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Originally Posted by Little Stevie
Too bad the "center" was ignored and then moved by the Teapublicans.
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And too bad the center was likewise ignored by Barack Obama. Have you looked at the extent to which spending was elevated in FY2009? Of course, much of it should have been considered
emergency measures (TARP, temporary extensions of unemployment benefits, etc.) to deal with the crisis at hand, but the newly bloated level got built into what essentially became a new "baseline." There's been absolutely no effort to wind that down, and federal spending levels remain at an annual rate that's about $800 billion greater than that of about five years ago.
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Originally Posted by Little Stevie
Simpson Bowles suggested military spending CUTS not just a slowdown on RISING expenditures. The Teapublicans have already declared that military cuts are non-negotiable!
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I don't care what "Teapublicans" have "declared" is non-negotiable, and submit that the President of the United States
certainly should not care! I realize this would require actual leadership, but Obama is perfectly free to give a speech invoking the wisdom of a
Republican president of just over fifty years ago, who warned of the growing threat posed by the military-industrial complex -- sometimes referred to as the military-industrial-
congressional complex. Since no one thinks of Ike as being a guy who was soft on defense, I think Obama would easily be able to sell the notion that we should temper the need for strong national defense with the pressing need for fiscal responsibility. He could simply explain why those who are not critical to national security should no longer be allowed to fatten themselves at federally-funded troughs.
If he needs to go over congress's head and take the case directly to the public, fine. That's what effective, competent presidents sometimes need to do.
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Originally Posted by Little Stevie
Corporate America withheld over two trillion earned dollars from reinvestment over the Obama years in apathetic attempt to sink Obama and his policies.
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Say what?!?
What management team would "spite itself" by refraining from otherwise desirable investment or reinvestment simply to damage a president it opposes? That just makes no sense at all. Managements act in their self-interests and/or those of their shareholders; their bonus pools and prospects for personal advancement depend on that.
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Originally Posted by Little Stevie
Social Security is fixed (doesn't need repair) through 2023 as it stands NOW.
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Social Security is "fixed" through 2023 only if you ignore the obvious fact that the Social Security "trust fund" is essentially an accounting gimmick. Benefits will outweigh receipts by a widening margin over the period. However, the fiscal gap attributable to Social Security pales in comparison to that attributable to Medicare. Yet no serious reform plan is on the table, even though taxes required to finance an unreformed system would crush prospects for future economic growth.
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Originally Posted by Little Stevie
The MIDDLE? The MIDDLE is now to the LEFT of Simpson-Bowles and the election just validated that!
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????
Just a few paragraphs earlier, you said that the center would "first have to move left" of Simpson-Bowles. Which is it?
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Originally Posted by Little Stevie
With friends like those gaming the system, not even Obama was able to help the country as much as he could have with cooperation. Do you not remember the lockstep Teapublican obstructionism that set an all-time filibuster/cloture record?
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I agree that Republicans have acted in a starkly obstructionist manner, and likely would attempt to obstruct almost anything Obama tries to do. However, I saw him attempt to do very little that didn't
need to be obstructed!
Could you please explain what Obama has proposed over the last couple of years that would have had any chance to "help the country as much as he could have with cooperation?"
The "American Jobs Act" of last year, for instance, was little more than a "Mini-Me" version of the $800 billion "stimulus package" of 2009.
In other words, it was nothing more than a collection of gimmicky, supposedly temporary tax cuts, political payoffs, pork projects, and blue sky fantasies.
The cost per job temporarily "created" or "saved" would have been at least several hundred thousand dollars.
Nobody ever learns anything from the past, and people still wonder why there's not that much support for all this stuff.