Deep Legislative Strategy Thought
Did Obama allow Republicans to throw him in the briar patch on this economic recovery bill?
On the front page of today’s NJ Gannett is running an AP “analysis” column by Andrew Taylor which argues for MORE direct stimulus for “shovel ready” projects.
If the conference version of the bill now contains projects and less tax cuts I’ll have to consider the fact that President Obama is not 10,000 smarter than me, but 100,000 times smarter than me.
Tags: Obama
The media calls it a stimulus package and they’re wrong. It is callled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Yes, there will be other items in the bill.
The chess board is definitely in play, and my money is on Obama coming out of this smelling like a rose. I’m thinking he’s about to cut quite a bit out of the plan. I’m sensing (and I could be wrong!) that this bill is about to gutted of everything except those things that deal with the economy.
there are many billions of dollars in “ready-to-go” job-creating projects
The author here gets the point of a “stimulus” package quite wrong — the idea is to pump alot of money into the economy fast, in a variety of productive ways. Doing that by boosting employment is one way. Doing that by making investments in R&D, efficiency measures, conservation and others are other ways to do that. You can tell that this author has screwed the pooch here by the fact that he has decided to cherry pick a few items from the latest set of GOP talking points, while completely ignoring larger parts of the package like unemployment insurance and other support to the unemployed that don’t apparently create jobs either.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t items to criticize here. It is just that the criticism is not based on either what a stimulus (in economic terms) is really supposed to do; nor is it a critique based on Obama’s stated goals for the package itself.
But definitely count me in as a happy camper if in fact the Senate bill re-orients the tax cuts portion of this thing to more infrastructure or investment projects.
Nemski,
Even I slipped up and used the GOP frame. That’s how ubiquitous the GOP’s talking points are.
Anyhoo, Fixed!
But definitely count me in as a happy camper if in fact the Senate bill re-orients the tax cuts portion of this thing to more infrastructure or investment projects.
I hope so too… but when is the last time the Senate made a bill better?
Obama is a genius, I think. He is always underestimated. How else would he have beaten Clinton? Yes, I’m reading that some projects will be taken out and more transportation projects will be added. He’s so discombobulated the Republicans that they offered an alternative with tax increases!
I think we’ll end up with a good bill, but I still don’t think it’s big enough.
“How else would he have beaten Clinton?”
Uhm… maybe partly because she stumbled very badly every step of the way and made some very stupid mistakes?
I’m not discounting Obama’s skills, or that of his staff, but Clinton’s not exactly a political mastermind.
The mistake was made by Bush when he and Paulson gave the money to the banks with out strings. What should have been done was for the government to lend the money to business and others directly at the same interest rate they are charging the banks.So we now end up with a plan that charges the banks 1% SO THEY CAN LEAND IT TO US AT 12% OR BETTER. buy their planes and stuff their pockets.
Mr. Obama has made a critical mistake by not having a focused bill which could have been passed by the House and Senate.
In an attempt to appease too many special interests with billions and billions of dolars things which have nothing to do with economic growth or employment.
There is an appropriations process for normal budget items. Using the stimulus bill for all these other items shows he is not up to the job.
Also, shovel ready is the newest overused and inaccurate term in Washington in a long time. His budget director in Congressional testimony last year testified little of these sort of projects is ‘shovel ready’ or will benefit the employment picture in less than a year.
“as the CBO said when
Obama adviser Peter Orszag ran the joint, using infrastructure
spending to juice the economy is “totally impractical.” There just
aren’t enough “shovel-ready projects” to make effective.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.news-media/browse_thread/thread/3466053645fddd12
We all believed or wanted to believe finally we were getting a president who believed and supported the Consitution. Why then has he sent the Israel Firster Rahm out to tell the public, “we have put a lot money in this bill for more police”, and in the second breath, “we are going to get guns out of the hands of “potential terrorists”. (its on youtube).
Now, Bush had that illegal spying program, spying on regular americans, and journalists, and the data base has who knows how many people in it. Remember the peace groups that were targeted and spied on!
Obama has done nothing about stopping the spying on americans, but Emanuel is out there saying we should “take away peoples rights to bear arms”. This issue will split the citizens. Those who believe in the Consitution, and those who believe its okay to ignore it, if the President breaking it….is a guy they trust. Sorry, I trust none of them. If there is any attempt to take away the 2nd amendment, I will be on the other side. Couple that with HR645, the Fema camps and tell me this doesnt make you wonder what the hell is going on?
England financial systems are crumbling. Workers calling on a nationwide strike. Is it possible that the titantic is about to go down, and the american sheeple more concerned with a football game, or American idol, are just too stupid and into denial to the point, they believe this economy is going to get better. I think we are putting band aids on cancer, are not being told the whole truth, which is one reason these draconian ideas are happening in the background. And dont call me conspiracy theorist…the bill HR645 has already been introduced.
I enjoyed this immensely:
and, demonstrating Republican disarray all in one person:
LOL anon!
Republicans aren’t afraid to take the money. Red states are the biggest recipients of government largesse.
My friend, I agree that President Obama is smarter than you. 🙂
Hey Liz…..I personally removed those missing socks from your dryer.