Now that Al Franken is seated as the junior senator for Minnesota, apparently everything wrong with America is the Democrats’ fault:
Rarely has anyone managed to cram so much dishonesty into such a short period of time. No-one is trying to eliminate the secret ballot. And editorials in small-town newspapers notwithstanding, the true impact of the carbon tax remains speculative, even to its critics, and will be leveraged against corporations, not individuals. It’s beyond dishonest to suggest that the Obama administration has proposed or passed any personal, family-by-family tax increases.
It’s also curious for the GOP to use the Democrats’ current control of the White House & Congress as an excuse to pass blame for pre-existing problems of their own creation. Imagine the captain of the Titanic striking the iceberg and immediately running for the lifeboats, all the while heckling the first officer for failing to save the ship. Or, better yet, imagine Zap Brannigan. Turning around the Bush economy is a herculean effort, and that Obama hasn’t accomplished it yet doesn’t somehow redeem the politicians whose failures created the problem in the first place.
In the end, this is just what we’ve come to expect from the GOP – no new ideas, just blame, lies, and spin. They’re like the Michael Behes of politics: they can spot problems with the status quo, sure, but damned if they’re going to try to fix them, or acknowledge the solutions once they emerge. Like Behe and science, the Republican view of government is bolstered by failure. Small wonder they’re so bad at governing.
Rather than passing the buck – a Republican specialty – Michael Steele should be focusing on recovering from his party’s ideological & personal implosion.
Bush blaming Clinton for certain problems didn’t really work. Obama blaming Bush won’t work either. At the end of the day the buck stops with the sitting President. A terrible feature of life here in the colonies (name that movie for extra credit).
…the true impact of the carbon tax remains speculative, even to its critics, and will be leveraged against corporations, not individuals.
Ahem…I’ll state the obvious here. While I realize that standard liberal rhetoric is that it’s okay if you stick it to the man, a lot of Americans work for corporations. Higher taxes will mean less hiring, lower salaries, less profit, etc, etc. It will also mean higher prices on the goods those companies produce.
The carbon tax has the potential to really throw a monkey wrench at the economy during a period when we need all engines running strong. The timing boggles my mind.
Posted by Mike | July 8, 2009, 1:54 pmHow’s history treated Hoover? There’s your view of how the blame will settle on Bush.
As for the carbon tax argument, I’ll give you this – at least you’re consistent! Trickle down apparently works both ways. However, don’t forget that there’s an economic case for doing something about global warming, and a value to air quality independent of warming. So maybe it changes who gets the money & how, but that’s about it.
Posted by ACG | July 8, 2009, 2:15 pmThe credit or blame for this recession will be placed on Obama for one very large reason: The Stimulus Bill. It was his baby and if it is proven to be unsuccessful then taxpayers are going to hold him responsible for their $700+ billion.
And let’s look at the evidence so far. there are already reports coming out about how the money is going to Democrat pet projects that aren’t creating jobs. Meanwhile the things that we really need to do aren’t getting done. T.Boone Pickens just announced today that he is scrapping plans for the world’s largest wind farm in TX because of insufficent power-transmission capabilities. This is a $2 billion investment on his end. You don’t think he hasn’t looked at the legislation and saw there is no money coming down the pike?
Your economic case for global warming (which is tentative at best) is not going to get very far unless green jobs are created and the taxes are funneled somewhere. Right now it will most likely be funneled into healthcare reform. So where are the jobs? Who benefits?
Posted by Mike | July 8, 2009, 2:26 pmOf course, the first stimulus was Bush’s too… more later…
Posted by ACG | July 8, 2009, 2:54 pmWhy would people blame Obama for the recession? It was already well under way before he got into office?
I don’t think it’s commonly thought that government spending furthers recessions.
No one will really hold him responsible for the money spent. No one is really holding Bush accountable for AIG bailout or the money spent in Iraq, or which isn’t that helpful domestically. No one condemns Reagan for spending too much, just in Democrat circles. Which is a shame.
Maybe I’m too Keynesian but to me, the complaints for spending too much have come wayyyy too late.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 8, 2009, 5:27 pmHoover isn’t blamed for starting the Depression boys and girls, he’s blamed for doing nothing to end it. “We under-estimated how bad the economy was,” sounds like a press release form 1931. Root cause is eternally debatable.
Posted by Mike | July 8, 2009, 6:34 pmOh, please. “What crisis” is 1931; “We underestimated it” is significantly better. And you should know by now not to take Joe the Biden at face value.
Posted by ACG | July 8, 2009, 8:18 pmJust out of curiosity: Palin ran for VP and lost, yet she’s still a favorite posting topic. Biden ran and won and he mostly gets ignored, despite the fact that he ‘shouldn’t be taken at face value’. Why?
Hoover began using the term ‘great depression’ in 1931.
