financial calamity: you max out your monetary policy, which we’ve
already done, and then you spend as much money as you possibly can
without actually setting the stuff on fire (I’m exaggerating, but you
get the point). That’s not Obama’s plan or Democrats’ plan, that’s the
mainstream economic plan. Not everyone agrees with it, but not everyone
agrees that you should take antibiotics if you’ve got pneumonia or that
you should stop smoking if you’re coughing all the time.
Which is really the thing here. Waiting for everybody to get on board, or doing counterproductive things to get them on board when they don’t really want to be on board, is some serious bullshit time-wasting. Let it go. Leave some Congressmen behind. They’re big boys and girls, they can catch the bus.
I do agree with one point being made all over the panicking blogosphere this week, which is that Obama spent a lot time courting Republicans and not enough time courting Democrats. As we all know, we have like six parties in this country and most of the members of same call themselves Democrats, and they all want to be petted and cajoled and generally treated like the pretty pretty princesses they all are. Delicate little snowflakes. Very annoying. But you keep them all together, you don’t need the Sarah Palin Party giving you strategy at the hands of Joe the Plumber.
If I’ve failed to completely give up on Obama as of yet, it’s just because every time I’ve done so I’ve looked like an idiot, but he’s had a crap week.Daschle was a bad choice for First Big Mistake, because if you’re gonna blow a call you want it to be for something worthwhile.Judd Gregg is looking like the car I bought that time I had to buy a car in a week and it didn’t really matter what kind of car it was or if it, you know, ran properly. Every timeMax Baucus opens his mouth about national health care, sorry, I mean national health insurance, I want to stab holes in the walls. And I knowObama’s busy but we really do need to get this torture thing handled, if only with some kind of definitive statement that we will continue to suck in perpetuity so that those of us holding out hope can give up and go take a nap.
All this is leaving aside how much fawning Tweety and his ilk have been doing over stupid shit like coffee klatches and who Obama had lunch with yesterday.
I’m not absolving the Congressional Democrats here, either. It’s their responsibility to support the policies of the leader of their party, the man they fell all over themselves to get next to at their inaugural balls like he was National Prom King. You don’t elect somebody and then disappear for six weeks while the Republicans pummel him all day long on the stupid talk shows. Get your heads together, figure out who’s being interviewed when, and let’s do this bitch already.
I’m sorry if I should be adopting a more general wait-and-see policy, but I am kind of freaked out that at any moment the ceiling could come crashing down and there’d be no money to fix it. Those of us out here losing our damn minds and scraping under the couch cushions for cash do not have a lot of patience left.
A.
I just don’t get it. Why is this so hard? When the most recent Nobel-prizewinning economist tells you you’re spending too much on tax cuts and not enough on spending, don’tcha think maybe you ought to, you know, LISTEN TO HIM!?!?!?!
And yet, even as all this is happening, who do all the major news agencies keep interviewing? I almost threw my radio out the window this morning hearing NPR interviewing YET ANOTHER REPUBLICAN about how bad the stimulus package is. (And at the same time talking about how much his state needs the infrastructure spending. Not only are they obstructionist jackasses, but they’re hypocrites as well.)
Frak me.
He’s signed S-CHIP which gives 4 million kids health insurance. In the long run, that’s a good week.
President Obama’s been bumbling a bit dealing with Congress and the Republicans but his comments about not being interested in bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake is a nice break from the David Broder BS we’ve been hearing.
And as much as a lot of this stuff in the bill sucks and is less than optimal, it’s still a big number being pumped into the economy and that’s what counts. Dems aren’t going to lose the majority in 2010, the map and demographics make it damn near impossible, so this stuff only has to pay off in the semi-long run.
I’m still overjoyed with the new Sheriff in town.
NPR had an interesting interview last night where the person said that Obama said he wanted to restore science to its rightful place. economics isn’t quite a science but it has scientific elements. So why not put a panel of distinguished economists in a room and let them rate which parts of the spending bill will give you the most bang for your buck.
Of course, they didn’t go on to say that a lot of economists are firmly rooted in political flavors. But otherwise a good idea.
What I don’t understand, though , is that if you give a poor person a dollar, they’re gonna spend it almost immediately, at a local store (weakness in argument, many local walmarts are part of a chain). The local store is likely to spend it faster and to their suppliers. All in all, the dollar gets circulated extremely quickly with many dollars worth of spending.
You give a dollar to Warren Buffet, he is likely to hold onto it for a while.
SCHIP is good as it both puts money into the system (paying for healthcare and many small hospitals are living on a shoestring) and it also effectively liberates money that the poor would have spent for healthcare to be quickly spent for other luxuries like food.
Something being lost in the shuffle is that we voters said we want a government run by the Democrats. We said we did not want another Republican government at this time. We said we want Obama to be our leader in this government.
So, why is the Senate allowing the Repub minority to decide which bills get passed and which don’t? Why is Obama trying so hard to become a Republocrat president? And, why are the news media trying so hard to stop…wait, that one is easy…forget it.
i am all for tax cuts, but i would gladly spend money. but i pay little taxes. all SS fica. i did not get any fucking stimulus from georgee.
yes, i wan obama to smack the returds, but i am willing for obama to give the idjits enough rope to hang themselves, because the gnews still love them their republikkkans more that no depWession.
Hoppy, I used the new President’s spiffy website this morning to send him that exact message. I told him to get out there and lead his party, and stop kissing up to the Republicans that got us into this mess. I thought I was really nice to not tell him to do something useful with that asshole Rahm, and that him nutpunching Mitch McConnel on my tv was what was really required.
Then I read his op ed in the WaPo. It’s a start. But Barack, sweet president of mine, you must HIT THEM WITH THE CHAIRS. ALL OF THE CHAIRS. HIT THEM.
I keep telling myself, it’s just his third week! It’s new, it’s different, and the republicans have lost their minds.
anyway, that’s what I tell myself.
When I’m trying not to obsess about whether the Republicans have paid Blago off to do his sideshow freak thing.
It is too late for me. I have lost my home as of this week, moving back up north to live with friends. That means, being out of state, I will likely lose my unemployment. I already had to let go of the health insurance. And now I probably won’t be able to afford the car insurance and that means, yep, no car. I have been looking for work GLOBALLY since September. I am a middle management 52 year old. One email inquiry and no interviews in all that time.
When do we start handing out the pitchforks and torches? I mean, enough already. I am done with the patience.
sorry escariot. just try riding out the bullshit.
thanks pansypoo…i always ALWAYS land on my feet. I will be fine. I am working with friends on an amazing organic garden so I will not only not starve, but learn a new much needed skill…growing food.
But I reserve the right to be pissed off that the consequences of empire are not borne by the beneficiaries of said system.
unless you call having to downgrade from the company Gulfstream to first class is a consequence worth considering.