Obama General Discussion, vol. 3

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clearly, we needed more stimulus in light of today's job's report.

much more.

jobs > deficits.

but, of course, unemployment hurts Obama, and the only thing that matters is harming him so the GOP has a shot at the presidency in 2012.

We need more private sector jobs that expand the tax base and increase tax revenues not more public sector or make-work jobs that cost $250,000 per job and evaporate as soon as the out-of-control-spending "stimulus" dries up.
 
070811krugman2-blog480.jpg


Fun fact: public sector jobs don't pay money, nor contribute any in taxes
 
well that's a picture of government employment over the last few years. Obama's overseen a sizable shrink in the public sector. Socialism!

(the spike, btw, is temporary census hiring)

We need more private sector jobs that expand the tax base and increase tax revenues not more public sector or make-work jobs that cost $250,000 per job and evaporate as soon as the out-of-control-spending "stimulus" dries up.

Now it appears to me that public sector jobs would also employ people that would in turn expand the tax base and revenues throughout the economy as they buy things and help create demand for business products, but its possible this statement is a general qualitative preference for private over public jobs in which case that is certainly your right to say. But as seen above it's been solely private sector job growth that's been propping up the topline job numbers as the public sector's been shrinking so you're aspiring to a shfit that's already happening under Obama.

Also, if you're dividing the stimulus price tag by a jobs created estimate to get that $250,000 just keep in mind that one of the single largest expenses was simply helping state budgets and the social safety net through programs like Medicaid or Unemployment Insurance so people have food on their tables for the next year or so. Beneficial! But not a direct "jobs program".

Finally, wouldn't the stimulus "drying up" by definition contradict your snarky "out of control spending" quip? Why did it dry up? Medicare cost growth for example is certainly out of control as there's no projected restraint in the long term future, but this is just throwing epithets against the wall to see what sticks.
 
"Social Security is a program that works... it's fully funded for the next 40 years."
Sen Majority Leader Harry Reid, Meet The Press Jan 2011

"I cannot guarantee that those checks (Social Security) go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."
President Obama. CBS Evening News July 2011

:scratch: Indy needs some help here, which is it?
 
Now it appears to me that public sector jobs would also employ people that would in turn expand the tax base and revenues throughout the economy as they buy things and help create demand for business products, but its possible this statement is a general qualitative preference for private over public jobs in which case that is certainly your right to say. But as seen above it's been solely private sector job growth that's been propping up the topline job numbers as the public sector's been shrinking so you're aspiring to a shfit that's already happening under Obama.

Depending on the numbers it takes roughly 18 private jobs to fund a federal employee's wages and benefits.


Also, if you're dividing the stimulus price tag by a jobs created estimate to get that $250,000 just keep in mind that one of the single largest expenses was simply helping state budgets and the social safety net through programs like Medicaid or Unemployment Insurance so people have food on their tables for the next year or so. Beneficial! But not a direct "jobs program".

The numbers are from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors.

The “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion.

$278,000 per job. And that's accepting the added or saved # to be accurate. I think it dubious myself.

Finally, wouldn't the stimulus "drying up" by definition contradict your snarky "out of control spending" quip? Why did it dry up? Medicare cost growth for example is certainly out of control as there's no projected restraint in the long term future, but this is just throwing epithets against the wall to see what sticks.

By definition isn't "stimulus" money an investment in the future which should show benefit well after the money faucet gets turned off? Well after "Recovery Summer"?
 
"Social Security is a program that works... it's fully funded for the next 40 years."
Sen Majority Leader Harry Reid, Meet The Press Jan 2011

"I cannot guarantee that those checks (Social Security) go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."
President Obama. CBS Evening News July 2011

:scratch: Indy needs some help here, which is it?

edit OH I see what you're talking about

Harry Reid's talking narrowly in terms of whether more revenue is earmarked to pay for SS than its giving out, while Obama's taking a holistic view. They're both valid perspectives, because while SS has enough specific income to pay for it into the near future, in total when the government can only pay 70% of its bills there must be some sort of prioritization. Money that would otherwise have gone to SS recipients might have to pay off the overall debt interest and bondholders. Or it may not. That's the uncertainty of the issue.
 
Depending on the numbers it takes roughly 18 private jobs to fund a federal employee's wages and benefits.

That's the mother of all caveats. It would probably take quite a few minimum wage workers to equal a US Senator's salary. It would also take a fraction of a single Goldman Sach's executive's salary.

$278,000 per job. And that's accepting the added or saved # to be accurate. I think it dubious myself.

