Page 4 of 6 First 123456 Last
  1. #34
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Obama calls for a ‘renewed sense of urgency’ to solve debt problems
    By Holly Bailey Senior Political Reporter | The Ticket – 7 hrs ago[/i]


    (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
    President Obama said Monday he hopes Standard & Poor's downgrade of the country's credit rating will give lawmakers a "renewed sense of urgency" on dealing with the nation's deficit problems.

    In his first public remarks since Friday's downgrade, Obama blamed political gridlock for the nation's setback and insisted the markets still consider the United States a "triple-A country."

    S&P's move, Obama said, was "not so much because they doubt our ability to pay our debt … but because after witnessing a month of wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, they doubted our political system's ability to act."

    "We didn't need a ratings agency to tell us that we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction," he added. "That was true last week. That was true last year. That was true the day I took office."

    Obama insisted the nation's economic woes are "eminently solvable, and we know what we have to do to solve them."

    Still, amid major turmoil on the stock market, Obama stopped short of calling for Congress to come back to Washington from vacation and work on a deficit deal. Instead, he shifted focus to a planned "super committee" in Congress that is set to report its findings by November on how to cut an estimated $1.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years.

    The president said he would lay out his own proposals for spending cuts "shortly" but insisted two steps are crucial: tax reform, including raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and "modest adjustments" to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. "It's not a lack of plans or policies that's the problem here," Obama said, citing proposals previously floated by the Senate's Gang of Six and an agreement he had previously reached with House Speaker John Boehner. "It's a lack of political will in Washington. It's the insistence on drawing lines in the sand, a refusal to put what's best for the country ahead of self-interest or party or ideology. And that's what we need to change."

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/o...184613982.html

    comments

    What about entitlement programs such as food stamps and those on welfare. Maybe it's time for them to get off their backsides and go flip burgers or go to school and get an education; quit depending on the people in Washington to keep issuing you a check every month. Drug test all of them before issuing a check and verify who they support; not boyfriends or live-in girlfriends. Checks and balances.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  2. # ADS
    Circuit advertisement Debt ceiling called unconstitutional ??
    Join Date
    Always
    Location
    Advertising world
    Posts
    Many
     

  3. #35
    pepperpot's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    exactly where I should be...
    Posts
    8,566
    Thanks
    4,402
    Thanked 3,793 Times in 2,027 Posts
    The one sense of urgency that will help us is to get him and his agendas out of office! That's the real urgent matter!
    Mrs Pepperpot is a lady who always copes with the tricky situations that she finds herself in....

  4. #36
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Debt Buries Man of Hope
    By Eleanor Clift | The Daily Beast – 9 hrs ago


    President Obama faced an imposing figure Monday as he tried to reassure Americans that the U.S. economy will rebound, and overcome a downgrading of its credit rating: the 2008 version of himself.

    The president’s pitch Monday—all that’s needed is a little “common sense and compromise”—was a far cry from the soaring rhetoric and optimism of his candidacy three years ago. And the first voters after Monday’s statement—Wall Street investors—weren’t entirely sold. The Dow Jones average fell 634 points Monday, with Obama’s words doing little to stop the downward momentum.

    Still, Obama declined to join the chorus of critics assailing the Standard & Poor’s rating agency as misguided in its assessment, instead expressing the hope that the U.S. going from triple-A to double-A would motivate Congress to find a “grand bargain” that would reform both entitlement programs and taxes. And that optimism could spell a political benefit in the long term.

    “He was reassuring—that was the aim,” says Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster.

    The economy will have an outsized impact on next year’s election, but the real question, most analysts agree, is not whether it’s good or bad, but whether people feel it’s getting better or worse. More than a year from now, when voters go to the polls in November 2012, if they see light at the end of the tunnel, Obama will be in relatively good shape. “If there isn’t, then it becomes a pitched battle, hand-to-hand combat, trench warfare,” Mellman says.

    A reelection campaign is typically a referendum on the incumbent, but it doesn’t have to be, says Mellman. He’s speaking from experience. He just went through one of the most bruising campaigns in the country with Democrat Harry Reid in Nevada facing Tea Party challenger Sharron Angle. “We turned that from a referendum into not just a choice but into a referendum on the other candidate,” Mellman says.

    Right now, Obama is facing his toughest challenger, and that is the Obama of 2008 who inspired a nation with his call for “change you can believe in.”

    Disappointed liberals are among Obama’s harshest critics. They feel he’s given away too much to conservatives, and they don’t understand where his gifts of intellect and oratory are now that the country is looking to him for a bold plan forward that can take the economy out of the doldrums.

    The dimming enthusiasm for Obama could have serious repercussions for his reelection if disappointed liberals, young people, and minorities don’t come out in the numbers they did in 2008. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, hosted a discussion Monday on “The African American Vote in 2012 and Beyond.” Among the panelists was Jamal Simmons with the Raben Group, a public-relations firm that advocates for progressive policies. He said that right now Obama is being compared against the ideal progressive president imagined by his soaring rhetoric and promises of change, but once the campaign gets under way, “He’ll be compared against Mitt Romney, or Michele Bachmann, and that’s a very different conversation.”

