Wingnut Talking Points Smackdown — The Recovery Program
This edition outsourced to Tommywonk. Read the whole thing, but here is an interesting bit:
Left out of that argument is the question of how we got to the largest deficit in history. Hundreds of billions spent on a six year war in a foreign country have not provided much economic benefit here at home. The Republicans in Congress might want to think twice before starting out the new term by referring to the past eight years.
I’d also add to this that it is very clear that the 2 rounds of BushCo taxcuts produced little in the way of “stimulus” (economic gain over the past 8 years were largely fueled by the illusory wealth of the housing bubble), and certainly the last tax cut (rebates) back in the spring helped people pay down debt, but produced no jobs, increased the GDP not one whit. What these taxcuts DID represent was the creation and sustenance of the first deficit budgets since Clinton left. They never paid for themselves (as is now all too evident), and only produced benefits to the upper income folks who got them.
And while we’re at it, I have a serious request of the media: PLEASE ask these Republicans how it is that we cannot afford to spend tax money, but we can afford to increase our deficits by returning revenues. Either way — given that the budget is in deficit — you are still spending money you don’t have. AND ask these guys how they can propose tax cuts without a proposal on how to either cut spending OR to replace those revenues.
EDIT: Here is the breakdown of the stimulus expenditures via the NYT —
Tags: Republican Bamboozlement, Stimulus Plan 2009, TommyWonk
Even if they ask, when the Republicans reply that the magical unicorn will descend from heaven the media will not have prepared a follow up question.
Tommy links to Dave Burris’ blog which is currently reporting (?) this…
No link is provided of course.
Oooh— Ooh! Here’s a game!
Without looking at Burris’s blog, guess which wingnut posted that thing about transsexual beauty pageants.
I’m going with JF.
My guess is Vitter.
That’s got to be DA or FK, who probably got it from some radio show they listened to today.
Transsexual beauty pageants. How do they ever come up with this stuff?
And it is awfully rich for any of them to call out ANYONE on knowing something about economics. Not one of them has been able to follow the money in how this all melted down.
If I can get some of that money, I’ll dress in drag. But considering the way I look in drag, I’ll accept donations NOT to dress up 🙂
Mark – I’ll contribute to whatever fund has been set up for that purpose…
I’ll guess David Anderson.
I’m with Cassandra and LG… I’m guessing David Anderson.
Pandora, LG, and Cassandra are correct, it’s DA. Thanks for playing “Name That Loon.”
I guess NO democrats went along with the war.
I think the best formula for success is to listen to what Republicans want and then do the exact opposite.
The Dems that did go along believed the lies at the time, h. It’s all in your corner! Admit it finally!!
“And while we’re at it, I have a serious request of the media: PLEASE ask these Republicans how it is that we cannot afford to spend tax money, but we can afford to increase our deficits by returning revenues. Either way — given that the budget is in deficit — you are still spending money you don’t have. AND ask these guys how they can propose tax cuts without a proposal on how to either cut spending OR to replace those revenues.”
Easily the most uninformed post I have seen roday.
Somehow everyone on this site forgets tax rates do affect behavior of individuals and companies. ‘Cannot afford to spend tax money and returning revenue’ is illogical.
There is no revenue returned if it is never collected. There is no spending threshold which must be satisfied.
A budget is about priorities and realities. Let me put it in perspective for you. In 2009 we could not collect one dime of personal income tax and we would have as much revenue as we collected in 2001. There continues to be an insatiable spending spree at all levels of government.
There needs to be a Taxpayers Bill of Rights to limit budget increases to population and inflation growth.
I’ll bet Republicans are referring the NEA, if I had to guess.
Does anyone ask Republicans if we can afford to build infrastructure in Iraq, we can’t we afford to build infrastructure in the U.S.?
TABOR – LOL!!!!
Do Republicans have any ideas that aren’t 30 years old and haven’t been a disaster already?
UI — 7% for infrastructure. Seven. Percent.
And what exactly is the NEA’s track record for job creation?
Anyone?
Have I said today how very, very glad I am that Protack is nowhere in government leadership?
We’d be in a disaster worse than Ruth Ann, I’m thinking.
