It is frightening to me that following one of the most inspiring, positive and uniting presidential inaugurations in history, certain Republicans are doing their best to undermine attempts by President Obama’s administration to start work on our suffering country. The economic stimulus package that has been proposed has many excellent points to it, including increasing funding for education, creating green jobs, as well as creating or saving millions of jobs in the next two years.
Folks like Rush Limbaugh are doing their best to sway popular opinion, using small facets of the bill to create—what else?—fear and hysteria. The old tricksters are already back to their old tricks, and we obviously have little time to bask in the glow. We must continue to support Obama and his forward-thinking policies, and help to protect ourselves and our children from those who would see our country fail—just to have a laugh at those at the helm.
— Katherine Apt
Asheville
This is letter number four endorsing the stimulus package…as opposed to zero letters in protest. Hardly consistent with the legislation’s approval rating of 37% and dropping.
You are absolutely right. This is no laughing matter. Beyond that, nothing is right. The entire Republican party in Congress with the exception of three scoundrels is not sitting still for this economic rape and if unchecked, a long lasting impoverishment of our economic society. When the American public finally has it’s fill of this Democrat cake, the pendulum will swing again. The effort to fix this Democrat atrocity will not be with a scalpel but with a chainsaw and hopefully that will be enough to get us back from the hell currently being unleashed.
The pundits might have thought we suffered from a polarizing of this country before but they have seen nothing yet. The American people did not vote for a socialist dump and hopefully enough scorn can be heaped upon those three Republican scoundrels who voted for this in the Senate to prevent passage of this theft.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers support the stimulus plan (what else can be expected from these hard-core Marxists?).
A Gallup poll released on Monday shows:
“The American public gives President Barack Obama a strong 67% approval rating for the way in which he is handling the government’s efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill, while the Democrats and, in particular, the Republicans in Congress receive much lower approval ratings of 48% and 31%, respectively.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114202/Obama-Upper-Hand-Stimulus-Fight.aspx
trav, i’ll buy that the stimulus package has the flaws you claim it has, but are you really saying that the former Republican Administration and Congress had nothing to do with what has *brought* our economy to “this point”? If our economy continues to sputter, will you place all the blame on Obama and so-called “Socialism”?
Perhaps you can identify the specific actions by the Bush administration that led to this credit crisis? Perhaps you can identify what Bush did that brought Chrysler and GM closer to the brink they have been edging towards for 20 years? Now, I can point to Democrat activism in promoting and demanding that mortgage markets (Fannie and Freddie)buy up hideous portfolios full of seriously dangerous ARMs. This is at the root of the crisis. Until these facts are dealt with, the solution cannot be implemented. Going many Trillions of dollars into debt to build a socialist economic state and turning success into something evil is not a sound path in any sense of the word. The American public will learn this the hard way and when they do it will be time to play serious hardball with the fools that are leading us down this road.
The USCOC and NAM are pragmatic special interest groups whose members are beneficiaries of some of this pork. Chrysler and GM are notable among their larger supporters. They do not represent ideological conservatism. Those of us who are of such positions can find much to agree with them on and a good deal to disagree over. I work in the automotive industry and my employer was not at all shy in promoting the “Big Three bailout”. I opposed it then and I oppose it now. It has done absolutely nothing to stem the losses. To see that reality, you can point to the layoffs this week at the BorgWarner plant in Asheville.
People need to wake up to this atrocity and stop eating the cake before it kills them.
So, in other words, no, you cannot address the issue in a constructive, nonpartisan way.
“Ideological conservatism” now represents a minority of opinion in this county (contrary to the wishful thinking of this group, this country is NOT a ‘center right’ country, at least not anymore).
And the bill has now passed, so all of the hand-wringing is for naught.
To correct my earlier post, while the bill has not reached the president’s desk for signature, it has, essentially, passed the most difficult parts and “the votes are there” to pass it. It is basically a formality to the finish line now.
The votes are probably there. As for conservatism being a minority of opinion, well that is debatable. Much depends on how questions are framed and who is asked. As for the long term inclinations of the country, that remains to be seen. Given the socialist directions we are being forced into with it’s enormous price tag, I suspect there will one day be an open season on the fools leading us down this road.
” I suspect there will one day be an open season on the fools leading us down this road.”
Perhaps. Time will tell. It’s already open season (justifiably, IMO) on the complete fools who mismanaged the country during the last eight years, helping to lead us to the mess we’re in today.
“Given the socialist directions we are being forced into with it’s enormous price tag, I suspect there will one day be an open season on the fools leading us down this road. ”
agreed. Hopefully the press narrative and public memory are healthy enough to remember who all the players are in the debacle and precisely how it “failed” the nation, so that the reaction will be against “both” parties and not just a pendulum swing between mildly differing criminals…
travelah: “Perhaps you can identify the specific actions by the Bush administration that led to this credit crisis?”
In general terms, the GOP had control of both Congress and the Whitehouse from 2001-2007 and did nothing to correct the situation and in fact relaxed regulation and enforcement vis a vis financial institutions.
In specific, a 2005 bill to rein in the FMs was allowed to die by the Senate GOP leadership after a GOP lobbying firm hired by the FMs had bought off enough GOP Senators.
I will grant you though that it is difficult to determine the boundary between Shrub’s incompetence and his complicity.
I would like to know the empirical method that congress used to determine how to best stimulate the economy. Where to spend the money matters. Some types of expenditures will yield better than others. Pelosi is not an economist. Who told her what to put in the bill? I’ll tell you who … NOBODY TELLS HER HOW TO DO ANYTHING. She would leave you in a smoking heap if you even tried.
Vrede,
The FMs were controlled by Democrats and they did indeed buy off a few GOP legislators who share the blame for this matter. However, you will not find a few Democrat but darn near all of them that were complicit in this matter.
Now, what specific regulation was relaxed that led to this crisis?
The credit markets are the problem today and they are not addressed by the economic rape passed into law yesterday.
travelah,
A few? The GOP controlled Congress for 12 years, the Whitehouse for 8, and both for 6. If your argument is that they were less intelligent, concerned, and/or effective than the minority Dems were, well, that’s an opinion that would be difficult to prove one way or the other.
Yes, vrede, a few Republicans sided with many Democrats and blocked an initiative to rein in an absurdity. They did so for a dollar and should be held accountable for it.
The Dem’s threatened to filibuster every time the topic of reforming Fannie and Freddie came up. Without 60 Senate votes, not much change occurs. Even 2 years ago, Dems were defending F&F;’s financial stability.
What is scarier … the Dem’s actually thinking the F&F;were in good shape or that they knew of the problems and continued to fight for loaning money to those who would never be able to pay. Both scenarios are disgraceful.
The Rep’s are not completely innocent here. They should have shouted louder. However, the loan policies were originated and promoted by the Dem party.