Obama - A up to date economic standpoint -
Call it arrogant but I believe this is a must read for any and every Obama supporter. This is my response to:
Really?You do realize that conservative and democratic economist all said that spending was needed to stop the economic freefall last year. Plus many of the gop governors and senators that fought against it basically begged for it afterward (except Sanford but check it out and try to prove me wrong). Besides that I can list several things that have been done. His actions spurred a 73 percent increase in lending to small businesses, allowing them to expand and create new jobs; helped hundreds of thousands of responsible Americans keep their homes; and cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. He's expanded health care for children, passed equal pay for equal work legislation, and expanded stem cell research. And he is now closer than any president in decades to passing health reform that bans insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions (GOP health care plan doesn't have that and they basically didn't want to have a plan but rather destroy this one) , outlaws insurance discrimination based on gender, and caps what patients can be charged out-of-pocket, we don't have combat troops in Iraq (we have troops designed to train Iraqi police), the economy is growing again, much sooner than most experts predicted. If growth continues, it should lead to job growth.
I'm sorry Matt but he has done a number of things. Fact check me if you think I'm wrong. When you're done with that actually tell me how he made us worse off because I believe in cold facts and not political memes .
Economic spending is different than massive defecit rolling. The “freefall” had well stopped before he got into office. The worst we saw was actually nov/dec of ’08. His stimulus and economic action didn’t occur til February and later on, not to mention as with any central actions, it takes time for the effects of the fiscal and monetary changes to be seen. Thus the stopping of the freefall wasn’t so much Obama, more so credited to the cyclical nature of a depression. Spending directly from borrowed funds is a short term “political answer” to appease the people all the while creating a very scary long run future for the economically minded. I fall more under a libertarian mindset so this definitely isn’t a GOP vs Liberal thing for me, I hate almost the same amount in regards to both parties. I simply believe what Obama has done, has put us worse off in a long run timeframe.
Spending was required by he has absolutely no check on the national debt and running up the national defecit year after year will simply put us worse off. Excessive monetary policy simply brings us back to the limits of the PPF but does not spur long term development and expansion, that is caused by fiscal stimulus (tax breaks to the foundation of our economy). However, its not the tax breaks which Obama has supported. The top 5% that don’t get breaks are the ones that pay over 54% of income revenue. The bottom 50% don’t pay any taxes (so he actually only gave a tax break to 45% of Americans when you look at who actually received a benefit from the change in taxes). So when you look at it, he cut taxes for the middle class, people the income in this time of need other than pay off their debt (which is actually counter productive towards growth) and have increased savings (to historically high records for Americans…. Not a good sign for consumer confidence). If there were tax breaks towards the top 5% (which is approx at the $150k salary mark) we would see a much faster recovery, higher capital investment (even with a raised tax on capital gains, the rich are the ones who invest and investing is the proprietary foundation for the creation of new and sustainable jobs.
Plenty of economists agree that the $800 billion spent last spring did little or nothing for actual job creation. It BS imo to claim that economic recovery which is a cyclical occurrence is credited to a mere $800 billion stimulus… especially in a economy of $14 trillion GDP and one that had already bottomed out. Lending froze unnecessarily, we all know that due to the fact that credit is determined by faith in the economy as well as faith between the lender and debtor. I admit that lending improved between Feb 6th and Mar 6th on the Consumer m/m (measures monthly net change in outstanding credit) but credit levels are still dropping at historical levels ($-21.6 billion for the month of August alone?) I mean really… Obama’s effectiveness against credit lending was like throwing a rock at a tsunami. ISM Mfg PMI has been contracting all the way til Sept 1st and ISM Non-Mfg PMI didn’t post above 50 til October. As for unemployment? The non-mfg sector has yet to post a positive employment number since April of ’08, I think last month it was at -250k. Meaning the net change in unemployment was a loss of -250k jobs. Please tell me how job creation has occurred? The only time our unemployment rate has declined in the past 2 years was During the month of July when it dropped from %9.5 to %9.4, which since it has risen to 9.8% and expected to break 10% this week. There is no empirical evidence that his economic “stimulus” has actually done anything for the economy as a whole. Which means $800 billion wasted future taxpayers $$$ not to mention the feeding inflation (I’m not placing the sole blame on him because the Fed has its role but the difference is, the Fed is actually willing to combat inflation).
