies?
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p>To your example: one can be morally outraged at a government bureaucrat in a manner that one cannot be at a private one. One might regard that as an improvement as it means a higher standard is expected.
doesn’t make any of the above false.
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p>Speaking of polls, which ones are you looking at? Just Barry’s approval? Yep, pretty good, at 60/30. Right track/wrong track? Not so much: Right Direction, 35.8%, Wrong Track, 56.8%. Congressional approval? Ouch. Approve 36.5, Disapprove 54.0.
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p>The one I like most, Republicans are tied with Democrats (sorry, Democratics) in an NPR general preference poll, 45/45.
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p>My guess, right/wrong track poll is a leading indicator of Barry’s future poll trend.
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p>…neo-republi-cons think they’re being cute by referring to Barack Obama as ‘Barry’. It is, I have heard, a name that Obama himself had used in his childhood as a means of overcoming self-consciousness about his ‘funny name.’ He has since, you may have notice, repudiated this view.
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p>Personally I think ‘Barry’ is a lot more of a funny name than ‘Barack’, but that’s just me…
My understanding is that the banks are auctioning off their toxic assets to each other. Each auction increases the value of the toxic assets being traded until the government comes in to buy the (now incredibly overpriced) toxic assets.
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p>This is a trick used often by arsonists on commercial property. They keep trading property back and forth, increasing insurance until they light the fire.
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p>Does anyone have a handle on the monetary costs of this? Do you think the public opinion either party will suffer when the scandal hits?
If true, and I have no information either way, I doubt the public would be too upset. Congress is supposed to be in charge of appropriations and spending. Now they maintain themselves as a sideshow of impotent clowns. They only follow the headlines, their money masters bidding, and react as a poorly done Stooge act when the public is outraged. This is a sad act they follow session after session.
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p>Their corporate masters are in feeding frenzy. People are generally disgusted with the elected reps. Respect won’t go much lower. There is no surprise left in the taxpayer.
have a problem. Any 12 step program starts with that one. But given that the GOP is still in denial, they will continue to wake up on post-election mornings, hungover after drinking too much of the ideological Koolaid, scruffy, bleary-eyed and in need of shave, blinking in the streaming light of a brand new day and wondering what he/she said or did the night before to piss off the voters. Of course, the same thing can happen to us if we’re not smart enough to keep a finger on the pulse of the voters. We’ve been there before.