It’s far from a scathing satire, but at least I’ll give Stewart credit for poking a bit of fun at Obama (about halfway through the video). I’ll be interested to see what the comics end up focusing on with Obama.
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Posted under Media
Written by admin on February 11, 2009
There are clearly uneducated and uninformed people out there in the world. No, they’re not limited to just the Obama faithful, but I had to post these.
The first is a woman who seems to have fallen on some tough times. I feel for her and hope her condition improves, however she seems to be hoping that Obama was planning an Oprah moment.
This next clip is of a gentleman who has not managed to move up from his McDonald’s job while attending college. Hats off to him for working there for over four years, but he is a bit confused if he thinks Obama’s job is to force companies to give increased benefits based on years of service.
It just reminds me of the lady who swooned over Obama during the election, feeling she would never have to worry about paying for her mortgage ever again.
The expectations of these people are amazing. And to his credit, Obama handled the strange questions fairly well. I hope that the general population is more informed than this and realize that it is personal effort, not governmental effort, that will move them to the place they want to be in life. What ever happened to “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”?
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Posted under Stupidity
Written by admin on February 11, 2009
The Washington Post has a letter from Arlen Specter (R-PA) explaining why he supported the stimulus package. Here are a few snippets and some thoughts.
I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action.
Wrong, Senator. You forgot one important word in that statement. The country cannot afford to take inappropriate action. As I’ve already posted, the CBO believes that this bill will cause more harm to the economy in the long run than no action at all. Unfortunately, you have chosen not to take heed of their warning.
The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater — or it may be too late.
While I agree that some action may be beneficial, I am not victimized enough by Obama’s fear tactics to believe that we are at a point where we must act or the country will perish. Any action we take must be calculated and deliberate. Unfortunately, a good majority of this bill should be dealt with in separate appropriations bills.
The legislation known as the “moderates” bill, hammered out over two days by Sens. Susan Collins, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and myself, preserves the job-creating and tax relief goals of President Obama’s stimulus plan while cutting less-essential provisions — many of them worthy in themselves — that are better left to the regular appropriations process.
While I am happy that you took steps to mitigate some of the inappropriate content of this bill, there is much further to go.
Our $780 billion bill would save or create up to 4 million jobs, helping to offset the loss of 3.6 million jobs since December 2007. The bill cuts some $110 billion from the $890 billion Senate version, which would actually be $940 billion if floor amendments for tax credits on home and car purchases and money for the National Institutes of Health are retained.
So in the best anticipated scenario, we are looking at $195,000 of taxpayer dollars for each job created. The majority of these jobs are temporary (for the duration of whatever project they are working on). Average US salary is around $40,000/year. Long-term benefits of this bill aren’t even being discussed, so I must assume that they are negligible. The math isn’t making this look like a good bill, and that’s using your numbers. The CBO estimates say it could be as little as 1.3 million jobs created, putting the per job cost of this bill at $600,000. Now the math is just sickening.
“In politics,” John Kennedy used to say, “nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing and everybody gets something.” My colleagues and I have tried to balance the concerns of both left and right with the need to act quickly for the sake of our country. The moderates’ compromise, which faces a cloture vote today, is the only bill with a reasonable chance of passage in the Senate.
I appreciate, understand, and even agree that politics is often about compromise. I also believe that there comes a time to stand in defense of your country and do what you can to prevent making things worse. This bill will raise our national debt by nearly 10%, increase government dependence, and quite possibly make our currently bad economic situation even worse. How is this compromise?
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Posted under Economy
Written by admin on February 10, 2009
The NY Daily News had a great opinion article summing up a lot of what I’ve noticed in Obama’s job performance early in his term.
Obama has clearly lost the calm and bi-partisan aura he worked so hard to sell during the elections. He has seemed testy and angry on television, and even resorted to fear tactics that liberals disliked in Bush. The “I won” comment came across as childish. This is definitely not the proud and prestigious man that was portrayed during the election.
Obama has also valued speed over quality. His vetting process seemed sloppy as evidenced by the tax issues his appointees faced (such as Geitnher and Biden). Now he looks to spend close to $1 Trillion as quickly as possible, showing great impatience if anyone questions any items on the stimulus package. With this much taxpayer money at stake, you’d think the responsible action would be to look at everything with a fine tooth comb. Instead, Obama shows the opposite tact.
In time, the stimulus package could become Obama’s Iraq war. If CBO’s warnings of the package being worse than doing nothing are accurate, Obama could be digging himself a huge hole in only the first month of his term.
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Posted under Economy
Written by admin on February 9, 2009
The Congressional Budget Office (a group that provides non-partisan aid on economic and budgetary considerations to the Congress) has said that the proposed stimulus package would actually be worse than taking no action at all. They estimate that by 2019 the legislation would reduce GDP by .1 to .3 percent. Their reasoning is that the large amount of debt incurred by this bill would reduce private investment even more than inaction would. They further went on to state that although the bill would create jobs, the effect would be miniscule by 2011.
Washington Times article is available here.
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Posted under Economy
Written by admin on February 6, 2009
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