$260 billion of the 660 distributed so far is in tax credits, like this:

Tax Incentives for Businesses
$33.4B
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit added unemployed veterans and 16-to-24 year olds to the list of new hires that businesses could claim. The Net Operating Loss Carryback allows small businesses to offset losses by receiving refunds on taxes paid up to five years ago.

What a waste.

213 billion has been in contracts, grants, and loans. That's the direct stuff, like 29 billion on building highway infrastructure or 16 billion in federal student aid.

Why don't these students have jobs? :rant: Higher education: more waste that's not remotely any sort of an investment in the future.

What about the 24 billion spent on extending food stamp programs? They may not be dead, but they're certainly a dead weight on the economy. :angry: Way 2 go Obama.

If only we had saved all this money to pay down our debt in order to get the bond market off our back

071011krugman1-blog480.jpg
 
This is kind of peripheral, but an interesting fact I didn't know about Social Security:

Link
Kessler also gets wrong the baseline for the projected longer-term shortfall for Social Security. After 2036 the program is projected to only have enough money to pay a bit less than 80 percent of scheduled benefits. However, if the law is never changed, then the program would only pay the benefits that could be financed through incoming Social Security tax revenue. The general fund would not be tapped to cover the shortfall.

Of course Congress could change the law, but budget debates usually start from the law as written, not as some individual might imagine it will be changed in the future. In this sense, it is 100 percent accurate to say that Social Security does not now nor will it in the future contribute to the deficit. Congress could change the law so at some point it does contribute to the deficit, but that is just a guessing game, not the current reality.
 
"Social Security is a program that works... it's fully funded for the next 40 years."
Sen Majority Leader Harry Reid, Meet The Press Jan 2011

"I cannot guarantee that those checks (Social Security) go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."
President Obama. CBS Evening News July 2011

:scratch: Indy needs some help here, which is it?
Reid is referring to the debate about the long-term solvency of Social Security.

Obama is referring to the government having to make the choice of who gets paid if the debt ceiling isn't raised by August.

Goddamn, must be a pain in the ass working for the Treasury Department these days....
 
How embarrassing. I totally forgot to hyphenate hard-on. I'll have to go out to the camper and fix that.

:lol:

You can't dismiss this guy out of hand.

There may be something to the SATAN - OBAMA connection.

SATAN - 5 letters
OBAMA - 5 letters

SATAN - 2 As
OBAMA - 2 As

SATAN - 2 vowels 3 consonnants
OBAMA - 2 consonnants 3 vowels


A bit too much for just coincidence.

Indeed...and if you say Obama backward it says Amabo. . .which means. . .well, anyway. You know what I mean.
 
Book questions Obama mom story - Reid J. Epstein - POLITICO.com

President Barack Obama’s mother had no major problems with her health insurance coverage at the time she was dying of ovarian cancer in 1995, a new book about her life claims, raising questions about the accuracy of a story that Obama often told on the campaign trail in 2008.

New York Times reporter Janny Scott’s “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother” says that Ann Dunham’s health insurance covered most of the costs of her medical treatment, leaving her to pay the deductible and any uncovered expenses. Those came to several hundred dollars a month.

The book says Dunham’s problem was not over being denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition - as Obama often suggested on the campaign trail as he made the case for health care reform - but disability insurance.

Dunham, Scott wrote, wanted to be compensated for living expenses and additional costs under her employer’s disability insurance policy. CIGNA denied that claim, the book says.

Scott said she found no evidence showing Dunham had a similar type of dispute with her unnamed health insurer as she had over her employer’s disability policy, according to The New York Times.

Scott wrote: “Ann’s compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment. Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month.”

That account, written based on letters between Obama’s mother and Cigna - that the author said were provided to her by Dunham’s friends - appears not to match fully with how her son described his mother’s last days on the 2008 campaign trail

For instance, during a debate with John McCain, Obama said, “For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.”

The book’s assertion was not denied by the White House after “repeated requests for comment that The Times first made in mid-June,” the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Spokesman Nick Papas said the White House has “not reviewed the letters or other materials on which the author bases her account.”

Papas said Scott’s revelations do not change the broad strokes of Obama’s story of his mother’s last days.

“The president has told this story based on his recollection of events that took place more than 15 years ago,” he said. “As Ms. Scott’s account makes clear, the president’s mother incurred several hundred dollars in monthly uncovered medical expenses that she was relying on insurance to pay. She first could not get a response from the insurance company, then was refused coverage. This personal history of the president’s speaks powerfully to the impact of pre-existing condition limits on insurance protection from health care costs.”

The Times story about a book that came out in May appeared after a couple days of conservative blogosphere buzz following a Byron York column on Monday about the book in the Washington Examiner.

