Comments on: The Dicey Politics of a Second Stimulus
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- It's the REPUBLICANS who are calling for a second stimulus, they want the Democrats to craft a second stimulus bill so they can vote it down during 2010 and try to make some gains in congress.
You aren't going to see a second stimulus bill from Obama. What you will see is a bunch of Republicans running around claiming that Obama wants a second stimulus bill, then saying he's an idiot for wanting it. It's called attacking a straw man and it only works for a while before people see through it. - Reply to this comment
- Agree - I don't know who gulliberal is - but he should look at when the sub-prime market exploded - from 2002 through 2006 - and look at when the $0 down program was started by the Bush Administration. Also, seems like it was the Bush Administration that came to Congress saying they needed $750B to keep the banks from going under????? -
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- According to the article, since February 2009 when the 787 BILLION dollar stimulus packange was enacted, 2 million more jobs have been lost, and the unemployment rate is at least 9.5%!
And yet, we see the Democrats are calling for a SECOND STIMULUS package!?
But, WAIT--- when they're asked, 'what's going on? Why isn't it working?', one of the answers they posit IS: well, NINETY (90%) percent of the FIRST
Stimulus bill remains UNSPENT! Thus, insinuating when it IS spent, things will improve...yada, yada, yada!
So, my question IS: if ninety percent (90%) of the first bill remains unspent, what in the 'H' is the big rush to pass a SECOND stimulus bill?!!
IS that ALL that the Democrats can THINK to DO, is throw money at problems?! Congress did that for EIGHT years under BUSH and it didn't work! And, it's NOT going to work for the Democrats, either!
Congress is like some stupid dog that has to be taught how to 'roll over' each and every new day!
How's about, WISELY spending the rest of the first stimulus package, actually create jobs with it, impress us the public, that it was well-spent BEFORE you pass a second stimulus bill, OK?!!
I mean it's the right thing to do! It's the responsible thing to do!
Even though, it might NOT be the 'Washington, D.C.' thing to do! - Reply to this comment
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- It's the REPUBLICANS who are calling for a second stimulus, they want the Democrats to craft a second stimulus bill so they can vote it down during 2010 and try to make some gains in congress.
You aren't going to see a second stimulus bill from Obama. What you will see is a bunch of Republicans running around claiming that Obama wants a second stimulus bill, then saying he's an idiot for wanting it. It's called attacking a straw man and it only works for a while before people see through it.
- This article does not make it clear exactly WHO is calling for a second stimulus, friend!
So, I based my comment on previous articles I have read about it--- in which a couple of Democrats were noted as having called for a second one!
Even in this article, it is stated administration officials are considering the possibiity!
So, now you now, from where my comments derive!
- Yeah lets think about this, this has been issue for a long time over spending and greed. Being that the democrats are in office I think they are the ones calling for the 2nd stimulus. More money that my children will have to pay. For it is no health care your baby has to die but more money please!!!
- It's the REPUBLICANS who are calling for a second stimulus, they want the Democrats to craft a second stimulus bill so they can vote it down during 2010 and try to make some gains in congress.
- Actually, most the first stimulus has not been spent; why is anyone considering a second stimulus. Spend the first then look at the cupboard.
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- I doubt American's will buy the Republican Lie again and they all know how and why we're where we are. I think it is THEY who are gambling here and they are going to loose. We are where we are because of BLIND STINKING GREED. Greed fed by the Party of De-Regulation and their beliefs that Corporate CEO's didn't need Government oversight. The question is simply how long will it take the Democrats to get us out. Going BACK to the insanity of Trickle Down will accomplish what? Putting MORE members of the Party of NO in congress will accomplish what?
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- Agree - I don't know who gulliberal is - but he should look at when the sub-prime market exploded - from 2002 through 2006 - and look at when the $0 down program was started by the Bush Administration. Also, seems like it was the Bush Administration that came to Congress saying they needed $750B to keep the banks from going under????? -
- gulliberal you are a liar. Better to look like you're doing something than to debate a subject (a) you're clueless about, and (b)your best friend and former head of finance of your campaign had a hand in causing.
