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The Official Obama Scorecard Thread


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President Obama ordered the cabinet to cut $100,000,000.00 ($100 million) from the $3,500,000,000,000.00 ($3.5 trillion) federal budget.   I'm so impressed by this sacrifice that I have decided to

I gotta disagree. the republicans have been anything but irrelevant since their [rightful] destruction in 2008. the public furor they've incited over everything obama's attempted to do has meaningfully limited his ability to push legislation. clinton and obama are aberrations; we're still a country of clueless right-leaning people.
If The republicans were 100% against everything Obama and the congress passed, it wouldn't matter because everything could still pass.Blaming the republicans when you have the majority in every branch of the government, and the leadership positions of every committee is just an excuse to not accept that your side is an abstract failure in teh leadership position.
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I gotta disagree. the republicans have been anything but irrelevant since their [rightful] destruction in 2008. the public furor they've incited over everything obama's attempted to do has meaningfully limited his ability to push legislation. clinton and obama are aberrations; we're still a country of clueless right-leaning people.
Public opposition, tea partiers and even the Republican Senate really could not stop him if he put together well constructed Bill's. I do have to say though, I am sure the Pelosi/Frank/Reid trio has a lot to do with the ineffectiveness to date, specifically Pelosi.
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If The republicans were 100% against everything Obama and the congress passed, it wouldn't matter because everything could still pass.Blaming the republicans when you have the majority in every branch of the government, and the leadership positions of every committee is just an excuse to not accept that your side is an abstract failure in teh leadership position.
This would be true if all Democrats shared one brain like the GOP does. Sadly, the left has some diversity of opinion. All those Democrats in GOP leaning districts have to be careful or theirs will be a 2 year position.
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I won't lump you in with the GOPers who say he is worst EVAH, if you correct them once in a while. Like I said, I don't have problems with people who disapprove of Obama.....I disapprove of Obama.....going after healthcare first was such a bad idea. But you cannot deny the GOP party line is Obama is destroying America. And it is super convenient that everybody on the right waited until a Democrat got in office to declare that THIS IS THE TIME to stop spending too much.I thought they were extending the Bush tax cuts for everybody but 250k+ earners? Is that not right?
So 95% of this country makes less than $250K correct?And 95% of this country will get tax cuts? Right?During a war and a huge economic downturn?
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This would be true if all Democrats shared one brain like the GOP does. Sadly, the left has some diversity of opinion. All those Democrats in GOP leaning districts have to be careful or theirs will be a 2 year position.
So in other words, the people that these clowns are representing are spoiling things by not being on board with the agenda of the democrat party.How inconvenient.
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I thought they were extending the Bush tax cuts for everybody but 250k+ earners? Is that not right?
No they are not, and they have never proclaimed to.He has stated he wont raise taxes on people making less than 250K, which technically is true. He is not doing it. Congress made that decision in 2001 and when the tax cuts went into effect. The only way they could get enough votes is if they were not made permanent and had a sunset provision.
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Really, I think it worked out fantastically. Are you against it in principle, or are you against the result. GM is showing profits and just had an ipo. Ford and even the previously doomed Chrysler are emerging quite well. All three would have died if not for the government's intervention.
the GM IPO isn't happening until the fall. I like it. I thought GM was going to have to write off a bunch of that debt to stay in business. the government really doesn't want to be a majority owner, and it was looking like they were possibly going to hit the 79.99% ownership cap ala AIG. (there is some accounting reason for the 80% number which I am currently not able to remember, something about the subsidiary company not having less than 20% ownership outside of the majority holder)basically, things are: going better than expected!
You don't think that the Government could have intervened without negotiating for actual ownership of a company that competes in the market against a company like Ford.Yeah. You could say I'm against that on principle - the principle being that the Government shouldn't be directly competing with Private Enterprise.And there is evidence that some customers are staying away from GM because of the Government Majority Ownership of the company.
I really hated seeing TARP money flow into the auto makers. It's a terrible precedent to be setting... if you're big enough and spend millions on lobbyists, you'll be saved via this completely unrelated fund. If the options are to have Ford compete against government-backed companies for a period or have the big three fall--and I do think Ford had enough GM/Chrysler entanglements in its supply chain to make its survival very difficult if not impossible--I'm choosing the former every time.
