On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
I've heard Obama called a lot of names running the whole gambit of "*insert string of socialist/racial slurs*" to "the second coming of the messiah." Never once have I heard him be called a moderate.
If it stays quiet, it's fine. If it gets big, it'll be disastrous. The current version we're seeing during the primaries is pretty artificial and controlled by Republican leadership. If it branches out on its own, possibly now or in 2012, it'll undercut Republican candidates.
The Republican Party is astroturfing Tea Partiers...
...Astroturfing candidates that then go around unseating incumbent Republicans in primaries.
Call them uneducated cretins or whatever current liberals call whoever disagrees with them, but to argue that the Republican evil machine created the Tea Party is pretty untenable.
Democrats leaned too far to the center.
Haven't looked at the recent polls, but have they leaned so far to the center that a majority of those polled now favor full repeal of PPACA?
(apologies, I'm bad at quoting, but this seems to be about the last substantive post before everything got derailed into some curious hypothetical study of communism)
Republican party IMO needs to be cleansed entirely of neoconservatives (hacks who support wasteful and costly nation-building wars in the middle east, that aren't even in US national interest) and must once again come to represent ideas that reflect actual conservatism, such a the ones of this brilliant man: http://www.buchanan.org/blog/equality-or-freedom-4501
On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
The President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The President announced the “Making Home Affordable” home refinancing plan. The President launched a $15 billion plan to boost lending to small businesses. The President and Secretary Geithner announced the details of the Financial Stability Plan. President Obama played a lead role in G-20 Summit that produced a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the global financial crisis. The President signed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act which gives the federal government more tools to investigate and prosecute fraud, from lending to the financial system, and creates a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the financial practices that brought us to this point. The President signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, expanding on the Making Home Affordable Program to help millions of Americans avoid preventable foreclosures, providing $2.2 billion to help combat homelessness , and helping to stabilize the housing market for everybody. The President signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act to protect Americans from unfair and deceptive credit card practices.
Civil Rights
The President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers.
Disabilities
The President issued an Executive Order repealing the Bush-Era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The President signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, the first piece of comprehensive legislation aimed at improving the lives of Americans living with paralysis.
Fiscal Responsibility
The President signed an Executive Order on government contracting to fight waste and abuse. The President launched Recovery.gov to track spending from the Recovery Act, an unprecedented step to provide transparency and accountability through technology. The President wrote to the congressional leadership calling on them to pass statutory Pay-As-You-Go rules so that any new non-emergency tax cut or entitlement expansion offset in the budget. The President signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act to stop fraud and wasteful spending in the defense procurement and contracting system.
Immigration
The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured — and removes barriers preventing legal immigrant children from being covered. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides over $400 million in funds to strengthen security and infrastructure for ports of entry on the Southwest border.
Service
The President signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a hallmark piece of legislation. The Serve America Act will increase the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 volunteers to 250,000 by 2017. The Act also creates a Social Innovation Fund that will invest in ideas that are proven to improve outcomes and “what works” funds in federal agencies to promote effective and innovative programs
Taxes
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included a broad range of tax cuts aimed at making the tax code more fair and supporting the middle class:
95% of all working families will receive a tax cut 70% of the tax benefits goes to the middle 60% of American workers 2 million families will be lifted out of poverty by the tax cuts in the Recovery Act More than $150 billion in tax cuts will help low-income and vulnerable households during the economic recovery About 1 Million jobs will be created or saved by these tax cuts alone
If you follow the link there is a little bit more regarding government transparency and urban development.
As you can see, Obama is done a lot - no he hasn't closed Guantanamo, nor has he ended DADT, two major failings IMO, but to say he has done nothing means you aren't paying attention.
Regarding Clinton's success, he was president at a time where it seemed, there republicans willing to play ball with his proposals - nothing like that exists in this administration. Every single thing proposed by the democrats and Obama is opposed and filibustered. Republicans have voted against bills THEY proposed because the Democrats liked the proposal.
As a Canadian I really enjoy watching American politics and almost everything that occurs in your nation will have an impact on mine, it just saddens me to see the tea party and the current form of republicans as the national opposition.