Phil "Americans are Whiners" Gramm inserted a 250-page rider into the 11,000-page "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000" two days after Bush was appointed president on December 15, 2000, and on the very day that Congress was recessing for the holidays.
Senator Gramm''s rider became known as the "Enron Loophole," and it was directly responsible for the California energy crisis, the collapse of Enron, the unregulated and unmonitored trading of subprime mortgage packages as commodities, and the unprecedented rise in oil and grain prices experienced world-wide in late 2008 which in conjunction with the subprime mortgage trading triggered the 2008 financial collapse. Phil Gramm was McCain''s choice to be Secretary of the Treasury, thank God McCain lost the election.
Phil Gram went to work for Swiss-based UBS AG which pleaded guilty in Feb 19 2009 to assisting in creation of illegal overseas tax shelters, and paid a fine of 780 million dollars to the US Justice Dept.
Nothing like being elected to public office just so you can have legislation enacted that will benefit yourself, to the detriment of the rest of us. I wonder if Senator McCain and Phil Gramm still think our worries about the economy are "in our minds."
Check out the testimony of Michael Greenberger given before Congress early in 2008 to confirm the above info and if you really want to know exactly what''s wrong with our economy (it''s difficult, but important, reading): http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cong_test/27/
The Washington Post revealed that not only did the Bush administration do nothing to prevent the subprime mortgage crisis, it actually "embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye." When predatory lending practices became so prevalent five years ago that attorneys general in all 50 states started to take action against the banks responsible for the crisis, for the first time in its history Bush used the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a tool against consumers.
Some diligent lawyer in the administration dug up a clause from an 1863 banking act that gave the OCC the power to preempt all state predatory lending laws: "The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government''s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks.
And because of spitzers allegations an investigation led to the resignation of Alphonse Jackson,Bush''s appointee to H.U.D. which by the way was the one who overseen the freddie mac and Fanny mae foundations.
The Wall Street Journal did report on a smaller example of the federal government''s active role in creating the crisis. Mark Maremont wrote that after the Federal Deposit Insurance Company seized the assets of Superior Bank FSB, then a national subprime lender based in Hinsdale, Illinois, the FDIC "continued to run the bank''s subprime mortgage business for months as it looked for a buyer. With FDIC people supervising day-to-day operations, Superior funded more than 6,700 new subprime loans worth more than $550 million, according to federal mortgage data."
"The FDIC then sold a big chunk of the loans to another bank. That loan pool was afflicted by the same problems for which regulators have faulted the industry: lending to unqualified borrowers, inflated appraisals, and poor verification of borrowers'' incomes, according to a written report from a government-hired expert. The report said that many of the loans never should have been made in the first place
And as far as the Republican's arguments that the Democrats were in control of the Congress in 2007/2008, think again. House control doesn't matter because a bill must be approved by BOTH houses to be sent to the President - who can then veto it anyway - to control congress you must have Senate control also. Well, 51 dems to 49 reps may be control in theory. But every time legislation on the part of the dems came up, the 41 republicans ran a filabuster and quashed the bill. Thus the theory of control is just that theory because a filabuster takes control away.
- Ronald "deregulation" Raygun was the president that kicked off this deregulation nonsense back in 1980. That philosophy was responsible for (among many things) the Bell Telephone breakup that essentially took away public oversight on the phone companies and triggered 2 decades of horrendous customer service (they didn't start getting better until threatened by the cellular network). It also was responsible for the electrical energy disaster in California where the utilities were forced to sell their generators to separate companies who immediately jacked up prices and ended up raising CA utility bills. It also forced the courts to be the only avenue that the environmental lobby could exert over the out-of-control logging on the Western timber lands, and replaced a negotiated, sensible forest policy with 30 years of court orders. And it removed controls on the bankers and traders in the financial network and triggered the worst depression since the Great Depression.
There has never been any evidence that heavy regulation of industry reduced industrial economic activity. Quite the contrary - when the government sets standards for all businesses, then it creates a level playing field where no business can win by cheating - that's why we have food standards prohibiting lead in food, since the consequences of lifting regulation of the food industry is deadly. Regulation allows all businesses to have similar expenses for raw materials, and forces all businesses to follow similar handling practices and quality standards - with the result that prices are determined by which business are run most efficiently, and which businesses do the best R&D and produce new products that people want to buy - instead of things like who has the best distribution network, which is not a value-add for the consumer.