Correct if I’m wrong but artists are people too. I think it’s probably part of the plea not to make the stimulus only construction, we need to get the economy moving in the whole economy.
I have to say FSP sounds remarkable like the Taliban, in his/her opposition to the arts.
Nice leap, jay. I support the arts. I just haven’t asked my children and unborn grandchildren if they support the arts, since they’re going to be burdened to pay 2x the cost.
And back to UI. So much of this package is for things like Medicaid, aid to the states, unemployment benefits and the like. All of those things will help people at the bottom survive better during the economic troubles. And that’s a good thing.
But it’s not economic stimulus. They should be honest and say they’re trying to help people instead of selling this as the eventual rescue of the economy.
FSP, shouda thought about that when you saddled your kids and unborn grandkids with the trillion dollars spent in a war based on lies.
And the best you can come up is cutting the NEA?
Artists are typically small business people, too. Very often buying their materials from other small businesses and selling their wares via other small businesses.
I wasn’t part of the Democratic majority that voted for war, and then continued to fund it.
And I have opposed spending at nearly every turn.
You, too, have a very DL-like interest in talking about me instead of the issues. Must be an airborne illness here.
Nice FSP. Why do ya hang out here if the air is so bad? 😉
And I’ve modified my post to include a pie chart (since there is plenty of the math-challenged here) of how the recovery program breaks down.
10B — Transit and Rail
19B — Clean Water and Flood Control Projects
31B — Modernize Federal and Public Infrastructure
30B — Highway Construction
Conservatively counting the items that count as infrastructure spending, this is 16% of the spending part of the plan. Note that the tax cuts — the portion of this plan that does not provide any real stimulus end up being 33% of the total plan.
But it’s not economic stimulus.
Yep, it is. It prevents these programs from contracting and it still puts money into the hands of people who will spend it NOW, which is part of the point.
I could not find shoe throwing instruction on the pie chart, perhaps that would be under higher education modernization? It`s all about prioritys people, Dubya will be starting his public speaking tour soon, must be prepared.
Lets at least try to be fair. It was NOT just the republicans that got this country in this financial mess. Greenspan the biggest culprit, Bill Clinton, both Bushies, Bernacke, Volker, Paulson, Phil Graham….there are 25 of these “leaders” who lead this country down the abyss.
I am vehemently opposed to Tim G. as Treasury Sec….that little twit was involved and is involved in the biggest theft of our treasury ever. Summers is no better. Bernie Sanders had the guts to vote no for the right reasons.
Jason, where was Mike Castle? Not one repuke voted for it. This bill was filled with absolute bullshit which had nothing to do with fixing our economy. 20billion for grass on the National Mall? look at what they took out…garbage!
Who read the 647 pages of this bill before they voted on it, not one bet your ass on that.
If they really wanted to fix the economy they need to look back 50 years….who truly built the country with decent wages and built the middle class. Whose wages afforded us to buy STUFF and increase the living standards of everyone?
The unions that’s who. I will bet right now that any jobs created will pay minimum wage or just above….which will deliver no money to the middle class to continue to buy STUFF. This is a band aid on terminal cancer. There was not enough money in the plan to create the jobs we need. If they would just repeal NAFTA, and CAFTA and start manufacturing back in this country, that would be a great fix. We are sending all our money to China….they are building their infrastructure…cuz their smart business people.
The blue dogs we have in Congress right now are no different than the neo con repukes we just threw out of office. Welcome to 1929!
Fucking Burris. What a fucking piece of shit low life dumbass. The NEA? 7% for infrastructure..? Sheesh, LMAO.
As For Anderson – I am surprised by his dishonesty here. I mean, he fancies himself a Christian and yet uses this astonishingly dishonest wording:
potentially?
Really? This is what they’ve got? I guess I could say that Dave Burris is potentially dying of aids from ass fucking Hugo Chavez. He is also potentially running for Governor and his “radio” station is potentially in the black.
And of course I’d be right about all of that because nobody could prove me wrong. I said “potentially.”
I’m not surprised at the dishonesty. Its is how they roll — start the lies and misinformation disguising your real intent and, voila!, you are handing over truckfuls of cash to Halliburton to lose and calling it patriotic.