Posted by Mike | July 8, 2009, 9:58 pmI spoke with my congressmen before the Bush’s bailout and told him to vote against it, I told the the new congressmen to vote against the stimulus bill, if people payed attention to more than what the news was telling them there where plenty of people complaining about the spending before it got passed.
Bush gets blamed for the AiG pailout, and all the other banks that received money, it was his plan that the Democrats got through Congress. And the heart of the recession happened once it was clear Obama was going to win the election and businesses started to adjust their spending and investments to prepare for the over taxing and over regulation that a Democrat president was going to bring.
IF YOU ARE IN DEBT YOU CAN NOT SPEND YOUR WAY TO FINANCIAL STABILITY. It doesn’t work for your bank account and it does not work for the governments.
At what point will you start to hold President Obama responsible for the spending?
Posted by mcoville | July 9, 2009, 8:08 amEspecially in a global economy like today, you cannot simply spend your way out of recession. There are too many other factors out there.
But you can improve things like infrastructure, invest in education, invest in technology improvements. All of these things have both short term, and long term benefits.
I think historically you can see this happening with the big projects that the government has under taken in the past.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 10:48 amInfrastructure spending would be great. See my comment above on T.Boone Pickens’ wind farm plans. The dollars are not being spent wisely.
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 11:10 amI think you’re making too many assumptions in that example. He hasn’t said a thing about a lack of government support.
Sounds like he was over ambitious with his original plan. The land couldn’t support it, and maybe it just cost too much?
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 11:39 amYou’re telling me, with a $2 billion investment, that he hasn’t had someone review the stimulus bill to see if the money is coming for power transmission? Even though this has been a stated serious critical need for green efforts?
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 11:43 amI’m telling you, he didn’t even look to see if the land could hold his 2 billion dollar investment.
I’m saying that there are other things going on in this economy beside the stimulus.
And any of the ones he’s identified doesn’t have a thing to do with the stimulus. He cited a sudden lowering of oil prices causing low demand. I’m sorry Obama didn’t fix that for him.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 11:50 amApparently you read an entirely different article than me.
And he’s still putting the turbines up…so how would that jive with the declining oil prices angle?
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 12:16 pmAs I said, his original plan was over ambitious. He’s moderating the plan to be more viable for the current economic climate and demand. And as he said, the original plan ended up being too complex.
From what I’ve read, the dallas morning news one was the one who ran the original story, with his quotes on the lowering demand. I don’t think it’s an “angle”. It’s here:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/energy/stories/DN-pickenswind_05bus.State.Edition1.19e1daf.html
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 1:08 pmThe under-lying problem is still power transmission. Knowing about his plans you would think the fed would have allocated some funds. The largest wind farm in the world seems like a good ‘green’ iniative.
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 1:25 pmBut in the end, he’s just offering incentives for businesses. He’s not setting up the business.
I mean it would be great if the government decided to build giant wind farms for the country, but there would be conservative complaints then too.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 1:33 pmWasn’t that the whole purpose of the stimulus..i.e. the government creating jobs?
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 1:43 pmSome of it. Not all of it.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 1:56 pmLet me put it this way
If I give you 2 million dollars for your 10 million dollar plan, but a year later you find out it will actually cost you 20 million.
Well…that’s not the government’s fault, they’re still trying to help your green project, but it’s up to the business to make it happen.
I don’t know what you’re arguing, do you want the government to make this their pet project and take over? Give more money?
I can agree, that would be nice.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 2:11 pmI want the government to spend the stimulus money wisely on projects that will have a long-term economic benefit. Power transmission seems to have gotten the shaft along with a lot of other sensible projects.
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 2:17 pmI think that would require a different bill, that isn’t just helping business ventures, but essentially building them from the ground up.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 2:23 pmInfrastructure spending was supposed to be in the stimulus package. Where is the money?
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 2:32 pmOther projects?
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/allocation-programs&state=TX
I think you’re just looking to blame Obama for something at this point.
He’s not going to be able to do everything. Despite what some liberals hope :P
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 2:42 pmActually i blame this one on Congress…
Posted by Mike | July 9, 2009, 2:57 pmWell said, Oneiroi. I wouldn’t look askance at the teabaggers’ claims to be “protecting the country” if they’d raised their complaints a little earlier. Practically speaking, increasing spending while cutting taxes is MUCH, MUCH worse for the national health than increasing spending and increasing taxes. As it stands, though, their selective objections reveal them as a bunch of selfish little anti-tax wankers, nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by ACG | July 8, 2009, 6:27 pmI am not posting to defend the GOP, as I do not consider myself Republican, but want I would like to do is point out another flaw in your post.
“It’s also curious for the GOP to use the Democrats’ current control of the White House & Congress as an excuse to pass blame for pre-existing problems of their own creation.” The housing bubble that burst and caused a major part of the current economic problems was created during a Democrat controlled House and Senate. The President at the time had no control over them. Yes, Bush did not help the situation with the first bail out of wall street banks, but it was the democrats that voted it through, then the democrats led by New President Obama that voted through an even larger mistake.
