Obama General Discussion

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You remember the quotes, yet you don't actually remember the time...:|

Is that so? Here's a few things off the top of my head I remember. A little compare and contrast for ya.

Reagan's first act as president was to sign a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees.

Memorandum Directing a Federal Employee Hiring Freeze

I pledged that we would take this action as a first step towards controlling the growth and size of government and stopping the drain on the economy by the public sector.
Imposing a freeze now can eventually lead to a significant reduction in the size of the Federal work force. This begins the process of restoring our economic strength and returning the Nation to prosperity.

Now does that sound like anything Barack Obama would say? And actions. Well since Obama has taken office the number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, (the new health care reform act sets aside a budget for more than 15,000 new IRS employees) and here is a USA Today article detailing that "federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession."

USATODAY.com

What else? The most frequent visitor to the White House during Obama's first year was Andy Stern, the president of the public-service workers union. Now I'm sure it's only a coincidence that 1/3 of last year’s $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments (and their union employees).

Reagan on the other hand fired more than 11,000 federal employee air traffic controllers who ignored his order to return to work in 1981. Could you imagine Obama breaking a union?

Obama wants a Cap & Trade scheme which will give government unprecedented control of both energy production and consumption. Reagan deregulated natural gas and lowered the Oil Windfall profits tax. And I'll give you a minute to google "deregulation" as you may not be familiar with the term.

Reagan: Across-the-board tax cuts during a recession. NO STIMULAS PACKAGE
Obama: Multiple stimulus bills and taxes are goin' up.

Reagan: Bipartisan support on bills which he had to have due to a Dem controlled House.
Obama: Zip

Reagan: Spoke over the press directly to the people including Reagan Democrats.
Obama: Slobbering love affair with the mainstream media sends the majority of Americans to "new media."
 
Reagan increased government spending by 69%, Clinton only 32%, and Bush 68%

Why do Republicans always forget military spending as government spending? Healthcare and Military are both about saving and protecting lives...

But stick to your fantasy quotes.
 
it's all ebbs and flows. we can all agree that it was the fanatical deregulation of everything that brought us to the economic crisis of 2008 and the near collapse of the economy, and that now, after 25 years of blaming government for everything, the pendulum is swinging the other way.

Obama believes in smart effective government, and in government being used as a tool to make people's lives better. to me, this seems far more reasonable than dogmatic assertions about the absolute evil of government, always and in all ways.

it's a tool. it can be good, it can be bad. there are certain things that only government has the organizational capacity to deal with. roads, schools, defense, and, yes, saving the economy when it needs it. we can absolutely have rational disagreements on which aspects of government are effective, or not, but i hardly think, INDY, you'd like to pave your own roads and be your own police force and fire department. and as the economic collapse of 2008 showed, Reaganomics (so to speak) has run it's course and it's now over and done with. it's a new era.

and then the pendulum will sing again. so on and soforth.
 
Reagan increased government spending by 69%, Clinton only 32%, and Bush 68%

Why do Republicans always forget military spending as government spending? Healthcare and Military are both about saving and protecting lives...

But stick to your fantasy quotes.

You can actually find "provide for the common defence" in the Constitution, the preamble in fact. It's an obligation of the federal government. And Reagan ran on restoring our military might after a decade that began with Vietnam and ended with Jimmy Carter.

Federally mandated health care as a constitutionally written obligation... still looking for that one.

National security is a precondition to everything else the government undertakes. There is no Obamacare without security from foreign enemies. Which is gonna be a problem as we can't afford both.

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives
--Ronald Reagan
 
we can all agree that it was the fanatical deregulation of everything that brought us to the economic crisis of 2008 and the near collapse of the economy
That's a real simplification. Some "fairness in lending" laws passed over the years by Congress contributed as well.
, and that now, after 25 years of blaming government for everything, the pendulum is swinging the other way.
One would have to ignore polls, election results in VA, NJ and MA, the popularity of FoxNews, the Tea Party movement and the Democrats own -- over a year long struggle -- to pass health care reform and the failure of Cap & Trade despite huge majorities in Congress, to believe that. We are still a right-of-center country. And one with a large case of buyer' remorse right now.
Obama believes in smart effective government, and in government being used as a tool to make people's lives better.
Exactly the problem. Obama believes government IS smarter and IS more effective than individuals or private enterprise. He really believes government is the answer to problems. It's his whole life, that's all he knows.
we can absolutely have rational disagreements on which aspects of government are effective, or not, but i hardly think, INDY, you'd like to pave your own roads and be your own police force and fire department.
That's a strawman argument. I'm the spend piles of money on NASA guy, remember.
it's a new era.
Man is not free unless government is limited.
--Ronald Reagan