If The republicans were 100% against everything Obama and the congress passed, it wouldn't matter because everything could still pass.Blaming the republicans when you have the majority in every branch of the government, and the leadership positions of every committee is just an excuse to not accept that your side is an abstract failure in teh leadership position.
Public opposition, tea partiers and even the Republican Senate really could not stop him if he put together well constructed Bill's. I do have to say though, I am sure the Pelosi/Frank/Reid trio has a lot to do with the ineffectiveness to date, specifically Pelosi.
you guys are missing the point, maybe intentionally? the republicans have been distorting and rabble-rousing with a level effectiveness that would be devastating if employed by their opponents. it does not matter that you have a supermajority if passing your legislation brings about riots and loses you tons of seats in two years.tl;dr: the dems are incompetent and losing the PR battle.
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you guys are missing the point, maybe intentionally? the republicans have been distorting and rabble-rousing with a level effectiveness that would be devastating if employed by their opponents. it does not matter that you have a supermajority if passing your legislation brings about riots and loses you tons of seats in two years.tl;dr: the dems are incompetent and losing the PR battle.
So they are hamstrung from doing what's best for this country because they can't sell it to the people correctly?After the people voted Obama in, gave him an 80% approval rating for months, watched him win a Nobel Peace prize for being alive, listened to him bad talk this country over-seas, watched him bow to multiple world leaders who's countries are tiny little specks compared to ours, and listened to his wife say that she was never proud of being an American until she gained the power to change it into something she wants it to be?How sad that you are this easily fooled by the clueless left who are trying to say anything but accept that their ideas are un-American, and as such America doesn't want it.There's always secession, you guys can take all the democrat run states and start your own utopia. Make sure the barbwire is facing in though, because we won't be trying to sneak in....
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This would be true if all Democrats shared one brain like the GOP does. Sadly, the left has some diversity of opinion. All those Democrats in GOP leaning districts have to be careful or theirs will be a 2 year position.
tl;dr: the dems are incompetent and losing the PR battle.
The funny thing is, about a year ago everyone, Liberals and Conservatives, were talking about the incompetence of the Right as they tried to get any sort of unified message. The GOP was dead "they" all said.
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The funny thing is, about a year ago everyone, Liberals and Conservatives, were talking about the incompetence of the Right as they tried to get any sort of unified message. The GOP was dead "they" all said.
Boom HEAD SHOT
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you guys are missing the point, maybe intentionally? the republicans have been distorting and rabble-rousing with a level effectiveness that would be devastating if employed by their opponents. it does not matter that you have a supermajority if passing your legislation brings about riots and loses you tons of seats in two years.tl;dr: the dems are incompetent and losing the PR battle.
I was trying to talk solely on decisions being made. I really try not to pay attention to who says what and when. But I do understand your point, and I will give it some validity, but I think you may be giving it a little too much weight.
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I was trying to talk solely on decisions being made. I really try not to pay attention to who says what and when. But I do understand your point, and I will give it some validity, but I think you may be giving it a little too much weight.
No El Guapo you GOT TO UNDERSTANDSee they were elected, took over all the government, after 8 years of having full co-operation of the media to bash Bush and the republicans, they then had a walk in presidential election.But the stupid people that elected them then turned on them, refusing to let them have unchecked power to do whatever whim they wanted.And they put fear into these poor workers of the people ( well not all the people apparently ), fear that if they did the right thing, they would pay!And how would they pay? they would NOT GET RE-ELECTED Gasp.so strat is clearly saying that the democrat party is filled with people who would rather keep their high paying job, then do what's right for this country.And on this, we agree
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Here is the issue with the economy as a whole right now. We have approximately 13 trillion in GDP and 13 trillion in Government debt. We are at the highest level of government debt post WWII than we have ever been as a percentage of GDP. We are basically at 100% of GDP. The difference between then and now is most of that debt was being spent on the war and was non-recurring debt. With the implementation of Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, along with the ever expanding government jobs, the debt will not drop like it did before. Unless we drastically cut in other areas. As of right now, we are going the opposite direction.