Wouldn't it be easier to say that Republicans were more Moderate during Clinton's years, look at Gingrich and how he has gone mental in order to test the waters for a Presidential bid.
On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
60 democrats in the senate does not imply they will all agree to vote to end any given filibuster, especially given the spectrum of ideology you can find amongst the members of any party.. You always have to placate both sides. It was never 60 democrats entirely aligned with Obama heading his beckon call.
The GOP has taken the blame everything on Obama position, while opposing almost all Obama legislation. This is why nothing has happened.
Bad economy? Obama Bad health care? Obama No jobs? Obama Oil spill? Obama Herpes? Obama
I might be drunkposting tonight a bit too much, but chiming in to agree that Obama's done quite a lot.
I don't see "waves hands, bends economic law, and bestows affordable healthcare to all Americans"/PPACA on this list. Then again, saving all of America's children from dying of disease hasn't been a much politically advertised subject, because it is clear that America is full of irrational ingrates.
You can also add a Nobel Peace Prize, an area in which he crushed competition through all his efforts to promote peace in certain areas of the world. Obama also should have won the Heisman Trophy.
Also the stimulus plan did save the economy, and just because people complain about a nebulous "jobs saved or created" metric doesn't mean this in any way detracts from its success, because there are good economic models for measuring what could have happened if there hadn't been a stimulus.
You know, like:
Stimulus accounting is an honorable profession, and clearly not a case of just making numbers up.
The TC talks about the tea party like they are a little aside, when in fact the three questions he's asking are entirely related to the tea party movement.
Because the tea party represents the section of the republican party that froths at the mouth when subjects like abortion and sex education come up (and I really don't think that's an unfair characterization - these are mostly stupid, backwards people with little to no formal education beyond what is mandatory), and because I suspect the tea party will come to dominate the progressive elements of the GOP, social issues are the new big thing.
That's not to say that useful and pertinent social issues (like, say, healthcare or infrastructure spending) will be the focus, just the useless stuff like working our very hardest to make sure the gays get a reminder that they ain't welcome hurrr, see?
As for why they are polling well, people are poorer than ever, and they're goddamn angry about it. McCain was going to beat Obama in a landslide before the economy imploded. He was top dog, and he ate **** because something went wrong on his watch (sort of).
As for the future of the GOP, the next few years will see real republicans fighting for control of their party against the maniacs and lunatics who waste our time and money on stupid debates like making sure stem cell research stays back in the 1990s instead of worrying about real issues like energy and industry.
On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
The President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The President announced the “Making Home Affordable” home refinancing plan. The President launched a $15 billion plan to boost lending to small businesses. The President and Secretary Geithner announced the details of the Financial Stability Plan. President Obama played a lead role in G-20 Summit that produced a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the global financial crisis. The President signed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act which gives the federal government more tools to investigate and prosecute fraud, from lending to the financial system, and creates a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the financial practices that brought us to this point. The President signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, expanding on the Making Home Affordable Program to help millions of Americans avoid preventable foreclosures, providing $2.2 billion to help combat homelessness , and helping to stabilize the housing market for everybody. The President signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act to protect Americans from unfair and deceptive credit card practices.
Civil Rights
The President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers.
Disabilities
The President issued an Executive Order repealing the Bush-Era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The President signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, the first piece of comprehensive legislation aimed at improving the lives of Americans living with paralysis.
Fiscal Responsibility
The President signed an Executive Order on government contracting to fight waste and abuse. The President launched Recovery.gov to track spending from the Recovery Act, an unprecedented step to provide transparency and accountability through technology. The President wrote to the congressional leadership calling on them to pass statutory Pay-As-You-Go rules so that any new non-emergency tax cut or entitlement expansion offset in the budget. The President signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act to stop fraud and wasteful spending in the defense procurement and contracting system.
Immigration
The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured — and removes barriers preventing legal immigrant children from being covered. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides over $400 million in funds to strengthen security and infrastructure for ports of entry on the Southwest border.
