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Yesterday, during the State of the Union, President Obama decided to call for a five-year freeze on non-military discretionary spending. A whole 66 percent more spending freeze than last year’s call for a three year freeze! On every level, this random call to freeze spending at current levels is foolish political theater at its worst.
To begin with, non-military discretionary spending totals only a fraction of the actual federal budget. Freezing it will do almost nothing to actually deal with our long-term deficit. It is a talking point pretending to be a solution.
If Obama actually thinks there are wasteful discretionary programs, like ethanol subsidies and farm subsidies, he should just directly call for those programs to be eliminated. If ending a bunch of bad corporate welfare programs results in an overall cut in discretionary spending, that is good.
By the same token, if there are truly great programs that would dramatically help the economy, they should get the funds they need. These good programs necessary funding shouldn’t be solely dependent on reaching an agreement to cut an equal amount from other non-useful, non-military discretionary spending.
Deciding what the budget should be in five years is purely a fool’s errand.A budget should be drafted based on the realities facing the country at that point, not dictated by some pandering, old promise meant to score political points. If the entire Mississippi River has a five hundred-year flood in 2014, causing hundreds of billions in damages, devastating a large swath of the country, it would be irresponsible to hold spending as some artificial level decided years prior. While this is an extreme case, we are a dynamic country in an ever-changing world and our government needs the flexibility to respond to the moment.
If Obama wanted to commit himself to long-term deficit reduction, a more efficient government, or eliminating specific waste, that would be fine. On the other hand, re-enforcing the narrative that the solution to the complex job of governing is parrotting the ill-conceived political buzzwords of your opponents should be beneath a president that aspires to be a “pragmatist.”
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What a pathetic loser and weakling.
He is a Republican. He wants to be Reagan. He has signaled that on a couple of occasions, but he could not have been elected in that party. Rinse, repeat, etc.
For 50 years, economists have been warning policy makers that a spending freeze in the middle of a recession was catastrophically wrong — that it would worsen and prolong the recession. This asshole announces a spending freeze in the middle of the great recession and it is well received?
We are truly fucked.
Obama FDR Taxed the crap out of the rich, increased government spending, used the money to put people to work and got us out of the Great Depression. What you are doing now is what President Hoover did.
In the Real World we prefer ideas that have worked in the past.
I didn’t watch his speechifying last night because I already had a bad day.
What I get from the constant reviews today is that American citizens be damned. It is much more important for the Banksters, the Repubs, and the Bush’s Carlyle group style MIC’s to have everything they want.
That’s All Folks!
A Looney Tune episode brought to you by your own tax dollars.
Evidently nobody has shown him coverage of the soup lines or the homeless shelters.
Billions for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and guess what Tunisia our ally in the war on terror is gone. Egypt looks to be next does America go broke first or do we lose all our allies in the Middle East before we admit failure Economic, Military and Foreign Policy failure.
Yes that unemployment number his defenders use is a sham to many Americans are out of work but are not counted as unemployed.
Couldn’t touch the military/intelligence budgets, though. Nosirree Bob. We might want to conquer another country on false pretenses at some point.
The people who had nothing to do with the collapse of the financial system and the economy — the victims who are unemployed and losing their homes, through no fault of their own — have to suffer to get things back on track. That’s the narrative that this asshole has enabled.
He is a fucking disaster. Not only for Ds, but for the country as a whole. Now, it’s all about posturing to save his pathetic ass — after he threw away the biggest mandate for change ever given a president — to get re-elected. TOTAL FAIL.
This has been another chapter of Simple Solutions to Complex Problems.
All for the advancement of the long-term goal of demonizing real people.
While mortality rates in the United States overall have declined over the past few decades, mortality rates in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas have diverged since the early 1990s. Figure 6 shows that, since 1990, non-metropolitan mortality has declined at an average annual rate of only 0.73 percent, significantly slower than the metropolitan rate of 1.27 percent.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/factsheets-reports/strengthening-the-rural-economy/the-current-state-of-rural-america
http://my.firedoglake.com/thingscomeundone/2011/01/16/the-hispanic-paradox-is-greater-than-we-think/
To be fair though the only thing worse than Obama is how the GOP runs their Rural Red State strongholds. Rural People the people of Sarah Palin’s Real America have worse life spans than City folk since the 90′s.
The GOP and Dems are not asking why they just ask for votes I blame farm chemicals.
The same intelligence that led Hilary to declare Egypt stable:)
I didn’t watch the speech, either. In fact, I forgot it was going to be on last night. Maybe I’ll watch it tonight online… if I feel like it.
The following numbers are 2010 numbers with percent increase over 2009 in paren.
Looks like some spending jumped 5 years worth already and could use some freezing (or cutting), while others already took a cut and will be frozen at the reduced rate.
Not good governance.
Source: New York Times
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: January 25, 2011
WASHINGTON — The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a federal inquiry.
The commission that investigated the crisis casts a wide net of blame, faulting two administrations, the Federal Reserve and other regulators for permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors and risky bets on securities backed by the loans.
“The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done,” the panel wrote in the report’s conclusions, which were read by The New York Times. “If we accept this notion, it will happen again.”
While the panel, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, accuses several financial institutions of greed, ineptitude or both, some of its gravest conclusions concern government failings, with embarrassing implications for both parties. But the panel was itself divided along partisan lines, which could blunt the impact of its findings.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/business/economy/26in…
and good morning all,sorry i missed SOTU with yall
Wallmart has been losing Market Share in America but has grown outside of America. Many of America’s biggest companies have grown and shown profit from foreign branches rather than from expanding in America and hiring Americans.
