Obama Wins! - So What's Next?

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It will be great. Two things:

1. Since the middle class is getting a tax cut, they will be out spending. If you have a business, then expect a bump in sales at tax time.

2. The stimulus package will be another nice sales bump. The last one gave sales a substantial, but unfortunaltely, short-lived increase.

And let me say something about the other side of the bonus deal from a sales perspective: No sales = no bonus.

But I have not heard anything about bonuses being delayed as you have heard. I'm not in a bonus situation, since I'm no longer in sales, but my wife's bonus this year is 40 percent of her yearly salary (sales were great). I'll try to find that out (but it is a Fortune 500 company).

Btw, this is Obama's tax plan:

http://www.barackobama.com/taxes/

 

Too bad there won't be a middle class left to enjoy it...

With all those cuts, How is the country going to survive economically? And one other thing: He talked about tax credits for healthcare and tax breaks for the un-insured. He really should put the tax breaks on hold and put in place a national healthcare system...

 

Not to worry, we'll still be here. We survived 8 years of GWB.

 

Chandos, I know you love to rag on GWB, but if you look at what (unavoidable) catastophes he had to deal with, he's actually done a wonderful job with our economy. Remember, his first term started with the most devastating terrorist attack on US soil ever, and this one just happened to target the largest icon of our economy. That resulted in the war in Afganistan (which may not have been handled well, but was right, we were attacked). Then we've got the war in Iraq (ok, that one's his fault), then Hurricane Katrina hitting the US center for oil refinement, so those two combined jacked oil prices through the roof. And whatever you say about Bush's response to Katrina, he really couldn't have done squat to avoid the oil catastrophe. All of that, and our economy sails through with, a few years later, little more than discomfort, and it seems to me, he did a pretty good job in a pretty bad situation.

Now, the current mess is due to the housing bubble, which we've had debate after debate about who's to blame, but I'm pretty sure we can all agree that Bush has minimal responsability here. He doesn't pass legislation, and nothing came to him to sign that would have done squat. The best he could have done was suggest legislation, which puts him as culpable as every senator, representative, or anyone else who has their ears and could have made a suggestion.

Obama's tax plan, on the other hand, and it's impact on our economy are 100% his fault and his alone. We'll just have to see if that's a good thing or not.

 

I don't agree. Bush's two big catastrophes - 911 and Katrina - were absolutely avoidable. In both cases the Bush administration were given ample warning that a catastrophe was imminent, in both cases they did nothing till it was too late. Now of course I don't blame them for these catastrophes happening, no one does - but that they sat on their hands instead of being proactive and then bungled the aftermath are undeniable.

Also, the Bush administrations spending spree has had a negative impact on the value of the dollar. Conservatives like to rag on "tax and spend liberals," but I'd take one of them over the "spend and borrow and spend some more Republicans" any day. Our national debt has doubled under Bush's watch. Doubled. That is astonishing. Our kids and their kids are going to be saddled with the tax increases necessary to pay down that debt, tax increases that thanks to Bush are now going to be inevitable. People who spend far more than they make and jack up huge Visa bills and don't pay them back end up with horrible credit scores and often go bankrupt. The Bush people have been treating China like our own personal Visa for the last 8 years. They chose to do that. Rather than raise taxes (ask Americans to sacrifice a little after a catastrophe) and choose not to get involved in an unnecessary war or any number of other more responsible measures, they decided that tax cuts were the answer to everything and lied us into a war of choice, paid for almost entirely by borrowed Chinese money. They chose this path. As Dick Cheney famously said, "deficits don't matter." If this was their attitude, it wasn't a big surprise that things came to a head, and anyone who tried to point out the obvious in the last 7 years was either dismissed as a Bush-basher or reminded that "you have to remember, 911 changed everything."

I could go on, but the point is this "oh poor Bush did the best he could" routine is an absolute joke. He's not the most unpopular President in modern history just for saying "nukular."

 

The same way the country survived all the tax cuts that Bush gave to the big corporations and to the wealthy, who needed said tax cuts far less to begin with.

I'm always puzzled as to why tax cuts are seen as the greatest thing ever when given to the wealthy but they're the harbingers of doom if given to anyone else.