Why are Republicans suddenly so concerned with infrastructure? For eight years they didn’t do a thing about it, and now it’s all the rage.
I think the Republicans know they are out of ammunition, so they are trying to restart the culture wars. We’re back to the 80s now, railing against the NEA. Infrastructure spending is very, very popular according to recent polls. I assume they are trying to drive a wedge with it. It’s curious that they ALL voted against the bill.
It isn’t so curious. As El Som notes in another thread, these clowns are betting on economic failure. Actively rooting for it, you could say. It wasn’t enough that they broke it all, but aren’t even interested in a fix to what they broke.
They can not even bring themselves to admit there is a problem, much less that their policies are responsible for them.
“It’s curious that they ALL voted against the bill.”
Not when you factor in, you know, the fact that it was an awful bill.
I know. The tax cuts they threw in really weakened it. How many times do we have to learn the lesson that tax cuts are not economic stimulants?
BTW Dave,
Since you are sticking your diseased head out of your skank hole, I have a question.
Do you really think that the Iraq war was good for the economy? Because I’m thinking you were putting me on over at Tommywonk.
Not nearly as awful as the R alternative — just a doubling down on the same idiocy that got us here. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result.
I would have been fine with no tax cuts, no spending, no bill at all.
And just let it all continue spiraling downwards. Well, I guess that’s a plan.
You know that it would spiral downward?
Home sales were up month over month by more than 6%.
You sound very Bushy.
“We’ve got to do TARP in the next 72 hours.” “We’re in imminent danger.”
No response to my question? Chicken ass fuck wad.
I’ll refresh your memory. tommy said:
“Hundreds of billions spent on a six year war in a foreign country have not provided much economic benefit here at home.”
You replied:
There are a lot of talking points on both sides. I would say that there are a lot of military contractors that would disagree with the above statement.
So are you really thinking that enriching some war profiteers is a good economic policy?
74K jobs gone this week (and that is on top of the 2M jobs gone), and that is not the end of it.
Consumer coincidence at its lowest in many years.
Business and consumer credit still hard to get.
Business failure rates going through the roof — and much of that because of the lack of credit.
Your cherry-picked house sales data certainly isn’t enough to replace the real estate taxes and fees that have left such a big dent in state and local budgets all over.
And that isn’t all. This has been failing for more than a year and has gone off of a cliff since October.
If you don’t care, just say that. I’m sure that your transgender beauty pageants need some care and feeding. But the economy that republicans so thoroughly broke will not just magically fix itself it its engines are losing their jobs and/or not buying anything.
I’m done. Have an early flight in the AM (I hope).
So are you really thinking that enriching some war profiteers is a good economic policy?
And war profiteers enriching themselves on just plain abusing taxpayers by spending money illegally and just “losing” many, many millions of it.
Do the simple math, divide $800+ billion by the number of jobs which are supposed to be gained.
Pretty expensive bill. The math comes down to $200,000 per job.
I am glad you included the pie chart, it shows the many, things which have nothing to do with stimulus. (flood control? winterize low income homes?)
By the way, when Pres Clinton downsized the military the need for contractors became part of the military force structure. You may not like Halniburton but they are needed for the current military to operate.
Sorry, Halliburton.
Idiot…I mean Protack that stupid talking point was debunked three days ago.
Your math takes the cost of a plan that will extend over several years (creating millions of jobs each year) and divides by the jobs created in just the first year.
Stop being such a dummy.
Just give us all $100,000 and forget the rest.
Protack: when Clinton downsized the military that’s because he wasnt planning to invade a soverign nation based on lies. The defense budget of the US is more than all other governments put together….who elected us the police officers of the world. We are the Empire, we going down like every other empire….and the repukes did it! Own up to your parties madness and insanity.
Protack theres a book you need to read: “The Presidents Therapist.”. yup he had a secret one trying to keep the alcoholic nut together. The guy was so terrified he would be taken care of…he wrote a book…didnt help much…he has been missing since May 2007. But his book is out. Perhaps you repukes should buy it, perhaps then you can see just how insane, and nuts the C student President your party backed for 8 years..really was.