So I am curious. By what standards could Obama fail? He has kept us in a "recovery" that is worse than any recession since the Great Depression for 4 years now and Bush has been to blame. With 4 more years left in his career, what would you be happy with in 4 years and what would cause you to admit that he has failed? If we are in the same place 4 years from now, albeit with 6 Trillion MORE debt and another 5,000,000 extra people out of work, will that still be a "job well done?"
I spend a lot of time on this board defending Obama, but I didn't vote for him. Success would be if he built a cooperative relationship with Congress to address long term debt that would include reductions in entitlement spending, creative progress on job training and health care reform (things were terrible and getting worse before Obamacare even if Republicans have forgotten) Tax increases on those who can best afford it make sense, no matter what Grover Nordquist thinks, and if coupled with deep cuts in social spending demanded by Republicans makes a workable deal. The cuts have to be real and now, not imaginary starting in four years. In a slow economy, I don't think debt reduction is feasible, but it's not like I had any belief that Romney could fulfill his campaign promises.
Seems a fair response Crockett. Ok, so how much of a raise in taxes is too much? Where does the Laffer curve come into play? I am not rich by any stretch, but at what point do we cripple those who are best able to build business and create jobs?
I don't consider myself a liberal and i didn't vote for Obama but my response to your question is this... The GOP has not shown an ability to do any better. It's not that anyone thinks Obama lit the world on fire but the GOP has failed to make a compelling case that they can (or maybe WILL is the better word) choose a path that is beneficial for middle class America. Middle class may think Romney can do a better job with the economy but that is not the same as saying he WILL do a better job for the middle class. Many in the middle class look dubiously on the constat calls by the GOP to reduce the tax rate on the wealthy. Bush did it and we still ended up in the crapper at the end of his terms. So it not as though most of America is comparing Obama to this assumed ascendancy of economic prosperity that Romney would have brought. Most Americans are comparing Obama against GOP history, which despite their current crowing, has not been about controlling the defecit any more than the Dems, nor has it shown any greater capability to control/spur a continuous economic bonanza for everyone.
OK, I'll respond. I voted for Obama for both economic and social issues. Obama's platform positions on social issues that are important to me are far closer to mine than Romney's. These positions would include (but not exclusively) environmental, right to choose, and marriage rights for all. I am a Christian and believe that these positions are consistent with that belief. If you disagree with my beliefs, fine, but those are my reasons. As for economics, and specifically the tax and Laffer curve issues, the current tax rate would seem by most estimates to be on the left side of this curve, and by a long shot. Average estimates of where the Laffer curve is at a maximum is around 70%, and Obama isn't proposing anything near that so it really doesn't enter the equation. Granted, current taxation in the US is very complicated between a graduated tax rate, various government entities taxing income and sales, business taxes, payroll taxes, deductions, credits, etc. These combined make for a very complicated Laffer curve that will never become anything other than theoretical so the 70% is likely misleading at best. Nevertheless, he CBO has determined that extending the Bush tax cuts of 2001-2003 beyond 2010 would increase the deficits by $1.6 trillion. See Page 5 Romney proposed not only extending these cuts, but further lowering the tax rates across the board by 10%, which would be disastrous. (CBO Estimate of 10% tax cut) Additionally, I believe that funds paid into Social Security & Medicare and then borrowed from by current and past generations to fund programs unrelated to social programs a rate far higher than taxes were supporting should be paid back in full towards the programs that they were collected for. To confuse our debts to these funds as "excessive social programs" that need reeling in because we can't afford them diverts the attention from the fact that these funds were collected for a specific purpose and then misdirected. We can't just decide now not to pay back those debts and keep kicking this can of collecting taxes for one reason and spending them for another down the road. If we are going to start a war or other expensive initiative, we should either pay for it in real-time or raise bonds specifically for that purpose like we did in WWII etc. We do indeed have some serious problems in our current level of debt, but cutting government spending in a recession is never a good idea as it has been shown time and again to exacerbate the problem. FDR was convinced to do this early in his in his presidency, and the country plunged back into the depression. So, no matter how we address the government's fiscal issues, it has to be reigned in carefully, with a balanced approach, and as someone pointed out above, it needs to be real and now, not just promises for the future when in some magical world a later Congress gets the balls to do it. I don't expect to convince you that I'm right and you are wrong, but maybe you can come to understand that I came to my decisions thoughtfully rather from believing in fairy dust, the virtues of communism, and satin, and I'm sure that you came to your opinions with similar thoughtfulness. I could go on and on about the misunderstanding of what an actual free market is and how the politicians misuse the word to spin up the populace, but I'll spare all of you...
I would like to see Obama do one thing....just one..that didn't involve solving a finacial problem by giving free stuff away. Think about it. All he does is give stuff away. The funny part is, black americans are worse off, lower income, higher unemployment, lower net wealth...yest 44% more government benefits in the past 4 years. It doesn't work.