You're right, we're not gonna hear anything like that from the White House for a few years
 
Man is not free unless government is limited.
--Ronald Reagan

You're right, we're not gonna hear anything like that from the White House for a few years



and Reagan thought that medicare would turn us all into Bolsheviks.

i don't know if you think that Reagan is somehow an authority on how to be a good president, but putting him up as if he's Washington/Jefferson/Lincoln doesn't improve the actual quality of what Reagan said, or did, and i know that you probably want to put him on the $20 bill, but most people don't agree with you. i don't find Reagan quotes some sort of objective measure of truth, not sure why you post them as if they were.

further, the "popularity" of the tea party/Fox News/etc. -- though you have done a nice job illustrating the effective coordination of these elements of the right wing echo chamber -- isn't all that popular when you actually look at the big picture. there are 300m people in the US, and only about 2.5m of them will watch Hannity on any given night. is he more popular than, say, Maddow? sure. but it's all relative. and it doesn't come close to looking at, say, 53% of the vote and 365 electoral votes.

as for the politics of health care, major change is hard, and it comes at a cost. just look at Civil Rights. LBJ did the right thing, and lost the south, perhaps forever as racists and segregationists know they have a friend in the Republican Party. you'll also note that polling now shows that 49% of the public are happy with the health care bill, and please, go ahead and run on it's repeal, or, better, run on how the health care bill is bad politics. if that's your platform, good luck to you. and, lastly, the elections in NJ, MA, and VA all had one thing in common: an uncommonly weak Democrat. Corzine was as corrupt as they come. i live in VA, and Creigh Deeds was laughably bad. so was Martha Coakley. if you run centrist Republicans feeding off understandable anger about unemployment against pathetic virtual-incumbant Democrats, yes, absolutely the GOP is going to win. if you're taking these three races as anything more than that, i think you're going too far.

the truth of the matter, INDY, is that you're being an ideologue. there are certainly fundamental philosophical debates to be had over the role of government, but you're not offering them. you seem as interested in that as the GOP is in actually doing the hard work of governing.

is this Obama Derangement Syndrome?
 
National security is a precondition to everything else the government undertakes. There is no Obamacare without security from foreign enemies. Which is gonna be a problem as we can't afford both.


so every dime spent on defense is a model of efficiency and necessity?

is that trillion-or-three spent in Iraq worth it?
 
so every dime spent on defense is a model of efficiency and necessity?

Not always a model of efficiency, but it is indeed a necessity that is too often under resourced.


is that trillion-or-three spent in Iraq worth it?

Actually its approaching 750 Billion dollars and will likely fall short of the Trillion that it has been falsely accused of costing for nearly 3 years now.

Given Saddam's history and track record, plus what has been in United States vital national security interest since at least the 1940s, it has been more than worth it.
 
You can actually find "provide for the common defence" in the Constitution, the preamble in fact.

But starting a nuclear arms race as a means to "common defence" wasn't exactly what the founding fathers had in mind, in fact there were many constitutional lawyers that found it unconstitutional and reaching beyond the definition of defense. Just like there are those that are trying to do the same for healthcare.

But as you see, Reagan grew the government, so your dreamworld revisionist history is incorrect. And his actions cost us years and years later...

Federally mandated health care as a constitutionally written obligation... still looking for that one.

Just like you never found the definitions of cold wars in there either. At the time the founding fathers had slaves, so they owned human beings and providing for the least of their brothers was probably not high priority. And "healthcare" still consisted of using leeches as treatment. It's a living and breathing document, I know you hate to acklowledge that when it doesn't support YOUR platform, but someday you are going to have to be consistant. :shrug:
 
Obama makes 15 recess appointments, blames Republicans |

(sure blame the GOP, just because they do not support Marxist/ Socialism.)


this could and may just be the beginning of many 'recess' appointments


last week I looked for some, and did not find (m)any?

Bush made quite a few, and the Dems did not hold up his appointments near as much as GOP have been holding up Obama'a appointments.


I expect the Tea Partiers to do some real loud yelling and screaming about this.



Rep. Michele Bachman will probably say this has never been done by a President before.
 
The president's harsh treatment of Israel and Netanyahu (our allies) in the past few weeks has left me puzzled :scratch:
 
The president's harsh treatment of Israel and Netanyahu (our allies) in the past few weeks has left me puzzled :scratch:


riddler.jpg



Could it be ? that expanding setlements in disputed areas is just real bad policy, and a death knell to any possible two state solution?
 