    One of the questions before the panel was this: With persistently high unemployment and continuing economic woes within the black community, is there room for the right to make inroads? The general consensus was that there is “no savior on the Republican side,” and that Obama could be confident of the support of more than 90 percent of African Americans.

    African Americans, together with liberals and young people, won’t desert Obama, but unless the president finds a better way to connect with their hopes and dreams, and still their fears, he could come up short on Election Day. Karl Rove has already penned an analysis in The Wall Street Journal saying even a 1 percent drop in black turnout in North Carolina, a state that Obama carried in 2008, would wipe out the president’s margin of victory two-and-a-half times over.

    With Congress in recess until after Labor Day, the proposals Obama is relying on to spur the recovery continue to languish, uncertain to get a vote despite his calls for urgency. They include an infrastructure bank, an extension of the payroll holiday tax cut for working people, and three trade deals that are hung up over labor rights. All are worthy proposals but far from enough to capture a weary nation’s imagination. Given the scope of the jobs crisis, there is a dearth of ideas. “We’re working on it,” says Jared Bernstein, an economist who until recently was at the White House advising Vice President Joe Biden.

    Now with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bernstein is circulating a proposal dubbed FAST—Fix America’s Schools Today. The average public school building is 40 years old, with many much older, and repairs have been deferred by cash-strapped local governments. Bringing nearly 100,000 schools up to standard and “greening them up” would create some 10,000 jobs for every billion dollars spent.

    Democrats are searching for the Big Idea that can carry an election. School construction, says one skeptic, “might appeal to some editorial writers, but nobody’s going to say, ‘Wow, I’m going to the barricades for that.' It’s not an automatic bell ringer.” If that’s the standard, it could be a very long election year.

    http://news.yahoo.com/debt-buries-ma...052500709.html

    comments

    Here lies in the problem: the discussion is more about how Obama gets re-elected, not how do we fix this mess or whats best for the country.. everyone is looking out for themselves.

    ~~~

    Four years ago our house was worth more than what we paid for it, gasoline and food were less expensive than today, my husband was making more money due to the pay cut he was forced to take in 2010 to keep his job, our military wasn't fighting a "non-war" in Libya, our neighbors were not losing their homes to foreclosure and most all of them had jobs, our 401K's were worth more, my husband and I were not stressing over what our healthcare might be in the next few years in Obamacare. Wow, we didn't know how good we had it! Wonder what I will be writing in 2016?????? Probably: four years ago we had a house, we could afford gas and food, we started fighting a "non-war" in Libya and are still there, most of our friends had houses and jobs, we had healthcare, my husband had a job and our 401k's were worth something. God help us.

    ~~~

    I hope that change will occur in 2012 when Mr. Obama finishes his term as president and we elect a president who will Lead and not follow. You cannot - as the president and his party believe - that you can tax and spend your way to prosperity. When almost half of this country pay FEW or NO taxes, you cannot expect those who do to continue to carry the burden of the costs

    ~~~

    Obama's policies are clearly failing and yet he refuses to change course even slightly. QE3 will only exacerbate the nation's problems by creating even more debt while devaluing the dollar further. Unemployment continues to nudge farther up while he claims to be creating jobs. Yes, he's brought us change.... how do you like it so far?

    ~~~

    So even liberals are admitting he hasn't got a clue or a plan.

    ~~~

    Debt buries corrupt chicago politician in white house just as it is to the citizens of Illinois. Look at Illinois if you want to see the "change" democrats will bring to the nation - raised income tax 67%, highest sales tax in the nation, highest gas prices, worst schools - Obama is a joke and only an idiot who feel hope at the sight of this guy, I'm guessing a little more than half the country get a feeling of hopelessness when this see this liberal whining and blaming everyone and anyone.

    ~~~

    Hope is not a strategy.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  5. #37
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Poll suggests 2012 change in power in Washington

    Prior to the elections of 1994, 2006 and 2010 when party control changed hands in the House or Senate, many Americans said incumbents didn't deserve re-election. Now, we're seeing the highest number of Americans in two decades who agree with that sentiment, spelling another potential "wave" election for 2012, USA Today reports.

    Only 24 percent of all adults surveyed in the USA Today/Gallup poll said most members of Congress deserve re-election "the lowest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 1991" the newspaper reports. USA Today notes this is similar to the level of support polled prior to the 1994, 2006 and 2010 elections. In 1994, Republicans won control of both the House and Senate. In 2006, Democrats won control of both the House and Senate. And last fall, Republicans won control of the House.

    However, the poll shows that 56 percent of adults believe their own representative deserves re-election. So how does this affect President Obama's support?

    The poll shows the president is on shaky ground.

    A majority of Americans--51 percent--believe he doesn't deserve re-election. Forty-seven percent said he does. When pitted against an unnamed Republican, President Obama narrowly leads 49 to 45 percent. But Obama still remains below the crucial 50 percent mark in that scenario.

    Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads the potential GOP field in this poll--as he has in many national polls-- with 24 percent support. He's followed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry who received 17 percent support. Perry has yet to declare his intention to run, but is expected to do so this Saturday-- the same day as the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.

    Perry is followed in the survey by Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 14 percent support and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann with 13 percent.

    Obama says he inherited economic problems

    http://news.yahoo.com/obama-says-inh...001543865.html

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday he inherited many of the country's problems with high debt and deficits when he entered the White House, sounding a theme likely to dominate his 2012 re-election campaign.

    Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, where families paid $15,000 to get a picture with him, Obama defended his economic record and noted that problems in Europe were affecting the United States. "We do have a serious problem in terms of debt and deficit, and much of it I inherited," Obama said. The financial crisis, he said, made the problem worse.

    Democrats and Republicans agreed to a deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut government spending last week, but credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States, contributing to a steep fall in stock markets on Monday.

    Obama noted that the United States had seen 17 months of consecutive private-sector job growth, rising corporate profits and stabilized credit markets under his watch. "What's absolutely true, even before these last couple days in the stock market, is that recovery wasn't happening fast enough," he said. "When you have problems in Europe and in Spain and in Italy and in Greece, those problems wash over into our shores," he said.

    Some 140 people attended the fundraiser, which was held at a private home.

    CLEAR CONTRAST

    Obama, who is ramping up his fundraising after taking a hiatus while the debt-ceiling debate raged in Washington, said the deficit issue would provide a clear contrast for voters in the 2012 race for the White House. "What we're going to have is 16 months in which we debate this vision for America, and it's going to be as fundamental a debate as 2008," he said. "In some ways it may be even a more profound debate because the contrast is going to be clear and it's going to be sharp."

    Obama is pressing for Congress to extend a payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance to help boost the economy, but he expressed skepticism that lawmakers would get a lot done. "As president of the United States my job is to work with Congress to try to get as much done as possible," he said. "Whether we're going to see any progress out of this Congress right now -- because so far we haven't seen much when it comes to innovative ideas that actually put people to work and grow the economy -- remains to be seen."

    Under the debt-ceiling agreement, a "super committee" in Congress will find further ways to tackle the deficit in the coming months. Obama said on Friday he would outline his own recommendations for that committee.

    At a separate event for potential campaign donors on Monday, Obama previewed what could make up those recommendations, saying revenues needed to be raised, the tax code would have to be reformed, and modest adjustments to the Medicare healthcare program would have to be enacted.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  6. #38
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Even I can understand this when it,s put in this context.

    2011 Federal Budget Deal

    Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000 (3.82 Trillion)
    Income: $2,170,000,000,000 (2.17 Trillion)
    New Debt: $1,650,000,000,000 (1.65 Trillion)

    Amount Cut: $38,500,000,000 (38.5 Billion) – about 1% of the total budget.

    Harry Reid is calling this a “historic amount“.

    The President said it is a “historic deal”.

    John Boehner simply said, “We’ve come to an agreement”.


    Let’s Put This In Perspective. It helps me to think about these numbers in terms that I can relate to.

    Let’s remove nine zeroes from those numbers and pretend this is a monthly household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

    Amount of money the “Jones`s” family spent this month: $3,820
    Total income for the “Jones`s” family this month: $2,170

    Amount of new debt added to the credit card this month: $1,650

    Outstanding balance on the credit card: $14,271 (This represents our national debt).

    So last week, the “Jones’s” sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $38.50 from their monthly budget. A historic amount!

    R U Impressed?
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  7. #39
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    You Can’t Always Come Back, Baby — Because YouTube Never Forgets
    August 24, 2011 - 2:56 pm - by Ed Driscoll


    now, a few words on the long-term dangers of deficit spending, from a rather unlikely source:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuTG...layer_embedded

    (Correct me if I’m wrong, but he wasn’t too crazy about President Bush’s foreign policy, either. Go figure.)

    On his personal blog, after linking to the above clip, Moe Lane writes about a topic I’ve explored a few times myself over the years. Back in 2006, I dubbed it “The Internet Immortality Thesis,” a sort of corollary of Mickey Kaus’s beloved Feiler Faster Principle. Linking to the above clip, Moe notes that while we take YouTube and other video aggregation sites for granted today, YouTube itself was only founded in February of 2005.

    This means that the 2004 presidential campaign was the last more or less fought under the old rules of battle, with strategies largely dictated by the MSM. John Kerry’s campaign was the last to play under the old rules of the game, and he paid for it dearly. Even without YouTube, the Blogosphere devoured him, thanks to his Radical Chic past. As I wrote right around this time seven years ago (my how time flies on the Internet), Kerry’s campaign was very much “Built for a 1972 Media:”

    Kerry’s massively invented narrative (“swashbuckling Swift Boat lieutenant”–as Steyn describes him–turned brave defender of soldiers’ rights) was built to survive the glancing scrutiny (if you can call it that) of a 1972-era media that consisted of three TV networks with half hour evening news shows, and a few liberal big city newspapers, all of which were staffed with journalists more or less largely sympathetic to Kerry’s leftist anti-American beliefs.