 

I'm not so sure there, NOG. As a famous saying goes, there are no ifs in history, but I think 9/11 did not have a devastating effect on the US economy as the current crisis may - it caused a serious rift in confidence, imo, but little lasting damage on its own, unlike this crises. As for the oil prices, I think they started their surge around and shortly after the Iraq war, and Katrina was barely more than a drop... okay, a 20-ton cistern in the sea. Sure, it was important, and made a big splash, but in the global turn of events, it did little to change the overall course of things. If you don't mind be being a little callous here, the world market does not care that much about New Orleans and the refineries there when there are so many more that can get the job done. It was just one - major, I give you - event in a very eventful timeline which marked how oil prices increased before and afterwards.

In general, it's hard to give a 100% sure verdict on just how good Bush did on the economy, because no one else imo had to deal with just the same conditions. Yet "wonderful" is not a word (or meaning) that I'd use for him. The idea of using tax cuts during a period of increased spending (wars etc) was novel, but that needn't mean it is effective or wise. Perhaps it might have avoided worse crises, but it certainly won't help that the current president-elect will have to add record budget deficits to one of the many issues he has to tackle.

 

Because Obama is the one doing it. That's how politics works in the USA, and if GWB was cutting taxes for the middle class NOG would be falling all over himself explaining how great lower taxes would be for our economy. It's part of the game. But all the evidence, such as past historical tax cuts, have proved that they work well for the economy. Bill Clinton's and the R's in Congress did one in 1996 that worked especially well. And they managed to balance the budget at the same time. That's doing a "wonderful" job with economy.

The projected stimulus package will be a tax cut as well (well, a tax rebate), and NOG and Gnarff won't be able to criticize Obama because GWB did the same thing just this year, in 2008. Obama's will certainly be next year. But it will be interesting to see how they try.

But at least NOG has my respect for sticking with GWB till the bitter end, especially since both McCain and Palin have ravaged him during the campaign, especially Palin this week in her countless "exclusive" interviews:

So says Sarah....

http://cbs11tv.com/national/Sarah.Palin.wardrobe.2.860937.html

 

It's still two months until Obama's inauguration and the neo-con smear machine is already geared into freeway speed.

One blogger has noted Obama's inarticulate speech, as compared to Bush's crisp, clear delivery of his message. (John Hinderaker on Powerline.) Since there have been entire books devoted to Bush's notorious verbal blunders, I won't go into this, except to say that it once again reflects the neo-con view of reality: "It's what I say it is."

Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia told the AP, "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. Not that I'm comparing him to Adolf Hitler." Actually, you just did.

"Impeach Obama" websites are already up and running, accusing him of abuse of power before he takes office. (After eight years of illegal wiretapping, illegal torture and illegal war. Now there's chutzpah!) One of the wilder ones accused the Dems of stealing the election and added "GOD wanted McCain and Palin in the White House. That's why it's called the WHITE HOUSE."

Today Rush Limbaugh accused Obama of being responsible for the recession. Perhaps, sometime after the inauguration, he travelled back in time. It's no less plausible than the rest of this drivel.

And, yes, the Shadow People are real.

 

Ok, I disagree with both of those being unavoidable. There was nothing we could do to stop Katrina, and anyone telling you otherwise is a loon. There was little we could do to prepare for Katrina on a national level (gather resources and put them in strategic locations out of the storm path, ready to move in as soon as it was clear) and that was done. Most of what was botched in the immediate, emergency reaction was botched on the state and local levels (evacuate the rich, tell the poor to ride it out, ignore the levees for decades, etc.). The big federal botching was done much later, and most of it was fraud by those outside the feds (on small and large scales), but people were already blaming Bush.

On 9/11, the closest thing to early warning that I've heard from anyone other than the conspiracy theorists (who think the aliens helped Bush plan it all), is that the CIA and FBI had some idea that 'something' was happening 'somewhere' in 'early September'. That's not something you can do anything about. If you know otherwise, please tell me.

I'll agree with you on the borrowing and spending, but what was that money spent on? Infrastructure? The military in a time of war? Both the Reps and the Dems have had problems for years with living within their (reasonable) means. That doesn't mean it's ok, just that it isn't particular to Bush. And as for China, Bush is hardly the first president to do that.

Shaman:
Around here, both 9/11 and Katrina had very large impacts. Of course, we're in the area that lost a good bit of oil delivery because of the pipeline damage, but oil prices didn't really go down until recently.

Chandos:
I have no problems with tax cuts to the poor or middle class, as long as it's accounted for in the budget. I have problems with the impact a tax hike on businesses will have to the economy. I have problems with the Gov't taking my money to give it to someone who hasn't earned it (that's looking less likely now).