This paragraph is extremely misleading. Your theory is the following: government programs such as Social Security (which gets a surplus every year and has a war chest that will last until nearly 2040) and medicare (which has been around since the 70's) are what's causing the current level of debt. If this theory were true, then there would be a clear trend of increasing debt since the 70's (and possibly since the 40's) that would have culminated in the debt we have now. But, of course, that's note the case. Rather, government increased dramatically starting somewhere in the beginning of 2008. If one wanted to blame this of medicare or Social Security, one would have a very hard time explaining this rapid increase.Instead, it probably makes more sense that is that the current debts are caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. When $6 Trillion in value disappears nearly overnight, people are going to spend less money, hire less people, and as a result pay less taxes. The fall of housing has directly led to a loss of over $1 Trillion in consumer demand (that related to the purchasing and maintaining of houses). This, not surprisingly, has led to about 15 million people becoming unemployed. To me, it makes more sense that the collapse of the housing bubble brought us to the current economic situation rather than government entitlement programs.Right?
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The funny thing is, about a year ago everyone, Liberals and Conservatives, were talking about the incompetence of the Right as they tried to get any sort of unified message. The GOP was dead "they" all said.
And the same was true of Democrats in 2004-2005. Maybe the press are just morons? Nah, that couldn't be the case.
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This paragraph is extremely misleading. Your theory is the following: government programs such as Social Security (which gets a surplus every year and has a war chest that will last until nearly 2040) and medicare (which has been around since the 70's) are what's causing the current level of debt. If this theory were true, then there would be a clear trend of increasing debt since the 70's (and possibly since the 40's) that would have culminated in the debt we have now. But, of course, that's note the case. Rather, government increased dramatically starting somewhere in the beginning of 2008. If one wanted to blame this of medicare or Social Security, one would have a very hard time explaining this rapid increase.Instead, it probably makes more sense that is that the current debts are caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. When $6 Trillion in value disappears nearly overnight, people are going to spend less money, hire less people, and as a result pay less taxes. The fall of housing has directly led to a loss of over $1 Trillion in consumer demand (that related to the purchasing and maintaining of houses). This, not surprisingly, has led to about 15 million people becoming unemployed. To me, it makes more sense that the collapse of the housing bubble brought us to the current economic situation rather than government entitlement programs.Right?
You mis-understood. I never said government spending led to the crisis, I am saying it possibly* will lead to issues down the road.Also, we have been in an increasing level of debt since the 70's. We were paying down that debt post WWII in the 50's and early 60's when we were growing leaps and bounds as a country. We will never grow at that rate again, we don't have the capacity or increase in populations to support it.The only dip in the deficit was in the last 90's when Clinton chopped the hell out of defense spending and reformed welfare.The drastic increase has been over the last 2 years, and that is what I am saying is not sustainable. Also this is the first year we are negative in Social Security. We will pay out more this year than we bring in.gdp.jpggdp2.jpg
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How about the healthcare reform bill? You seem to continue to champion this piece of legislation as a positive thing and you also refuse to acknowledge it as a negative.I asked you to discuss end-of-life care when it was addressed in the healthcare thread.If you think this legislation is so good, what good things does it do for us? And how is this bill better than any alternatives?
Here's what I like about the Healthcare bill:- It saves us over $100 Billion over 10 years. A small amount, but a saving none the less.- It prevents insurance companies from denying people coverage based on preexisting conditions, it prevents them from removing a person's coverage based on illness, and it prevents them from uncontrollably raising rates to effectively deny a person coverage. It also removes annual spending caps.(It should be noted that the last bullet point is a staggeringly huge win for the average American. I just don't want it to go understated)- It will serve as a catalyst for general changes to our health system in several ways. It has made the subject no longer taboo. It (along with the stimulus plan) has provided money to desperately needed things such as electronic health records (which will save an enormous amount of money and lives, and is such a no-brainer).- It ensures that everyone in America is covered by insurance through tax penalties and government subsidies to help pay for those who have trouble affording it.- It makes insurance collectives to help lower prices locally.Those are the things I like about it. I'm not saying it's better than any alternative. I think a public option would have strengthened it, for example.
Do you have any comment on the nature of the 'pass first, read later' of how this legislation was passed?
Yeah, that whole argument is a crock. All bills are large. It's not a blow against a bill that it is long. And I don't expect congressmen to read every word of it; that would be a huge waste of time. The reason it's so big is because this country has too many lawyers and so every last detail in the bill must be described in stupefying legal detail. Congressmen have employees and interns to go through the details for them and give them the big picture.Do you expect all CEO's to read every memo or report that their company makes, or would you expect them to have employees go through the details so they can make decisions based on the big picture.(For the record, a lot of liberals used this same argument against the Patriot Act when it was passed. It was a crappy argument then, and it's a crappy argument now. The Patriot Act sucks regardless of its length).Also, the full quote goes like this:But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Her point, obviously, was that the state of dischorse at the time was so bad that it was almost impossible for the average person to get accurate information about the content of the bill. Only after it was passed and all that settled down would the average person be able to go through the bill and understand what was actually in it, rather than what a pundit said may be in it would may eventually be in it or might make its way in it.