    But between the Swift Boat Vets and the Blogosphere, there are far too many people examining Kerry’s story, and his “reporting for duty” edifice has crumbled.

    Is that fair? We’ll, we’re deciding if we want the man to have the key to the most powerful arsenal ever assembled. If he can’t survive the scrutiny of the Blogosphere, who James Lileks recently described as an “obsessive sort with lots of time on their hands”, is he someone who should be trusted with this power?

    The 1972-style media seems to think so.

    When Joe Biden described Obama in early 2007 as “clean,” what he meant, once you translated the typically painful Biden-ese into English, was that Obama didn’t have the same sort of radical chic paper trail that could come back to bite him in the Barack as other previous black leftwing presidential candidates. (See also: Sharpton, Al.) The appearance of Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers began to complicate Obama’s narrative, but Obama’s handlers, the JournoList, the complicit MSM, and the financial meltdown all helped to clobber a sclerotic and supine McCain campaign that was terrified of being branded racist. (Well over four years of this slash and burn tactic by the left have greatly devalued the potency of the scarlet-R, but then, short-term tactics often blind the left to their more permanent implications.)

    But to govern is to choose, and between his words before and during the 2008 campaign and once in office, Obama now has a substantial paper trail — several trillions of dollars worth, as the above clip tacitly highlights– and more importantly, as Moe writes, a video trail as well. If you’re a politician whose promises invariably come with expiration dates, YouTube and its competitors present a problem:

    It never goes away.

    This is a problem because politicians have been operating under the paradigm that you can make inconvenient things from your past go away, if you really, really need to. And I’m not talking about the big things, like a dead girl in your bed or a federal conviction for racketeering; I’m talking about embarrassing statements from the past, flip-flops that you don’t want to dwell on, inconvenient votes, or just taking out your bad day on somebody who happened to be in range at the wrong moment. In short, anything that looks bad in a campaign commercial; but before February of 2005 it was a lot harder to show that sort of thing to people without the assistance of a professional video editor. And even then there were set media channels for that sort of thing, that typically cost money to get on, and you had to pick a time to air it, and…

    Well, you see where this is going: we are now living in an universe where those assumptions are not only false, but they’re kind of naive. This is, of course, a self-correcting ‘problem:’ in 2010 we saw how viral footage and instantly accessible records somewhat dramatically resulted in requiring a startlingly large number of politicians to seek a second career as lobbyists. And that will happen in 2012 as well (2014, to a lesser extent); the easy targets will be hammered most powerfully.

    The problem for the President? He’s one of those easy targets, as the above video shows. It was not a good idea to yell about the debt incurred by your predecessor when you’re going to end up beating his record in half the time; but Barack Obama is very much an old-style politician – and, at that, one not used to being called on his record (this is where a lack of re-election campaign experience hurts). He’s thus got four to six years of potential gaffes to explain away… and the worst bit (for him)? Everybody has access to those gaffes.

    Everybody.

    You can’t always come back, baby — because YouTube never forgets.

    (And Download Helper, Replay Media Catcher, and similar applets help to ensure that it doesn’t.)

    Update: No sooner did I drop the hammer on this post, than the following clip appeared at Hot Air to illustrate the above points, marred only by the horror — the horror — of Hobo Sans:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxaT1...layer_embedded

    http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2...inglepage=true

    comments

    Wait? Isn’t Obama at the women’s tee in the last clip showing him taking a bow for his gold drive? What’s up with that?

    ~~~

    What if Obama isn’t so smart?
    http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinio...#ixzz1VyjeIY6L

    There is a sea of video producers on the right salivating over the plethora of material (lies) Pres. Obozo and VP Bite-me have driveled from their respective lips over the past three years. The 2012 presidential race ads will be very interesting and entertaining indeed.

    Too bad McLame put the horse collar on Sarah Barracuda back in 2008. She’s had three long years to focus her sights (warning…un-PC allusions) and reload for her inevitable 2012 run.

    Should be fun!

    ~~~

    The Democrats’ tactic has been to run someone with no record, thus Barack O’ Stupid. This may not be the Manchurian Candidate, but it has certainly answered well for the Dims. Beside the Dims, the media at large has no soul, therefore no irony, an essential part of a truly great society (think Arabs and Russians, who have no sense of irony at all. Literalism is their creed.) No irony? No need to defend anything we don’t want to defend.

    If you are wont to dismiss this, it abounds on the internet, in the comments section. If I say Obama is a jackass, some lib will point out that he doesn;t have four legs, or a tail. If I mention that his ears defy their thesis, they act as if I’m crazy. Yet, they can get from rioters stealing valuable stuff for no reason except that they want it, to glorifying it because they’re poor.

    I’m beginning to think it’s all very simple. Liberals are simply children. Only a retard (or a bad parent) argues with children. Children need to be kept away from sharp objects. Children need to be told what to do. Trying to reason with a child who decides that his poop should be smeared all over the house, because it would be pretty, is pointless. Liberal arguments are always along the line of “I find the easiest answer that makes me feel good, and that must be it, because I want it to be.” Just like a child.

