Obama Wins! - So What's Next?

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DR - Conservatives will never like him. There's no hope in that, and I don't have any.


Republican Response: Tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts...tax cuts....zzzzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz.

 

Really?
He did his homework?
Just what book did he read that told him america was & i quote "The nation that invented the automobile" ? France & Germany(specifically Karl Benz) may have something to say about that.

Also his remark about the bill being free of "earmarks", again not according to PolitiFact.
I just flipped to it a couple of times & heard these false statements, i wonder how many i would have caught if i had watched the whole thing?

Oh, and the part about helping the schools. Heard that too and looked it up. There is $20 billion in the bill to help schools, with just under 100,000 public schools in america that breaks down to a little over $200,000 per school. That is enough for 4 teachers(at the average payrate) for 1 year at each school. Wow. Big help.

 

Actually, 4 additional teachers for every school in the country would be a big help, but your example is a ridiculous over-simplification. Not every school needs extra help from the government, so those funds will not be split evenly, nor would they necessarily be used to hire new teachers. You've also greatly over-estimated teacher pay. While the average teacher salary is $46,752 per year, entry level teachers (most new hires would be entry level) make much less.

Whatever you say, Martaug.

 

The bailouts aren't done yet martaug. We've already invested $700 billion during Bush's presidency in the banks. Regardless of what the public THINKS, if the government keeps throwing money at the banks, they will eventually purchase a controlling interest in the banks, and even though they may not use the term, the bank then will be nationalized. A rose by any other name...

When I said that pretty much everyone thinks the banks will be nationalized, I should have said most economists. As Drew eluded to, I don't really care how Joe the Plumber thinks the bailout should be handled.

My wife asked me a question last night during the Address to Congress, and while I did not know the answer, I figured someone here probably would: “Does the Presidential Address to Congress replace the State of the Union Address when a new administration comes in, and does it differ in content in any way from a SotU? Other than taking place about a month later than a SotU, is it fundamentally any different?”

EDIT:

What is the problem with earmarks anyway? Why is the public so scared of this word? If you put together a bill worth nearly $800 billion dollars, isn't it reasonable to delineate exactly HOW a good chunk of that money should be spent? There were no earmarks on the $700 billion Bush bailout, and we see how responsible the banks were when they were not dictated how they should use the money they received.

EDIT2: But I'm willing to concede that martaug has every right to be skeptical. The economy still is in the tank, and will continue to be for a minimum of several more months. Obama, contrary to popular opinion, is not the Messiah. He's only been in office one month, and there was no way this mess was going to get cleaned up that fast. However, unlike martuag, I'm willing to give the guy a chance. That is to say I'm going to wait to see whether or not his policies actually work before I become overly critical of them. If next year at this time the economy is still is in as bad a shape as it is now, we'll see that martaug's current opinion was justified. I wonder if martaug will give Obama some credit if the economy does rebound next year...

EDIT3: And Republicans referring to the stimulus as a "spendulus" is laughable after 8 years of the most spend-thrift administration in history. How many trillions is Iraq going to ultimately cost us? One more thing regarding the Republican fix for everything - tax cuts. I'm no economist, but it certainly seems like if you take in less money, and don't cut any programs, that cutting taxes causes you to spend more too. (I know the counterarguement is that by cutting taxes more people will get jobs, and thus you increase your tax base, and ultimately collect more money. The problem is that never actually worked during the 8 years of the Bush administration, so I'm skeptical how true that theory remains.) Not to mention we see how well George "King of the Tax Cut" Bush strategy worked out. Weren't taxes higher under Clinton? Wasn't the economy doing pretty well back then?

 

Ok drew, i'll use the local system for an example. Char-meck school system is facing an 85-100 Million dollar shortfall, so they are looking at 1,200 job cuts(out of ~19,000 employees). Roughly 500 teachers, ~100 asst principals & principals & ~600 other positions.
If they get an equal share($200k/school) this is 34 million, that still leaves them 51-66 million short.
It's like putting a bandaid on a cut jugular vein, you're just pissing in the wind.