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The funny thing is, about a year ago everyone, Liberals and Conservatives, were talking about the incompetence of the Right as they tried to get any sort of unified message. The GOP was dead "they" all said.
Boom HEAD SHOT
I'd rather be dead than be alive with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin pumping my heart with nothing but hate and vitriol.
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We were paying down that debt post WWII in the 50's and early 60's when we were growing leaps and bounds as a country.
Of course not, because we'll never again have those low taxes, especially on the rich (those that produce the most), that allowed us to grow so fast during that time.
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Of course not, because we'll never again have those low taxes, especially on the rich (those that produce the most), that allowed us to grow so fast during that time.
Boom HEAD SHOT
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Of course not, because we'll never again have those low taxes, especially on the rich (those that produce the most), that allowed us to grow so fast during that time.
Umm what?1946-1947 - 19% 86.45% 1948-1949 - 16.6% 82.13% 1950 - 17.4% 84.36% 1951 - 20.4% 91% 1952-1953 - 22.2% 92% 1954-1963 - 20% 91% 1964 - 16% 77% 1965-1967 - 14% 70% 1968 - 14% 75.25% 1969 - 14% 77% 1970 - 14% 71.75%EDIT: I know what you are trying to do. But AMT was created during this time period so the rich actually had to pay those taxes.Because of our growth we could afford those rates.
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So they are hamstrung from doing what's best for this country because they can't sell it to the people correctly?
you really should do a better job of hiding your faulty cruxes. bury it in the second or third paragraph.
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Really, I think it worked out fantastically.
It's easy to "work out" when you write the rules. For example, Toyotas had a few accidents, and was forced to do a massive recall without evidence, and executives were hauled before congress to much bad publicity.During the same time, GM and Chrsyler had many times more recalls for more dangerous issues. No publicity, no congressional grilling.Oh, and by the way, oopsies, the Toyota problems were driver error. Nevermind that though.Yeah, that all worked out really well, having the government run an auto company.
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Oh, and by the way, oopsies, the Toyota problems were driver error. Nevermind that though.
wait, what? you gotta at least source something like this.....
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- It saves us over $100 Billion over 10 years. A small amount, but a saving none the less.
No it doesn't. The only way to claim this is to cut Medicare payments for seniors by 500 billion. The Democrats will not, and have no plans to do this, yet they claimed that savings to reach that $100 billion. It is a flagrant lie. It also conveniently ignores the costs pushed to states and individuals. If the entire actual cost is calculated, it is 1.5 trillion in additional deficit spending.
- It prevents insurance companies from denying people coverage based on preexisting conditions, it prevents them from removing a person's coverage based on illness, and it prevents them from uncontrollably raising rates to effectively deny a person coverage.
In theory a laudable goal; in reality it makes insurance much much more expensive due to the problem of people waiting until they need insurance to buy it, creating a self-selecting high-cost insurance pool. If you don't believe this, think what would happen if we could buy insurance for cars with "pre-existing conditions". Same thing.
It also removes annual spending caps.
This makes insurance more expensive. Do you see why?
- It will serve as a catalyst for general changes to our health system in several ways. It has made the subject no longer taboo. It (along with the stimulus plan) has provided money to desperately needed things such as electronic health records (which will save an enormous amount of money and lives, and is such a no-brainer).
The changes are all in the wrong direction -- making more and more distant bureaucrats making more and more of the decisions, rather than pushing decisions to the people with the most information -- patients and doctors. Removing decisions from those best able to make them is NEVER a good idea.
- It ensures that everyone in America is covered by insurance through tax penalties and government subsidies to help pay for those who have trouble affording it.
Everyone in America already was ensured treatment prior to this bill. This justification was a lie created to sway the gullible.
- It makes insurance collectives to help lower prices locally.
By making the pool self-select to be more expensive, by requiring people to buy expensive coverage even if they don't need it, by adding layers of bureaucracy? Nonsense. Even Obama's own people admitted the bill would make insurance more expensive. There are NO independent predictions that this would lower costs, just Obama's soundbites.
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