And as for GWB, I'm only 'sticking with' him because I've seen some of the most vicious lies and blatantly revisionist histories I've ever seen thrown at him in recent years. The guy's reputation is in the tank half due to the media coverage and Congress (who's rep is even lower).

Cernak:
That's not the Republican smear machine, that's right-wing loons. How many of those people are KKK members or the like?

 

Corporate tax cuts give corporations incentives to keep jobs in the US. Increasing the tax burden on those same companies is an incentive to take their business elsewhere. That's why there won't be a middle class when Obama is done.

 

No, not really. Your starting premise is wrong.

 

Those two incidents were only short term shocks that had very little impact in the longer development of oil prices. The main reason for the rise of oil prices is anyway the increase in demand and not so much the disturbances in supply allthough they too obviously play a role in the development on the markets but describing it as "very large" is in my opinion an exaggeration.

 

Lower taxes provides companies a higher incentive to set up their bases in the US. It does not, however, provide them any incentive to keep their manufacturing operations here. Companies aren't setting up manufacturing operations in China, Korea, or Taiwan to save money on taxes. They do it to save money on labor.

 

Monty: True.

Business passes expenses to the customer -- after adding a profit margin. Say the business makes a television for $100, they sell it to Best Buy for $200, who in turn sells to to the customer for $400 (50% margins are very common in business at all levels).

Now the government adds an additional 1% to business tax so the cost of the television is now $202 to Best Buy (1% added to the profit is $1, but the company sees that as an expense and must make the same 50% margin so the price goes up by $2). Best Buy will also be taxed on their profit, but they also want the 50% margin so the price goes up to $408. So the customer just paid a 2% increase for a 1% tax increase to the company.

If the company want to keep the cost to the consumer below $400, they need to cut expenses. This means either producing it in an area with lower labor costs or reducing overhead (firing people).

I see this in action all the time. Having business fund the government does not help the average consumer. We pay for it anyway -- with interest.

 

@ Nog,

So they WERE avoidable? I'm thinking that was a double-negative typo.

Look - I said no one could likely have stopped either in the passage you quoted (the planes or the storm). What I'm saying is there was ample warning to at least take some preventative measures (in Katrina very specifically, whereas 911 was less specific and therefore harder to prepare for, but still - warnings were ignored and nothing was done). There is no indication whatsoever that the Bush administration took terrorism even remotely seriously until about 9:30am on 911. This is well documented by people in and out of the administration, and I'm not going to waste time rehashing 7 years of alley threads to show you that. It is a matter of fact.

As for Katrina, yes, while the hurricane itself was unavoidable, the scale of the catastrophe was absolutely avoidable. The administration were specifically warned that the levees would not hold, that major federal action would be needed before Katrina, Bush is on record giving those warnings lip service, is also on record taking several days to respond as people died, and the family and friends of mine who are career FEMA people will tell you they were severely handicapped by Bush administration incompetence. This too is a matter of fact. The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana are also culpable. But seriously, Bush doesn't get a bad rap for Katrina for nothing.

Your answer here is basically "so what? Dems do it too." Aside from being a cop-out and missing the point, it also misses the scale. No administration has been this fiscally irresponsible, Rep or Dem. No administration has left this massive a debt for future generations to pay off. Ever. Again, the Bush folks chose to go to war in Iraq. This did not happen to them. You can have a tax-cut orgy, or you can have an unnecessary and poorly planned war of choice, but you cannot have both. No one would have faulted Bush - who spoke of nothing but tax cuts before 911 - for saying after 911 "America, it's time to roll up your sleeves, we need you" and raising taxes to pay for the war. Of course, this supposes that they thought it through enough to realize that their time and money estimates for the war were catastrophically under the mark, but that only reinforces my point.

I'd like to think there will come a time - and I hope it's soon - where even supporters can stop pretending the Bush administration wasn't an absolute disaster for America and our image and stop making excuses for them. Not turn against them per se, but just give up trying to defend the indefensible. Really, they don't deserve it. I'm not going to continue ragging on them much going forward, it's over - I'm thrilled to move on. In fact I hope I never have to speak of them again after January 20.

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but historically, when the US has entered any war of significance, taxes have gone up (or at least stayed the same - they never went down). Look at the government propoganda that circulated during WWII where it was "patriotic" to pay higher taxes. Bush's tax cuts in a time of war are unprecedented.