Service
The President signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a hallmark piece of legislation. The Serve America Act will increase the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 volunteers to 250,000 by 2017. The Act also creates a Social Innovation Fund that will invest in ideas that are proven to improve outcomes and “what works” funds in federal agencies to promote effective and innovative programs
Taxes
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included a broad range of tax cuts aimed at making the tax code more fair and supporting the middle class:
95% of all working families will receive a tax cut 70% of the tax benefits goes to the middle 60% of American workers 2 million families will be lifted out of poverty by the tax cuts in the Recovery Act More than $150 billion in tax cuts will help low-income and vulnerable households during the economic recovery About 1 Million jobs will be created or saved by these tax cuts alone
If you follow the link there is a little bit more regarding government transparency and urban development.
As you can see, Obama is done a lot - no he hasn't closed Guantanamo, nor has he ended DADT, two major failings IMO, but to say he has done nothing means you aren't paying attention.
Regarding Clinton's success, he was president at a time where it seemed, there republicans willing to play ball with his proposals - nothing like that exists in this administration. Every single thing proposed by the democrats and Obama is opposed and filibustered. Republicans have voted against bills THEY proposed because the Democrats liked the proposal.
As a Canadian I really enjoy watching American politics and almost everything that occurs in your nation will have an impact on mine, it just saddens me to see the tea party and the current form of republicans as the national opposition.
Cheers!
In addition, while Clinton was in power, he had the line item veto. (It was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court later). What it meant, was that Clinton could veto parts of legislation, rather than the whole thing.
Remember the fiasco a few months back when the bill to compensate 9/11 heroes for health trouble was defeated, because the democrats were afraid that republicans would insert a provision barring illegal immigrants from receiving the compensation? If Obama had had line item veto, he could have simply stripped out that provision come signing time.
The line item veto was extremely significant with respect to the federal surplus during the later part of his presidency, because it meant that he could strip out earmark spending with ease. By vetoing a billion here, a billion there, it soon added up to real money.
On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
The President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The President announced the “Making Home Affordable” home refinancing plan. The President launched a $15 billion plan to boost lending to small businesses. The President and Secretary Geithner announced the details of the Financial Stability Plan. President Obama played a lead role in G-20 Summit that produced a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the global financial crisis. The President signed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act which gives the federal government more tools to investigate and prosecute fraud, from lending to the financial system, and creates a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the financial practices that brought us to this point. The President signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, expanding on the Making Home Affordable Program to help millions of Americans avoid preventable foreclosures, providing $2.2 billion to help combat homelessness , and helping to stabilize the housing market for everybody. The President signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act to protect Americans from unfair and deceptive credit card practices.
Civil Rights
The President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers.
Disabilities
The President issued an Executive Order repealing the Bush-Era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The President signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, the first piece of comprehensive legislation aimed at improving the lives of Americans living with paralysis.
Fiscal Responsibility
The President signed an Executive Order on government contracting to fight waste and abuse. The President launched Recovery.gov to track spending from the Recovery Act, an unprecedented step to provide transparency and accountability through technology. The President wrote to the congressional leadership calling on them to pass statutory Pay-As-You-Go rules so that any new non-emergency tax cut or entitlement expansion offset in the budget. The President signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act to stop fraud and wasteful spending in the defense procurement and contracting system.
Immigration
The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured — and removes barriers preventing legal immigrant children from being covered. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides over $400 million in funds to strengthen security and infrastructure for ports of entry on the Southwest border.
Service
The President signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a hallmark piece of legislation. The Serve America Act will increase the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 volunteers to 250,000 by 2017. The Act also creates a Social Innovation Fund that will invest in ideas that are proven to improve outcomes and “what works” funds in federal agencies to promote effective and innovative programs
Taxes
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included a broad range of tax cuts aimed at making the tax code more fair and supporting the middle class:
95% of all working families will receive a tax cut 70% of the tax benefits goes to the middle 60% of American workers 2 million families will be lifted out of poverty by the tax cuts in the Recovery Act More than $150 billion in tax cuts will help low-income and vulnerable households during the economic recovery About 1 Million jobs will be created or saved by these tax cuts alone
If you follow the link there is a little bit more regarding government transparency and urban development.
As you can see, Obama is done a lot - no he hasn't closed Guantanamo, nor has he ended DADT, two major failings IMO, but to say he has done nothing means you aren't paying attention.