The following has nothing to do with the financial discussion but is very funny, well from a conservative viewpoint.

Spoiler

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists, and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950’s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know, we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but, sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot, and will not ever agree on what is right, so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile, chalk it up to irreconcilable differences, and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA, and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore, and Rosie O’Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them) ..

We’ll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart, and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies, and illegal aliens. We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s, and rednecks. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks, and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security.

We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. But we will no longer be paying the bill.

We’ll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks, and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare, if you can find any practicing doctors. We’ll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya, or We Are the World.

We’ll practice trickle down economics, and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you we’ll keep our history, our name, and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots, and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I’ll bet you ANWR which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely, John J. Wall Law Student and an American

P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand, Jane Fonda, Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn.

 

Martaug, you are still assuming that the money will be disseminated equally between the schools, or even between school systems. As I said before, there is no reason to believe it will be. What's more, while 20 billion dollars have been earmarked for educational purposes, this doesn't mean that we won't be using more than that. Earmarking doesn't limit spending. It sets minimums. Governors do have a substantial bit of discretion with how they choose to spend that money, and states that need more money for their schools will likely use more of that money for their schools.

 

@Martaug: fun, I admit, but a little too thin-skinned. The US left (and the rest of us) endured 8 years of Bush, and your side can't stomach 2 months of Obama? Wusses, the lot of you

Anyway, I saw this in Yahoo News - and wow, it sounds like Obama does intend to go into some serious deficit spending: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090226/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_budget I hope his team knows what they are doing - it's a pretty serious plan. Then again, if economists are to be believed it's a pretty serious crisis...

Spoiler

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama unveiled a multi-trillion-dollar spending plan Thursday that would boost taxes on the wealthy, curtail Medicare, lay the groundwork for universal health care and leave a string of deficits dwarfing any in the nation's history.

In addition to sending Congress his $3.55 trillion budget plan for 2010, Obama proposed more immediate changes that would push spending to $3.94 trillion in the current year. That would result in a record deficit Obama projects will hit $1.75 trillion, reflecting the massive spending being undertaken to battle a severe recession and the worst financial crisis in seven decades.

As part of the effort to end the crisis, the administration proposes boosting the deficit by an additional $250 billion this year, enough to support as much as $750 billion in increased spending under the government's rescue program for banks and other financial institutions. That would more than double the $700 billion bank bailout passed by Congress last October.

Obama, in a morning briefing, spoke of "hard choices that lie ahead." He called his budget "an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go."

But Republicans contended Obama was avoiding hard choices in favor of exploding the deficit and raising taxes.

"The American people deserve a budget that puts fiscal discipline and jobs first. The budget offered by the Obama administration fails on both counts," said Rep. Mike Pence, the chairman of the House Republican Conference.

The administration calls the request for additional bailout resources a "placeholder" in advance of a determination by the Treasury Department of what will actually be needed.

The spending blueprint Obama sent Congress was a 134-page outline with further details to come in mid to late April, when the new administration sends up the massive budget books that will flesh out the plan.

The plan balances efforts to fulfill Obama's campaign pledges to deliver tax cuts to the middle class, expand health care coverage and combat the economic crisis with an effort to keep a soaring deficit from becoming a permanent drag on the economy. However, Republicans assailed the budget for the tax increases, and some Democrats worried that Obama was not doing enough to get the deficit under control.

"I would give him good marks as a beginning, but we have to do a lot more to take on this long-term debt buildup," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

"Everyone agrees that all Americans deserve access to affordable health care, but is increasing taxes during an economic recession, especially on small businesses, the right way to accomplish that goal?" asked House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The $634 billion down payment on expanding health care coverage would come from a $318 billion increase over 10 years in taxes on the wealthy, defined as couples making more than $250,000 per year and individuals making more than $200,000. The tax increase would occur by reducing the benefit the wealthy get on tax deductions. As one example, taxpayers in the current top tax bracket of 35 percent would see their tax deduction for every $1 given to charity drop from 35 cents to 28 cents.