Gadfly, Good post. You hit on a lot of points that I skipped over. Combining your reasons and the ones I mentioned above pretty much complete my reasons. You are right that education is a huge issue in this country and I believe we are falling behind because of a change in our priorities in investment for the future. We need to return to the levels of support that was given to higher education during the decades those of us who are now middle age benefited from. Another issue that you mention is healthcare. I have a little more faith in the Affordable Healthcare Act that you do, but do see room for improvement. Scrapping it and starting over would be a huge mistake as what we have now is better than nothing and simply repealing it before replacing it would be a bad move. The replacement would never happen as it took from Clinton's first term until Obama's to even re-engage the topic. My daughter is just finishing college and will have to switch from my healthcare coverage to something she is able to get on her own. She has an expensive drug therapy from a chronic illness that would not be covered any longer if not for the provisions requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions. Due to those provisions, she'll be able to get a good paying job and be productive in society instead of becoming a drain on the economy. The alternative for her would likely have been self-impoverishment in order to qualify for Medicaid, which wouldn't have been good for anyone.
I hate to be a one-trick poster, but I'll play. As I see it, the biggest problem in this country is that the legislative process has been thoroughly hijacked by corporations who design legislation to privatize public dollars. And they're empowered by a process that allows for right-out-in-the-open bribery of the congressmen who are sent to DC to represent the interests of the public (but don't, obviously). Until a political movement is able to significantly alter that process, we're going to have a hard time reeling in the spending. And seeing as how both the Tea Party and Occupy movements served only to divide (and not unite) the people on either side of the aisle who are interested in the political process, I'm not all that hopeful that we have it in us to fix it. Just my .02.
We need a nation-wide risk pool and a single-payor system. Or just copy what Germany does. The US doesn't have a healthcare system.
Maryland, feel free to PM as I've been through a lot of your issues, if she doesn't have a job day 1 (or even if she does she may not be immediately covered) and she really can't stay on your insurance then she'll still have the option of COBRA.
even if you believe in Keynesian Economic theory in toto and you are fine with the government taking most of our money to try and rescue people (something I am convinced has many disastrous unintended consequences), wouldn't things just be better if we took our medicine now and stopped adding to the debt? furthermore, wouldn't it be even better if we paid off the debt? i am not suggesting Romney was strong in this arena (although I am pretty sure you can't get any worse than Obama, then again, I thought the same thing about Bush and Obama proved me wrong by a LOOONG shot). here is a great article, for those who are interested about Estonia. It is fascinating and sounds like something i would LOVE for us to do now rather than waiting until we help cause a global economic collapse. austerity has to come at some point. i say now. Krugmanistan vs. Estonia
Hu Fan, Your M1 Money Supply chart is interesting, but I'd like to see it normalized against the economy of the country. Have you ever seen a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over that same time period that isn't log based? It looks just like your chart. There's a reason charts of money are always done with a log scale, because doing otherwise makes very little sense.
great posts maryland and gadfly. i agree and have learned from your comments. to go back to the OP, how do you qualify that this continues to be the worst recession since the great depression. I have previously stated that I do give this current administration both credit and criticism. my issue has always been with the side who will not give tem credit for anything and criticizes everything. we must also realize that Bush was running 1/2 a trillion dollar deficits even before the collapse. thus even if we can get back to those levels in say 2-4 years, we will still be seeing an additional 2 to 4 trillion added to the debt over the next 4 years.
as i recall, the largest deficit Bush ever had before TARP was "only" $465,000,000,000 whereas the least Obama has had is over 2X that number at $1,200,000,000,000 right? Bush averaged $279,000,000,000 deficits over his first 6 years. Is that terrible? absolutely! But it is still around 1/5 of Obama's average over the last 4 years. In fact, Obama had one year in which he spent more than 4 times that average or, put another way, Bush's first 4 years worth of deficits were less than Obama's worst year. Bush Deficits put into historical perspective
"Bush's first 4 years worth of deficits were less than Obama's worst year." Sure, in dollar amounts. Not even close in terms of percentage of debt raised from the previous administration.
ok, but i am not sure that makes the point you want to make. are you saying that because Bush raised the deficit at a higher percentage then what he did was worse? Consider these numbers: a family makes $100,000 per year and decides, after spending right at that amount, to spend the following extra: Year 1-6: 10,000 year 7-8: 20,000 The wife takes over the bloated budget and decides to spend: Year 8-12: 30,000 I am playing with the numbers, but you get the point. If we were already spending FAR too much when Obama took over, why is it a good idea to double and even triple that deficit? How is it ok just because Bush raised the deficit a higher percentage as compared to what he inherited?
I think the Bush/Obama comparison does speak to the lack of credibility the GOP has when it comes to deficit reduction. Why was this not an important issue when Bush was really getting the deficit ball rolling?
The libbies are all about the free stuff, they can't get past the free stuff, they only care about the free stuff. And they still think it's actually free.