The president's harsh treatment of Israel and Netanyahu (our allies) in the past few weeks has left me puzzled :scratch:



really? i think it's been great.

it's about time the US didn't rubber stamp everything far right Israelis want and actually take a stand on illegal settlement activity. is that "harsh"?

and i'm generally a pretty big fan of Israel. and that means not standing by as it tries to self-destruct. it's great to see Bibi sweat.
 
You're still not showing "harsh" treatment. Showing a map and the words of one side, doesn't exactly show a complete understanding of the situation.
 
But starting a nuclear arms race as a means to "common defence" wasn't exactly what the founding fathers had in mind, in fact there were many constitutional lawyers that found it unconstitutional and reaching beyond the definition of defense. Just like there are those that are trying to do the same for healthcare.

But as you see, Reagan grew the government, so your dreamworld revisionist history is incorrect. And his actions cost us years and years later...

1. The vast majority of defense spending during the Cold War years as well as today goes to conventional defense spending, not spending on Nuclear Weapons. In fact, operations and maintenance and pay for the troops takes up 65% of the defense budget. The rest is Research and Development and Weapons procurement of which only a fraction goes to Nuclear Weapons.

2. Without nuclear weapons, the United States would of had no deterant against Nuclear Weapons of the Soviet Union or other states. This would be a serious weakness that would have been exploited by the Soviet Union or other states through attacks, invasions of other countries or blackmail.

3. The vast majority of the Reagan Defense build up in the 1980s went to conventional weapon systems(M1 Tank, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, MLRS rocket system, Patriot Missile system, Apache Attack Helicopter) and strengthening the all volunteer military. The Reagan Defense buildup in the 1980s laid the foundation for the successes the US military has had in the 1990s and 2000s. Many of the weapon systems, strategies and doctrines developed during that time are still in use today. Many of these weapon systems which have had outstanding performance in the field and saved lives were opposed by the majority of Democrats in Congress. But thanks to the Reagan Democrats and Republicans in congress, funding for these key weapon systems continued.
 
my problem with Obama is that he's failed to do a very important thing as his role as the president. he's failed to 'unite' or unify the country. both republicans and democrats don't agree with what he's done lately. he also needs to stand up and take some of the blame, I've also noticed, even in his state of the union speech, he played the blame game on others with his sarcastic remarks. and now with the health care bill being passed, the whole thing is ridiculous, when thousands of Americans gather in D.C. to protest, and other Americans across the U.S. are making it known that they didn't want the bill to pass, then something is wrong. He didn't listen to the American people and doesn't care, I hope he'll be able to start turning things around and help sort out the problems here in the u.s. before his term ends...then maybe I'll have more respect for the man. :rant: (sorry about my rant! I'm just really mad at the direction America is heading...its not good, at all.)
Everyone should watch more Glenn Beck, that's a man I've got A TON of respect for :)
 
my problem with Obama is that he's failed to do a very important thing as his role as the president. he's failed to 'unite' or unify the country. both republicans and democrats don't agree with what he's done lately. he also needs to stand up and take some of the blame, I've also noticed, even in his state of the union speech, he played the blame game on others with his sarcastic remarks. and now with the health care bill being passed, the whole thing is ridiculous, when thousands of Americans gather in D.C. to protest, and other Americans across the U.S. are making it known that they didn't want the bill to pass, then something is wrong. He didn't listen to the American people and doesn't care, I hope he'll be able to start turning things around and help sort out the problems here in the u.s. before his term ends...then maybe I'll have more respect for the man. :rant: (sorry about my rant! I'm just really mad at the direction America is heading...its not good, at all.)
Everyone should watch more Glenn Beck, that's a man I've got A TON of respect for :)
Because previous presidents were such great uniters! Everyone was real happy under George W. Bush! And no Republicans play the blame game, or anything!

Honestly, though, sarcasm aside, it's just a flat out lie to say "Americans didn't want this" or "he didn't listen to Americans." SOME Americans didn't want this. But some did, too. That's the nature of, uh, every thing in politics.

Glenn Beck lives in a fantasy world in which he creates fake threats to your freedom under the guise of patriotism. Calling a moderate health care bill (which would be conservative in any other nation) a "march to socialism" is dishonest and shameful. But that's all that Glenn Beck is, a dishonest and shameful loudmouth.
 
really? i think it's been great.

it's about time the US didn't rubber stamp everything far right Israelis want and actually take a stand on illegal settlement activity. is that "harsh"?

By harsh I mean the administration's decision to manufacture a mini-crisis here. It's unwarranted.

Don't make me post Krauthammer :fist:
 
If you think ANYONE as president could unite the whole country these days, you're living in a fantasy land.

I'm completely serious.
 
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