The other half of the money for expanding health care — $318 billion — would come from curtailing payments to hospitals and insurance companies under Medicare and drug payments under Medicaid.

To meet his pledge of tax cuts for the middle class, the president wants to make permanent the $400 annual tax cut due to start showing up in workers' paychecks in April as part of the $787 billion stimulus package just passed by Congress. Obama's budget also extends the middle class tax cuts passed by the Bush administration in 2001 and 2003. Those cuts were due to expire at the end of 2010. If Congress approves Obama's recommendations, the Bush tax cuts would expire only for couples making more than $250,000 per year.

The cost of the stimulus bill and the increased bailout support would push the deficit for this year to $1.75 trillion, nearly four times last year's record $455 billion and a percentage of the economy — just over 12 percent — not seen since World War II. The deficit would remain near $1 trillion over the next two years before dropping to $581 billion in 2012 and $533 billion in 2013, the year that Obama has pledged to cut the deficit he inherited in half.

Obama's budget projects $2 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade — split between tax hikes on wealthier Americans and trimming a variety of government programs ranging from subsidies paid to wealthy farmers to eliminating ineffective government programs. However, previous presidents have also sought to target wasteful government spending only to find the programs targeted had powerful supporters in Congress.

Obama's blueprint awards domestic agencies budget increases, on average, of 7 percent in 2010 over 2009 levels. The Pentagon would get a 4 percent boost, to $534 billion next year, but would then get increases of 2 percent or less over the next several years.

Obama's plan proposes to build up a $634 billion reserve fund he would use to expand health care coverage to some of the 48 million currently uninsured Americans currently. The fund would represent little more than half the money projected to be needed to extend health insurance to all Americans.

Obama also asked for an additional $75 billion to cover the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, the end of the current budget year. The administration will also ask for $130 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 and will budget the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at $50 billion annually over the next several years.

Obama's budget proposal would effectively raise income taxes and curb tax deductions on couples making more than $250,000 a year, beginning in 2011. By not extending former President George W. Bush's tax cuts for such wealthier filers, Obama would allow the marginal rate on household incomes above $250,000 to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

The plan also contains a contentious proposal to raise hundreds of billions of dollars by auctioning off permits to exceed carbon emissions caps, which Obama wants to impose on users of fossil fuels to address global warming.

Some of the revenues from the pollution permits would be used to extend the "Making Work Pay" tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples beyond 2010, as provided in the just-passed economic stimulus bill. The administration said this extension would help to cushion lower-income Americans from the higher electricity bills they will face because of the stiffer pollution controls.

The Medicare plan is sure to incite battles with doctors, hospitals, health insurance companies and drug manufacturers.

Some of the Medicare savings would come from scaling back payments to private insurance plans that serve older Americans, which many analysts believe to be inflated. Other proposals include charging upper-income beneficiaries a higher premium for Medicare's prescription drug coverage.

To raise the other half of the money for expanding health coverage, Obama wants to reduce the rate by which wealthier people can cut their taxes through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, local taxes and other expenses to 28 cents on the dollar, rather than the 35 cents they can claim now. Even more money would be raised if the top rate reverts to 39.6 percent, as Obama wants.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, called Obama's proposal to tax the wealthy to finance health care reform a starting point. But he wants to also examine taxing some of health insurance benefits provided by employers — an idea rejected by Obama in last year's presidential campaign.

Obama's promise to phase out direct payments to farming operations with revenues above $500,000 a year is sure to cause concerns among rural Democrats.

The $1.75 trillion deficit projected for this year would represent 12.3 percent of the gross domestic product, double the previous post-war record of 6 percent in 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, and the highest level since the deficit totaled 21.5 percent of GDP in 1945, at the end of World War II.

At $533 billion, the deficit in 2013 would be about 3 percent of the size of the economy.

Wow. To be honest, I agree with a lot of this, but it will probably be quite the battle.

P.S.: Actually, a deficit can't be "dwarfing any in the nation's history" if it's smaller than the post-war ones, but still - having a ratio twice as big as Reagan's is a little worrying. Can anyone find a source showing how much other countries' deficit is compared to their GDP?