Tunisia is small, Egypt however might hurt American investors, Mexico is unstable American corporate investment seems to follow America’s foreign policy of supporting corrupt regimes because we can trust the corrupt rich to respect our interest if we get them to invest with us?
I asked on an earlier thread, I prolly should ask here, too, and, sorry for the OT, but I’d like to know this:
To my knowledge, in both his Tucson memorial speech and in his SOTU address, Barack Obama was too chickenshit to utter one syllable about gun control. Nada. Zippo.
Am I wrong about that?
What if we got a budget simulation program online to every highschool like budget hero
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/
only better and then had everyone go to the local highschool who wanted and we determined the budget that way if we had the highschools open night and day for 3 weeks I think we could handle the number of people who would want to ” Vote” on the budget.
Right now the President only seems to hear the same Neo Hoover economic ideas that Bush and the Talking Heads hear. Lets see Obama and the GOP claim popular support if they are forced to argue against Americans directly deciding the budget.
If we had an up to date budget simulation on the Lefty Blogs we could vote as it were then pass the program to highschool teachers and have their students vote too if we could get enough people to vote for fun on a budget and it differs from Obama’s budget we embarrass him.
Yep the new normal poor and homeless
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/obama-arizona-memorial-sp_n_808335.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/obama-arizona-memorial-sp_n_808335.html
Thats the closest to anything I could find to Obama having a pair in the speech.
sadlyyes,
The way I read that is that the Repubs on the committee were unhappy with the findings so they are going to write their own report to do as you reported, blunt the findings.
If there are no prosecutions, reforms after these findings, we are all in for a very long, sad ride and that is what I expect since we never look backward, only forward to the next mess.
That would be pure democracy.
That’s not the American way.
A little quibble:
I think demonizing real people is a strategy for Obama’s goal of giving the corporations, banks and financial institutions what they want.
“The commission that investigated the crisis casts a wide net of blame… permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors and risky bets on securities backed by the loans.”
Sounds like a “Drug Dealer” getting a quite a deal. Drive the cost of the heroin and cocaine up. Package it together, cut and stomp it with poison. Market it, to people. The needle and the drug. Then bet/insure, against your customer’s death while ensuring death. Dealer profits from the sale, distribution, and use of the speed-ball, a calamitous concoction. When the insured dies, they collect the death benefit!
People wanting a “better life” always take risk. Unfortunately for many Americans, they had no idea how bad they where being played or the fact that the “rug” would be pulled right out from underneath them! I wonder how some brokers sleep at nigh after watching their friends and family members O.D. Like Sal, the mafioso boss making millions on junk. He walks in the front door to a crying wife! Sal your nephew Angelo is dead! How? Sal asks. Something called a speed ball overdose, honey? Sal thinks to himself… “mmm… oh well the cost of business!” Sal then blurts out. “Stupid kid!”
Thanks, things.
That aint very close. :o)
The pretend of “closing loopholes” is annoying after what we saw happen 1986.
Companies that enjoy profitable loopholes in the (in this case) corporate tax code are, by definition, influential in Washington.
As in 1986, if they agree to the loophole closing to get the rate down, expect the loopholes to be re-opened within 24 months, so the net result is just a lower corporate tax rate.
Clinton actually internally forced enforcement of IRS Code Section 482 (the allocation of profits away from the US and taxation) in a way that was logical and brought in money. I wonder when Obama will start putting pressure on the IRS to enforce IRS Code Section 482. Plus there are law changes that stop the tax codes pushing of jobs into overseas areas rather than awarding job development in the US – but you can bet your last dollar that Obama will not include those changes in any “loophole closing”.
Obama is such a con-job, but that was a great speech of goals for the future – albeit with no specifics to legislate.
Would it make a difference? I don’t believe for a second that Obama gives a shit about the homeless–or most of the rest of the citizens of the US. Why would he? Where is the motivation? What actions has he taken that might lead to the conclusion that he cared or was working for the collective well-being of 90% of the population? A major part of the job of President is to snow the majority of the folks and look good on TV while those with power and money do what serves their interests.
From “Natural Born Killers”:
Wayne Gale: I thought a bond developed between us!
Mickey: No. Not really. You’re scum, Wayne; you did it for RATINGS. You don’t give a shit about us or anybody else except yourself; that’s why nobody gives a shit about YOU. That’s why “helicopters” were not “deployed.”
Thanks for the numbers.
And the DoD’s budget is about 10 times that of those at the top of this list.
A related article: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175339/tomgram%3A_william_hartung%2C_lockheed_martin%27s_shadow_government/
Thanks for the great analogy. Dead nuts on.
The Washington Post did an article awhile back about skyrocketing death rates in rural areas due to heart disease from obesity, basically we are eating ourselves to death. WV and Ala. leading the way.And the irony is many of these rural folks get government assistance of some type (food stamps, disability, etc) but are usually the most vocal about welfare ghetto queens and evil socialists guberment. I know this cause they are my neighbors.
I truly despised George W Bush. Unlike our current president though, Bush at least was loyal to the partisans that supported his candidacy. If Obama had been one tenth as loyal to democratic values (not what they are, what they’re supposed to be) as Bush was to right wing values, we’d all be very happy people.
The one thing I just can’t figure out is what Obama’s motive is in his never ending betrayal of the people who worked to elect him. Its just terrible how you can predict that he’ll sell us out on a given issue and be one hundred percent sure that the prediction will prove to be true.
I suppose its too much to hope for that a primary challenge will emerge prior to 2012.