    Notice that any slight inaccuracy in your thesis makes it inoperative, while any and all magic unicorns employed to make them right, is just fine. Stop getting in the weeds with liberals. As Samuel Johnson so wisely said, “There is no point in arguing the preeminance of a louse and a flea.” Liberals are simultaneously both lice and fleas. Best to be done with them. They don’t fight fair, and neither should you.

    ~~~

    Obama thought all that would never catch up with him? And he was supposed to be hip. Tsh.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  8. #40
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    White House sharply cuts growth forecast
    By Alister Bull | Reuters – 5 hrs ago


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sharply cut estimates on Thursday for U.S. economic growth, underscoring the difficult challenge he faces in spurring a stronger recovery and creating more jobs.

    In a midyear review of his annual budget, Obama predicted average unemployment of 9 percent in 2012, when he will have to fight for re-election. The president will give a major speech on September 8 on how he plans to lift hiring and growth.

    "The economic projections make clear there is a real need in the short term to kick-start economic growth and get on a sustained higher growth path," White House budget chief Jack Lew told reporters on a conference call.

    Obama must convince voters his policies are working in order to retain the White House, but doubts have grown over his stewardship of the economy after a summer of wild stock market swings and a raft of bad economic data that underlined the risk of the country plunging back into recession.

    A new CNN/ORD poll found 65 percent of respondents disapproved of his handling of the economy, reflecting the harm done by a bitter budget fight between Obama, a Democrat, and Republican lawmakers that led to ratings agency Standard & Poor's cutting America's top-notch AAA credit rating.

    "He needs to frame the election so it is focused on the future and not focused on the present," said Jim Kessler, a political analyst at Third Way, a think tank in Washington, who doubts Obama has much power to give growth a pre-2012 boost.

    In the midyear review, the White House offered some hints of what Obama will say in his address to Congress next week. It said the speech could include proposals for a mixture of tax cuts aimed at middle-class families, infrastructure spending and aid for the long-term unemployed.

    NO DOUBLE DIP RECESSION

    Economic growth was marked down compared with what the White House had forecast in February, with conditions deteriorating even further after the administration locked down its predictions in June for the midsession review.

    As a result, it offered an alternative economic forecast based on what has happened in recent weeks. That projects GDP growth this year of 1.7 percent, compared with 2.7 percent expected back in February, with 2.6 percent forecast for 2012, down from a 3.6 percent prediction in February.

    But the more subdued growth outlook did not have a major impact on the expected deficits, and growth was expected to rebound to above 4 percent by 2015.

    For the budget outlook, the White House said the deficit would now decline to 6.1 percent of GDP in 2012 from a projected 8.8 percent this year.

    But critics were skeptical and said the longterm projections were unduly rosy.

    "The president has the deficit falling from $1.3 trillion this year to $473 billion in 2014. Should we really believe that? That seems a very optimistic assumption," said Chris Edwards at the Cato Institute in Washington.

    The improvement over February's forecast was due largely to spending cuts imposed under a deal struck last month by Obama and Republicans to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, which will shave $1.45 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years.

    In the latest reading from the economy, U.S. manufacturing grew unexpectedly in August and fewer Americans filed new claims for jobless aid last week.

    The new economic data on Thursday was the latest in a series to suggest the economy remained on a slow-growth path and offered hope it would dodge a recession.

    The White House review predicted unemployment to average 9.1 percent this year and 9.0 percent in 2012. The jobless rate was 9.1 percent last month and is expected to show no change when the August employment report is released on Friday.

    "Despite recent setbacks, the Administration expects the economy to grow at increasing rates in the months and years to come," the White House said. "The potential for a sharp recovery is present," it added, noting abundant capacity in the economy to increase output, including high unemployment.

    Congress must find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction measures over the next 10 years. If it fails to act before late December, mandatory spending cuts of $1.2 trillion will be imposed equally on defense and non-defense spending, kicking in from 2013 and running through 2021.

    http://news.yahoo.com/obama-cuts-gro...175811618.html
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  9. #41
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Robert Reich: Government Must Spend More to Get Out of Debt
    By Doug Powers • September 1, 2011 04:39 PM

    You’ve heard of Keynesian economics, but this repeated call for increasing the debt in order to lower the debt is more closely related to the Keynesian model’s modern-day successor, the “Facepalmian” economic theory, to which Joe Biden and many others also subscribe.

    Transcript of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on CNBC from Real Clear Politics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...t_of_debt.html

    “The only way to restart not only jobs, Simon, but also economic growth, which is terribly important for every purpose including deficit reduction. the only way we’re going to get the deficits and long-term debt under control is if we get back growth. The only way to get back growth is for government to be this spender of last resort.”

    AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka agrees and has such an appetite for yet another stimulus that his salivary glands are working overtime even though that’s not allowed in their contract. But something in the back of my mind tells me these “huge government spending programs” were tried not long ago and didn’t work so well.



