Obama Negatives

I also think some people mistake the Likud Party in Israel for actually Israel itself.

 

I don't blame Obama completely for the gas prices, but when he comes out against the pipeline, I take issue with that...

I actually think Obama might be more effective when he doesn't have to worry about re-election, but I don't have a ton of confidence in him, but I don't have a ton of confidence in the other four either. I actually think Romney might be a pretty good president, but he's too inept on the campaign trail to get elected.

 

12. Failed on his flat-out promise to cut the deficit in half during his term and to get spending "under control."

Here’s what Obama said at the meeting on Feb. 23, 2009:

"Today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office," Obama said. "Now, this will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control."

 

But I'll add a few more ...

12. His environmental record is very questionable and his handling of the Gulf oil spill was/is a disgrace.
13. Refusal to stare down the lunatic Tea Partiers. I know Obama likes to "play long" on most issues, but sometimes playing long makes you look very weak in the moment.
14. Once in office, he has failed to strongly articulate the messages which got him elected and that are still attractive to most voters, thus ceding the court of public opinion to lunatic fringe GOPers who bastardize pretty much everything he stands for.

 

It *is* the GOP policy. Nobody noticed because they were too busy wildly cheering the most conservative president since Reagan.

 

Deficit is a good one. It's kind of traveled below the radar with all the other issues. It was a huge issue to some during The Bush years.

Long term it could be the biggest issue.

 

It will become a huge issue if we go into a double-dip recession, are forced to spend <b>even more</b> despite falling tax revenues. That will cause the bond market to start driving up our cost of borrowing.

 

Not for nothing, because I haven't watched many of the debates, but have Republican candidates proposed or even articulated a single workable response to any of the things Boom lists here?

 

Santorum's 0% corporate tax on manufacturing could help on long-term, structural unemployment. I know lots of conservatives don't like it because it's "picking winners," but he does a good job of explaining that the manufacturing and service sectors truly work in different realms. However, you need to combine that with an increase in the capital gains tax, or else you blow a huge hole through the revenue side of the equation.

 

I don't give a shit about budget deficits and you don't either.

I'm 53 years old and the U.S. has run budget deficits in 48-49 of those years. And anybody who signs the Grover Norquist blood oath forfeits any right to ever breathe a word about budget deficits.

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see, this is the end result of 30 years of this Pavlovian "government is the problem" drumbeat:

1) they don't believe THIS government is fixing the problems;

2) they don't believe ANY government will fix the problems;

3) they don't WANT the government to fix the problems;

4) they will see to it the government does NOT fix the problems, because if it does, it will negate points 1 and 2 of their belief system.

It's like buying a car, then when it starts breaking down, taking it to the horse-and-buggy repairman who spends a half-hour yelling at you that these newfangled contraptions are never going to work, then hitting it with a hammer and laughing, "see, it's REALLY broken now."

Government is not always the answer. Sometimes government IS the problem. But the alternative is handing everything over to the corporations, who have no objective other than bottom line profit.

 

You're right: deficits don't matter; debt does. However, continuing deficits year-after-year leads to debt. We're at about 105-110% debt-to-GDP right now. We've only been over a 100% ratio of debt-to-GDP once before, during WWII. If we hit a recession three years from now, we will be looking to borrow to get to somewhere around 150-180% of debt-to-GDP. We've never done that before, and now that investors have easy access to other options, there's serious concern that we'll start getting squeezed.

 

This is the one, huh?