Expanded healthcare for children at what expense? You forget, there’s maybe 10 million uninsured people in the US. The 43 million you so ever incessantly hear about is inflated with the people who CHOOSE not to have health insurance. Take health economics (I forget which but its econ 4xxx), it will really open your eyes to the skew of both international and domestic health statistics and show you how much politicians will really lie to sell their ideals. Health is a choice, not a right and burden that the rest of society should carry. Not to mention this great “health” reform is cutting government health care to the elderly…. So lets see… cut out health insurance to the elderly, most of which are retired, to offer it to the majority of people who are capable of working full time and receiving full time benefits???? Logic never was Obama’s strong suit… he should stick to public speaking, he’d be more successful. You do realize that government instigated health insurance has a ripple effect against plenty of other sectors, not just health insurance (though the job loss in the health insurance sector certainly would increase). We would also see lower medical field pay (lower tax revenue across the entire industry), increased medical school subsidies just to sustain current levels of student intent. What you get is a whole lot of government spending, with largely detrimental effects. If you want a surefire way to make this economy worse than it is now in the long run, let the government choose your health plan. You want to know the way to bring down insurance premiums and make it far more affordable? Eliminate bullshit malpractice suits that are eating up our courts, judicial system, and raising our insurance premiums. The majority of malpractice suits (almost all of which are settled by insurance companies) are completely bogus and increase insurance costs of doctors (my mom was a nurse for a plastic surgeon who ran his own practice in seattle. Malpractice insurance cost him $80,000/year in premiums). Who do you think those additional costs get passed on to through the doctors rates? That’s right, the consumer’s insurance provider who in turn raises premiums to afford doctor rates. You throw out BS cases and we will see the medical industry maintain salaries (thus keeping consumer spending and tax revenues) and you will also see a drastic decrease in private premiums across the board. Thus making it more available to those who truly cannot afford it (rather than just doing a clean sweep even for those that don’t choose it).
As for troops, you misread way too much liberal media. We currently have over 120,000 troops in Iraq currently (http://usliberals.about.com/od/homel...raqNumbers.htm) its even a liberal source lol. All Obama has ever done (not just about Iraq but the majority of his platform too) is pledge to do things. He claimed to have troops out in 16 months, now its pull them out by Aug ’10 and leave 50,000 “non combat” troops behind… that’s over 1/3rd of what is currently there…. Is that really pulling them out or just downsizing it and labeling it different for the psychological effect on the masses. Not to mention he’s continually increasing troop count in Afghanistan… so its not like hes bringing them home at all (like he stated in his campaign), he is simply giving them a courtesy flight next door.
The economy I admit is growing but this is the first time since 2007 that we have seen growth in GDP (plenty of sectors are still down). The recession has run its course rather than anything Obama has actually done. And no expert ever expected the recession to be this long (3 years? I mean come on ffs) so entering into a recovery was simply a sigh of relief rather than an unexpected occurrence, not to mention we still have yet to see us strong enough to raise interest rates (something the fed is meeting on currently and will announce at 2:25 pm today). Complete support is aimed at keeping the rates <.25% meaning that people have yet to regain faith in the stability and foundation of the economy enough to bring interest rates back up (something that will happen in order to mitigate obscene inflation that this massive budget deficit is going to instigate).
While the coincidence is humorous in regards to the Obama SNL skit, I’ve been pointing at the fallacies in the Obama administration for months now. What happened to the promises of the campaign? Gitmo closed in 90 days? He has basically given up on that… talked about it for a few weeks, said “it was too hard, lets move on to other things, hopefully they forget what I said”. He also claimed to reduce the obscene power of the executive branch yet here we are seeing him expanding his reaches. I’m fine with politics, trust me I see both sides and actually come with mixed opinions on both parties but the thing I loathe the most is the obscene lack of integrity amongst those in Washington. Honestly I would have much rather seen someone such as Mitt Romney running instead of McCain. I truly believe last election was the lesser of two evils but the least that the victor could choose is to do something with long term productivity in mind, even if it doesn’t spur immediate results.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by eraser4g63
). If there was a simple straight-forward best answer to this though, there wouldn't be a health care debate in the first place.