    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/09/01...t-out-of-debt/

    comments

    Robert Reich: Government Must Spend More to Get Out of Debt
    Pelosi: The greatest way to grow jobs is Unemployment Insurance
    Tom Vilsack: Best way to create jobs is through food stamps
    When you add all three of these together you would think that the unemployment rate would be near 0 and the economy would be just chugging along.

    ~~~

    Even if all of this spending worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess if the Keynesians actually practiced Keynesian economics. Keynes also called for reduced government spending when the economy is doing well. Oops!

    The same thing happens when the GOP is in control with their “supply-side” economics. They spend too much money!

    It just doesn’t matter what economic theory is in vogue. The problem is that the government NEVER does the part that calls them to reduce spending. Government just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

    ~~~

    wow, we spent more money than any previous administration, and it is still not enough, wtf? this is not microeconomics, or macroeconomics, it is megaporkeconomics, bordering on terraporkeconomics. we are running out of zeros to put on paper, and he wants us to get more zeros, wow. it must suck to work in the whitehouse today!

    ~~`

    Hm. Maybe it was in this thread that I should have mentioned that Christie just blasted Cantor for daring to suggest that any FEMA money we spend on the disaster everyone saw coming be offset with spending cuts. Yes, Cantor spoke like a conservative.

    Christie thinks the debt can be argued later, because they need money noooow.

    The talking heads on “The Five” are all on Christie’s side. Greg Gutbuster suggested it was like attending a funeral and mentioning the $50 the deceased owed you. No, it’s more like the funeral director requiring payment before planting the deceased.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  10. #42
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Super failure: Deficit-cutting panel gives up
    By DAVID ESPO | AP – 2 hrs 42 mins ago


    WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress' supercommittee conceded ignominious defeat Monday in its quest to conquer a government debt that stands at a staggering $15 trillion, unable to overcome deep and enduring political divisions over taxes and spending.

    Stock prices plummeted at home and across debt-scarred Europe as the panel ended its brief, secretive existence without an agreement. Republicans and Democrats alike pointed fingers of blame, maneuvering for political advantage in advance of 2012 elections less than a year away.

    The impasse underscored grave doubts about Washington's political will to make tough decisions and left a cloud of uncertainty over the U.S. economy at the same time that Greece, Italy, Spain and other European countries are reeling from a spreading debt crisis and recession worries.

    Lawmakers of both parties agreed action in Congress was still required, somehow, and soon.

    "Despite our inability to bridge the committee's significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation's fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve," the panel's two co-chairs, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., said in a somber statement.

    They added it was not possible to present "any bipartisan agreement" — omitting any reference to the goal of $1.2 trillion in cuts over a decade that had been viewed as a minimum for success.

    President Barack Obama — criticized by Republicans for keeping the committee at arm's length — said refusal by the GOP to raise taxes on the wealthy as part of a deal that also cut social programs was the main stumbling block.

    "They simply will not budge from that negotiating position," he said.

    Obama pledged to veto any attempt by lawmakers to repeal a requirement for $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are to be triggered by the supercommittee's failure to reach a compromise, unless Congress approves an alternative approach.

    Those cuts are designed to fall evenly on the military and domestic government programs beginning in 2013, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as well as lawmakers in both parties have warned the impact on the Pentagon could be devastating.

    "In my four decades involved with public service, I have never been more concerned about the ability of Congress to forge common-sense solutions to the nation's pressing problems," Panetta, a former House budget committee chairman, said in a statement. "The half-trillion dollars in additional cuts demanded by sequester would lead to a hollow force incapable of sustaining the missions it is assigned."

    In reality, though, it is unclear if any of those reductions will ever take effect, since next year's presidential and congressional elections have the potential to alter the political landscape before then.

    The brief written statement from Murray and Hensarling was immediately followed by a hail of recriminations.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans had "never found the courage to ignore the tea party extremists" and "never came close to meeting us half way."

    But Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who authored a GOP offer during the talks, said, "Unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues refused to agree to any meaningful deficit reduction without $1 trillion in job-crushing tax increases."

    Said Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, a GOP presidential hopeful, "It's amazing to what lengths he (Obama) will go to avoid making tough decisions."

    It was unlikely the outcome would materially improve Congress' public standing — already well below 20-percent approval in numerous polls.

    And the panel's failure left lawmakers confronting a large and controversial agenda for December, including Obama's call to extend an expiring payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. Democrats had wanted to add those items and more to any compromise, and lawmakers in both parties also face a struggle to stave off a threatened 27 percent cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

    Based on accounts provided by officials familiar with the talks, it appeared that weeks of private negotiations did nothing to alter a fundamental divide between the two political parties. Before and during the talks, Democrats said they would agree to significant savings from benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security only if Republicans would agree to a hefty dose of higher taxes, including cancellation of Bush-era cuts at upper-income brackets. In contrast, The GOP side said spending, not revenue, was the cause of the government's chronic budget deficits, and insisted that the tax cuts approved in the previous decade all be made permanent.