At the Blaze, Glenn Beck’s web site, Christopher Santarelli wrote that “Obama’s story about his mother’s healthcare struggle is inaccurate.”

“Dunham was extremely ill, and her frustrations in the final year of her life are not for you or I to judge,” Santarelli wrote. “However revelations in Scott’s new book suggest many personal statements made by the President in his campaign and national healthcare reform pitch to be inaccurate.”
 
Yahoo news


Voters are increasingly displeased with President Obama's handling of the economy, but a new poll finds most Americans still think George W. Bush is responsible for the nation's dismal financial state.

According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 54 percent of those surveyed say Bush is responsible for the "current condition" of the economy, compared to just 27 percent who blame Obama. Among self-described independent voters, a key 2012 voting bloc, the number shifts slightly: 49 percent point the finger at the former GOP president, while 24 percent blame Obama.

Supporters of Obama's re-election will no doubt view the number as a good sign for the president's bid for a second term. But they shouldn't get excited yet.

Polls over the last year have consistently found that voters continue to blame Bush more than Obama for the struggling economy. Yet Obama and Democrats have consistently struggled to translate that displeasure with Bush into a vote against GOP candidates.

But that could be changing. While Obama's approval rating on the economy is nothing short of dismal—just 38 percent approve—the Quinnipiac poll finds more Americans trust the president on the issue than the GOP congress, 45 percent to 38 percent. Meanwhile, 48 percent of those surveyed say they will blame the GOP congress if a debt deal isn't approved, compared to 34 percent who say they will blame the Obama administration.

Those aren't great numbers for Republicans who are likely to face just as much political peril as Obama in 2012 if the economy doesn't improve over the next year.

The Quinnipiac poll also finds major support for one of the concessions Obama has called for in the debt deal: 67 percent say any deal on the deficit should also include tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, in addition to spending cuts.
 
Oh please... you had a dream to be a part of a stagnant shuttle program?

NASA is not over, space exploration is not over.

If Bush had done this you would be praising his fiscal conservatism. And you know this...

Bush did do this. A lot of NASA programs were cut under him despite his call for Moon/Mars missions--cuts like the replacement for the shuttles.

My brother applied to the astronaut program during Bush 2 and got the "thanks for applying but due to budget cuts we are not accepting applications for 2 years" or something like that.
 
clearly, we needed more stimulus in light of today's job's report.

much more.

jobs > deficits.

but, of course, unemployment hurts Obama, and the only thing that matters is harming him so the GOP has a shot at the presidency in 2012.

It was a terrible jobs report, and Obama should be hammered for it. Of course, the opposition is really incredibly weak and still in "let's git the gays" mode. America could do with a proper opposition. The % of the electorate that votes for candidates purely on the basis of Bible-inspired bigotry or purely on the basis any damn thing in the Bible should be just ignored and written off. But that would take political courage, a resource which the GOP lacks at present. Incredible that this is the party that gave the world Lincoln and even, dare I say it, Reagan. Although some would argue Reagan era was the start of the rot.
 
The % of the electorate that votes for candidates purely on the basis of Bible-inspired bigotry or purely on the basis any damn thing in the Bible should be just ignored and written off. But that would take political courage, a resource which the GOP lacks at present. Incredible that this is the party that gave the world Lincoln and even, dare I say it, Reagan. Although some would argue Reagan era was the start of the rot.

I like some of your ideas but I fear your words expose an anti-Bible-inspired bigotry on your part. You're free to hold those beliefs but you risk looking foolish if you attempt to impose a secular European world view on the United States.

"In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."
--Abraham Lincoln, Reply to Loyal Colored People of Baltimore upon Presentation of a Bible on September 7, 1864
 
I like some of your ideas but I fear your words expose an anti-Bible-inspired bigotry on your part. You're free to hold those beliefs but you risk looking foolish if you attempt to impose a secular European world view on the United States.

Well, actually, the US constitution is far more secular than most European constitutions and offers far better protections to atheists, agnostics and secularists.

Britain has an officially established Christian church and bishops sit, unelected, in one of its legislative houses. Germany mandates taxpayer funded dowries to a mainline Christian church. In Ireland, to this day, although the Catholic Church is no longer officially recognised as pre-eminent by the constitution, most primary schools are officially run by the Catholic Church. None of these situations are remotely conceivable in the US, precisely because of the US's constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. Few other countries on the planet provide such strong legal protections for the rights of non-believers.

It's the US, at its core, that has a secular world view, not Europe. That's part of the reason it was founded. Perhaps you are living in the wrong continent.
 
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