Sure, President Clinton was a Democrat after RayGun and his protege Bush. But Clinton was hamstrung by the circus over his getting a few BJ freebies from a perfectly willing adult who happened to not be his wife, and was also repeatedly attacked by fake charges during the whitewater investigation. And look at the long list of Republicans involved in sexual picadillos since Clinton, at least Clinton was playing around with another hetrosexual, in his own house - not like many of these Republican homosexuals who proposition young boys or people in public restrooms. To make the claim that Clinton was ever strong enough to stop the deregulation train is poppycock.
- Until congress starts helping the PEOPLE out , there will be no recovery, who does corporate America think they are going to sell goods to if the middle class of America is broke? until congress helps us there is no recovery.
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- Do you mean tax cuts and deregulation, gulliberal?
Were you just not alive when Bush followed your advice for eight years? Tax cuts out the yingyang (correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he double the national debt in a time of relative prosperity? Do ya think that extra $6 trillion would have been helpful right about now, now that government spending is the only thing keeping our economy from falling into an abyss?), and a hands-off policy toward the captains of capitalism (who responded by gambling with people's mortgages, touching off a real-estate bubble and corresponding derivatives super-bubble that have now popped, leaving egg all over our economy). Oh yeah, the GOP solution of tax cuts and deregulation have worked MAGIC on our economy over the last few years! Shazam!! Some people just NEVER learn.
Magic piece of advice: if you don't like socialism, try not cr*pping over our capitalism for so many years, REPUBLICANS.
- tincup356, thank you for one of the only sensical posts I have seen here. All I get from this article, as with most political articles, is that the Democrats and Republicans are trying to figure out how to spin trainwreck after trainwreck to make themselves look good while placing all blame squarely on the shoulders of the opposing party, and no one tries to actually fix the problem. On article after article I am disheartened to see so many people taking such an "us vs. them" mentality and constantly pointing fingers. Unfortunately, no matter what side you're on in this great debate, it's the losing side. Until our narcissistic, arrogant, and greedy democratically elected representatives (including the President-current and past) start looking out for the interests of the American people rather than the interests of their own image and pocket books, things will only get worse. Until all Americans, politician or not, start TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS, our situation CAN NOT and WILL NOT improve. Sadly, I don't see this happening anytime soon. We continue to be distracted and betrayed by the media whose only concern is the almighty dollar. If you are waiting for another politician or political party to come along and fix all of our problems, I'm afraid you'll be sorely disappointed. History has proven time and time again that more government only causes more problems. The only one looking out for your family's best interests is you...sad but true. Don't let these criminals continue to trick us and tear our great country apart.
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."
-Thomas Jefferson
- Do you mean tax cuts and deregulation, gulliberal?
- Rather than blow all of our money by giving it to these big banks and CEO guys, why doesn't the government take their $800 billion and pay off everyone's mortgage? It wouldn't take that much to pay off everyone's mortgage. They could make it nice and fair. If you had an income of, say, $100,000.00 or less, they'd pay off your mortgage. This way, you got one less bill to pay, the banks stay richer than everyone else, and everyone will still have money left to buy the products that they see on the TV. I mean, their strategy to fix this economy is "Do what you can to keep the rich people rich," so they take all our money and give it to them, but what they really need to do is give all the money to the people, because in the end, we have to give all our money back to them anyway.
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- Wow. Eight years of havin a republican a** wh*** take a saving and do nothing but kill kids and put us more in debt than ever before and republicans are asking for more already. you should be die hard cub fans instead. At least you could go to wrigley field once in a while a vent your frustrations. now all you can do is blame it on demos and hope someone buys it. Yeah right!!!!
- why doesn't the government take their $800 billion and pay off everyone's mortgage? It wouldn't take that much to pay off everyone's mortgage.
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cool so people who don't own houses or those who own their houses outright can pay off your mortgage? LOL
Mike Huckabee on GOP "rock stars," 2012, health care reform and more.