    The Democrats' "idea was this was the opportunity to raise taxes,'" said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's second-ranking Republican and a member of the supercommittee. "It didn't matter what we proposed; the price of that was going to be $1.3 trillion in new taxes," he added in a CNBC interview, although Democrats made at least two offers that called for smaller amounts of additional tax revenue.

    Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said on MSNBC, "I have demonstrations outside my office. I've had rallies. I've had unbelievable amount of pushback because we were ready and prepared to put on the table some of those so-called sacred cows." Republicans, he said, refused to consider cancellation of the tax cuts for the wealthy.

    The talks also were hampered by internal divisions within both parties.

    Republicans offered a plan crafted by Toomey about two weeks ago that included an additional $250 billion in tax revenue through an overhaul of the tax code that included reducing the top tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent. Some Republicans criticized it as a violation of the party's long-standing pledge not to raise taxes. Even some in the GOP leadership, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, declined to endorse it in public.

    At the same time, Democrats ridiculed it as a tax cut for the rich in disguise — even privately criticizing Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., when he said it could signal a breakthrough — and it failed to generate any momentum toward compromise. Reid and others also accused Republicans of bowing to the wishes of Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist whose organization has gathered signatures from GOP candidates on a petition pledging never to raise taxes.

    And Democrats had problems of their own. An offer presented by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to cut about $3 trillion from future deficits failed to win the backing of two of the six committee members of his own party. Officials said they objected because it would have curtailed future cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, some liberals said in remarks on the Senate floor they opposed it and Republicans criticized them for intransigence.

    Baucus jettisoned it from a subsequent offer that also slashed an earlier demand for tax revenues.

    The panel's failure marked the end of an extraordinary yearlong effort by divided government to grapple with budget deficits that lawmakers of both parties and economists of all persuasions agreed were unsustainable.

    Negotiations in the Capitol led by Vice President Joseph Biden were followed by an extraordinary round of White House talks in which Obama and House Speaker John Boehner sought a sweeping compromise to cut trillions from future deficits. They outlined a potential accord that would make far-reaching changes in Medicare and other programs, while generating up to $800 billion in higher revenue through an overhaul of the tax code. But in the end, they failed to agree.

    By contrast, the supercommittee never came close, instead swapping increasingly small-bore offers that the other side swiftly rejected.

    Within the past week, Democrats said they would accept a Republican framework for $400 billion in higher tax revenue and $800 billion or so in spending cuts, while rejecting numerous key proposals.

    Late last week, Boehner floated an offer that included $543 billion in spending cuts, fees and other non-tax revenue, as well as $3 billion in tax revenue from closing a special tax break for corporate purchases of private jets. It also assumed $98 billion in reduced interest costs.

    It was swiftly rejected.

    http://news.yahoo.com/super-failure-...225248534.html
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  11. #43
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    I am sure no one saw this coming ....


    Obama blames Republicans for debt panel failure
    Reuters – 1 hr 15 mins ago


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama blamed Republicans on Monday for a congressional committee's failure to reach a deficit-cutting deal and vowed to veto any attempt to water down automatic budget cuts that would kick in by early 2013.

    Obama, seeking to calm jittery financial markets, said the United States was not facing an imminent threat of default -- as it did last August -- and that "one way or another" there would be at least $2.2 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years.

    He urged lawmakers to redouble efforts to agree on further deficit-cutting measures, telling reporters: "They still have a year to figure it out."

    http://news.yahoo.com/obama-blames-r...230130860.html

    comments

    Good to see that the president stays true to his word when he says he wants to end bipartisanship.

    ...

    I thought the panel was 50/50 ?

    ...

    Obama would rather blame than lead. Before he went to the Pacific meetings for a photo op, he spent all his time campaigning on the taxpayers dollar. The leadership vacuum must be the fault of someone else. Nobody should expect him to lead, unless it has to do with funneling stimulus money to his supporters' energy projects.

    ...

    Man creates group. Group fails. Man blames half of group.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  12. #44
    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Lan astaslem !
    Posts
    60,656
    Thanks
    2,750
    Thanked 5,510 Times in 3,654 Posts
    Doomed by design: The SuperFail Committee
    By Michelle Malkin • November 21, 2011 10:00 AM


    It was all doomed by design from the start.

    What I wrote in July about the Reid-Boehner-Obama fake bickerfest over the debt-ceiling hike deal: http://michellemalkin.com/2011/07/30...ki-bickerfest/

    Fast-forward past the sound and fury…The debt ceiling is going up. Government is getting bigger. Real spending cuts are getting kicked down the can. Entitlement reform is going nowhere. Reid and McConnell will dilute Boehner’s already diluted plan behind closed doors. And everyone in Washington will rush to take credit for nothing much.

    And: http://michellemalkin.com/2011/07/29...increase-vote/

    Fiscal conservatives fought the good fight.

    But after all is said and done, we are getting another debt ceiling increase with the bare minimum of spending controls and another bogus commission with a balanced budget amendment bone thrown to the base.
    And so it has come to pass.