 

It's the largest in terms of the actual number. It's not the biggest as a percentage. I do not know how large the post-WWII ones would be if we adjusted them for today's dollars.

 

Drew, it has to be distributed equally since all are equal under obamas ideas remember?
The crack dealer in chicago is worth as much as the police officer in lousiana, the rapist in california as much as the housewife in texas.

 

Martaug, I sincerely hope you're joking....

 

@drew, nope not joking. obamas ideas = his take on socialism = the above statement.

Dangit !, where is Ragusa when you need him!
He can usually be counted on to make fun of the president when he makes a stupid statement but he hasn't commented yet.
C'mon the rest of you german members, lets here from you about obama claims that we invented the automobile.( Thats still funny days later. I'm getting to understand why y'all liked making fun of bush when he made a verbal gaffe).


Oh, as far as earmarks go, the Omnibus bill that is now before congress has between 8,500 & 9,427 earmarks in it.
Your eyes didn't deceive you, over EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED earmarks, at least.
Thats quite a few isn't it?
Don't believe me(as i AM biased)? Just check out Taxpayers for Common Sense or PolitiFact.





"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb discussing what’s for dinner. Liberty is a well armed lamb willing to contest the majority decision”. - Ben Franklin, 1755

 

America: A land full of "Socialist" Presidents:

12/18/07

It's good to know that at least some things never change.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/18/budget.battle/index.html

 

Considering Obama rode to the whitehouse on a platform of "not the same old thing", thats why i'm complaining. If he had admitted upfront that he was just a standard old politician noone would be making such a fuss about it.

 

Martaug - I think your "fussing" about this is a good thing. You and I are on the same page regading this stupid spending. But they all do it.

 

Chandos, you are taking all the fun out of this dangit!!
Quit be so darn agreeable!!

 

Martaug, show me where Obama has recommended cookie cutter, one size fits all solutions to our economic woes and I'll withdraw my statement. Rhode Island will get less money than California. Areas hit hard by unemployment will see more funding for unemployment programs and will receive more help for growing businesses in their region. Even if Obama were a socialist (and he's not even close -- just ask one of our European friends), he isn't an idiot -- and he doesn't believe that Louisiana needs exactly the same amount and same type of help as, say, Maine.

 

Drew, his whole rhetoric has been about "all are equal" & yes, california would get more of the school money than rhode island because they have more schools.

Unfortunately, california needs so much money it's not even funny.
Oh, just saw obamas speech about raising taxes on those making over $250k as a family, you know we had another president that did that while we were in a depression. Hoover did the same thing & we went from a bad depression to what came to be known as the great depression after that oh-so wise decision.
(sigh)Obama obviously hasn't read enough history because he is trying his darndest to follow in the footprints of the failure of the past.

 

Martaug - Hoover cut taxes at the start of the Great Depression, and later raised them back again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

BTW, it may have escaped your notice that Obama just gave 98 percent of Americans a tax cut.

 

Umm, no chandos he didn't. Considering that ~15% of the population makes over $130k a year(so the families make well over the $250k limit) you are looking at 8%-9% that are going to be hit with higher taxes.

So the 95-98% figure is nice to throw around as a soundbite but it's not true.


This is a link to his plans to raise taxes by almost a Trillion dollars starting in 2011
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/obamas-budget-a.html

Spoiler

President Obama's budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.

1) On people making more than $250,000.

$338 billion - Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion - capital gains tax hike

Total: $636 billion/10 years

2) Businesses:

$17 billion - Reinstate Superfund taxes
$24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion - codify "economic substance doctrine"
$61 billion - repeal LIFO
$210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
$4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
$1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
$882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax credit

Total: $353 billion/10 years

These include about $138.7 Billion dollars on the oil & gas companies.
Now when the government cuts into the profits of a business who pays? Yep, you & me. Looking at a 13 Billion dollar shorfall every year for 10 years, we will be lucky if it only goes to $4 a gallon.