And to reiterate what the first commentor said:
CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES!! When you tax a corporation, or apply fees to the business model of any company, it is the employees and customers that pay the cost.
NO COMPANY IN AMERICA PAYS TAXES!! All taxes are paid by people, not companies.
If you learn those two things you will be able to see how wrong the democrats really are. But don’t take this as “go vote for a republican”, take this as “Go vote for the person that is going to fix the problem”.
Posted by mcoville | July 8, 2009, 2:15 pmI find it hard to trust the whole “I’m not a Republican OMG” thing, coming from a creationist (by your blog) who uses “Democrat” as an adjective. Pass.
As for the origins of the crisis, I concede that it’s not entirely of Bush’s making. Indeed, I place the blame with Reagan, who first convinced Americans that they could cut taxes without cutting spending. Clinton tried to recover from that, but couldn’t entirely.
It’s hard to blame anything on a “Democrat” Congress, though. Recall the Democrats were out of power in Congress from 1996-2006. Are we to believe that a crisis in the making for decades was done in the last few years?
As to the “Corporations don’t pay taxes” thing, that’s a fiction, a trickle-down ignoring the middleman. Corporations make profits and don’t disburse them all; some of it remains with the corporation in the form of investments, capital, etc. Taxes will frequently be paid out of that, or cash on hand. That doesn’t really come out of anyone’s pocket directly, and indirectly only to the extent that it impacts stock prices or salaries, except stock prices and salaries both incorporate reasonable expectations as to taxes. So, yawn.
Posted by ACG | July 8, 2009, 2:53 pmQuick Ames! When was the last time the U.S. was debt free i.e. not engaged in deficit spending?
As for corporations paying taxes, I think you’re looking at things a bit too literally. Yes, they do pay taxes…but that burden is passed on to the consumer. If taxes go up, so will the cost of goods and services. Or if they are in an industry that is hurting they will just freeze hiring, 401K contributions, raises, etc. So in the end, the company itself maintains the same margin.
I only tell you this because profit analysis and loss mitigation is a big part of what i do for a living. Believe me, for every dollar increase in taxes there is an equal cut somewhere else.
Posted by Mike | July 8, 2009, 3:25 pmway to toe the party line on your response, did you copy and paste that from an NBC report?
And some people do vote for people and not parties, in the last election I voted for some Republicans and some Democrats, and even an Independent running for a local office.
“some of it remains with the corporation in the form of investments, capital, etc.” This is how companies grow and hire more people. You take money from this portion and they start laying off people, umm this sounds familiar. You should learn economics from a business man that has succeeded and not just Keith Oberman.
Posted by mcoville | July 8, 2009, 3:33 pmYou spend a lot of time trying to belittle people, based on discussions that real economists think debate the finer points of.
Supply and demand helps determine price points, which depending on the product/service, can not just be ratcheted up randomly.
Taxes are included in a cost of business that will always be there. Now there is a point where it would be too high. I just don’t think we’re there.
Corporate tax rules really haven’t changed much in actuality, and we’re well below early 2000 when the economy was doing fine.
If you read what’s coming out of the White House lately, it’s about closing some tax loop holes, but lowering the tax rates, and at the same time offering credits for investing domestically.
I think some of your arguments are more based on the boogey man of the Obama administration than the actual administration.
Posted by Oneiroi | July 9, 2009, 11:30 amAnd yes, I am a God loving creationist. Don’t tell me your one of those evolutionists and now you feel the right to ignore anything I say.
Posted by mcoville | July 8, 2009, 3:34 pmI’d contest whether creationists can be called “god loving,” at all. Yours is a shallow faith challenged rather than affirmed by science. That doesn’t strike me as God loving, at all.
And yes, I’m afraid being a creationist does seriously jeopardize your credibility as a whole. Anyone who puts Ken Ham & Ben Stein over the entire rest of the scientific community, well, that’s troubling.
Posted by ACG | July 8, 2009, 4:03 pmBeing a creationist automatically jeopardizes any credibility. It’s a thinking-process thing.
Posted by Mike | July 8, 2009, 8:08 pmI have to ask: do you think that the complete lack of evidence for creationism in peer-reviewed scientific literature (roughly seventeen million papers as indexed at the National Library of Medicine) is due to the scientific community being 1) incompetent or 2) engaged in a decades-long global conspiracy?
Posted by James F | July 9, 2009, 1:18 amWAKE UP SHEEPLE. WHERE WAS DARWIN’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
Posted by ACG | July 9, 2009, 1:58 amDARWIN WAS A HALF-BREED MUSLIN.
Posted by James F | July 9, 2009, 8:19 am