    The gesture BBA failed on Friday. http://michellemalkin.com/2011/11/18...dment-261-165/

    Today, the “Super Committee” is expected to announce its gobsmackingly obvious Super Fail: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...JfN_story.html

    The congressional “supercommittee” stumbled its way toward failure Sunday, with final staff-level discussions focusing mostly on how the panel should publicly admit that lawmakers could not meet their mandate of shaving $1.2 trillion from the federal debt.

    Rather than making a final effort at compromise, members of the special deficit-reduction committee spent their final hours casting blame and pointing fingers, bracing for the reaction from financial markets that are already jittery over the European debt crisis.

    The only winners in the game?

    The lobbyists.

    Flashback: http://michellemalkin.com/2011/11/11...-patty-murray/

    The only thing “super” about the so-called budget control super committee is the size of lobbying muscle exerted on its members. Almost 100 registered lobbyists who are former employees of super committee members are now “representing defense companies, health-care conglomerates, Wall Street banks and others with a vested interest in the outcome of the panel’s work,” the Washington Post found in September. This includes two dozen former staffers to Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, including three former chiefs of staff.

    On the other side of the revolving door, 10 out of the panel’s 12 members have now raked in donations from foreign registered agents totaling more than $50,000 in direct campaign contributions during 2011 alone, according to government watchdogs. The additional amount raised through fundraisers held by these lobbying firms is unknown, according to the Project on Government Oversight. Moreover, all 12 super committee members have been contacted by foreign lobbyists, eager to secure targeted exemptions, loopholes and protectionism.

    Super committee co-chair Patty Murray, who refused to step down from her fundraising duties as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, recently met with South Korean lobbyists employed by D.C. powerhouse firm Patton Boggs. Roll Call reported that while the panel’s negotiations wouldn’t have direct bearing on free-trade deals, Murray “could have access to information about how the timing of the debt deliberations could affect passage of the free-trade agreements.”

    Patty “Pork Chop” Murray’s in-your-face embrace of influence peddlers has her populist Pacific Northwest constituents cringing. Mind you: Murray’s office boasts no fewer than 17 revolving-door staffers turned lobbyists. That’s on top of her DSCC fundraising conflicts of interest.

    This week, the Seattle Times disclosed that Murray held a two-day staff retreat at heavyweight lobbying outfit Strategies 360, which was founded by Democratic political operative Ron Dotzauer. The group donated meeting space to Murray’s team and skirted ethics rules by offering similar deals to nonprofits. Murray’s former deputy state director, Karen Waters, is now a senior vice president at the firm. Another of its lobbyists, Melanie Mihara, used to work for Murray’s Democratic colleague Sen. Maria Cantwell. According to OpenSecrets.org, Strategies 360 has conducted $985,000 worth of lobbying targeting more than a dozen government agencies this year.

    A spokesman for the senator (who made her name attacking the Beltway insider culture) sniffed that the report was a “non-story.” Given Murray’s status as the second highest recipient of lobbying money among all members of Congress behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, her staff is right:

    This little perk is chump change compared to her career haul.

    Lobbying, of course, is perfectly legal. It’s Murray’s pretense as a white hat public-interest crusader that should gall both sides of the aisle. One left-wing Seattle blogger rather generously called Murray “tone-deaf” and spelled out the rank hypocrisy of Murray’s entrenched and unrepentant lobbying ties: “This while members of her own party are up in arms over the increasing influence of money in American politics. This while a giant hunk of the liberal electorate is “Occupying” the streets to protest corporate greed and disproportional representation. This while the very term ‘lobbyist’ has come to represent all that is bad about special interest influence.”

    Yep, all that and a bag of back-scratching chips.

    Murray’s backroom meetings come as business as usual as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi grandstands over the need for more “transparency” in the super committee dealings. After ramming through Obamacare in secret (with the help of top staffer Brendan Daly, who is now a lobbyist for groups opposed to the law he helped pass), Pelosi has now called for televised debt panel hearings. On publicly broadcasting the debt panel members’ meetings with lobbyists, Pelosi will no doubt remain mum. Remember:

    The “K” in “K Street” stands for “Kabuki.”
    The disease: Entrenched incumbency.

    The cure? Fresh fiscal conservative blood.

    Remember in November.

    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/11/21...ail-committee/


    comments

    Most, if not all, of us saw this for what it was when it was first presented. My take, a way to save the RINO face in the wake of the Debit Deal – that did nothing except delay the inevitable – 15 Trillion now in how many months? The second was – the Democrats laying another trap to the Idiot Republicans in such a way that either way it turned out – the Repubs would take the fall.

    ...

    When Kerry said the rich need to pay more, I was disappointed that Gretchen didn’t mention licensing yachts in states other than your own to avoid taxes.

    $1.2 Trillion over 10 years and they couldn’t pull it off. They could save that much by reducing office supplies by 10% per year for 10 years.

    I think Rand Paul had it right, this is the ONLY way Congress will ever “Cut” anything. And according to Sen Paul, the Defense cuts are actually a reduction in the increase, not an actual cut in spending.

    Kabuki Theater indeed.

    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Log in

Log in