Regarding Clinton's success, he was president at a time where it seemed, there republicans willing to play ball with his proposals - nothing like that exists in this administration. Every single thing proposed by the democrats and Obama is opposed and filibustered. Republicans have voted against bills THEY proposed because the Democrats liked the proposal.
As a Canadian I really enjoy watching American politics and almost everything that occurs in your nation will have an impact on mine, it just saddens me to see the tea party and the current form of republicans as the national opposition.
Cheers!
In addition, while Clinton was in power, he had the line item veto. (It was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court later). What it meant, was that Clinton could veto parts of legislation, rather than the whole thing.
Remember the fiasco a few months back when the bill to compensate 9/11 heroes for health trouble was defeated, because the democrats were afraid that republicans would insert a provision barring illegal immigrants from receiving the compensation? If Obama had had line item veto, he could have simply stripped out that provision come signing time.
The line item veto was extremely significant with respect to the federal surplus during the later part of his presidency, because it meant that he could strip out earmark spending with ease. By vetoing a billion here, a billion there, it soon added up to real money.
To be fair Clinton had the line-item veto for less than 2 years, from '96 to '98. Not saying it didn't matter, but he certainly managed to do stuff without it.
On September 27 2010 11:56 VonLego wrote: I've heard Obama called a lot of names running the whole gambit of "*insert string of socialist/racial slurs*" to "the second coming of the messiah." Never once have I heard him be called a moderate.
But that is precisely the problem, is it not? Those on the right vilify him as being some devilish mixture of Marx/Mao, while those on the left decry that he has not taken more liberal positions. He is in truth a left leaning centrist and so catches flak from both sides at once.
On September 27 2010 03:25 Kimaker wrote: The situation is far too complex to be able to sum up with "uneducated American's joined the Tea Party Movement", that is both unfair, and highly inaccurate.
On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
The GOP has taken the blame everything on Obama position, while opposing almost all Obama legislation. This is why nothing has happened.
Bad economy? Obama Bad health care? Obama No jobs? Obama Oil spill? Obama Herpes? Obama
Are you suggesting that wasn't the case for President Bush? Or any president during the last century. That is part of the job. People will make you take the blame for bad things that are happening (like the BP oil spill...its not like Obama caused it but it hurt him) and give you credit for things that went well (big economic boom driven by internet business proliferation during the Clinton years).
Certainly nothing new here.
And I don't think anyone who paid any attention at all in the '90s would say that Republicans were nicer to Clinton than they are to Obama. Clinton's presidency was failing (it appeared in many ways like Obama's right now), and they lost control of congess in the midterms (a possibility in 2010 as well) and Clinton responded by moving significantly to the middle and passing a lot of moderate/conservative bills.
Whether Obama will do that or not will, I think, decide whether or not he will be a 2 term President. Because he certainly isn't on the "2-term" path right now.
Obama almost certainly will not be elected to a second-term. He's losing control of his own party as the far left complains he does nothing and the moderates realize they've elected a socialist elitist who cares nothing about the average joe.
Democrats are becoming very fragmented as the white house seeks to turtle in its own shell directing blame for its faults at everyone else, leaving congressmen to fend for themselves for this upcoming election.
Look at the policies of the Obama administration. Look at the debt. Look at the continued job losses.
You cannot simply say "Obama is trying so hard but republicans aren't letting them do anything!"
Obama did try. He failed. His policies have no academic merit and are completely political moves, designed to make him look better by throwing money at the problem. Such is the hyperliberal way. People just don't seem to grasp that you can't spend money forever with no consequence.
Fiscal conservatism, responsibility, and no more free handouts - that's the true republican party. If someone runs on that, they will win 100%. They don't even have to be well qualified politically. It's about returning this country from a hyperliberal track to its roots.
I believe that people need to value hard work and smart choices. I don't like affirmative action, bailouts, and welfare. I don't like free healthcare. I don't like handouts. I don't think any hard working American does. People don't like to work hard and see other people slack off and get the same benefits. It's not what America is about and it's not what we stand for as a country. Welfare has its place, but it's gone overboard and gotten out of hand, and no long does the gov't serve to protect, but it serves to provide.
On September 27 2010 08:05 thedeadhaji wrote: If someone asks me, "what has this administration accomplished in the last 2 years?", I can only really respond with ... 'nothing?'
It would be miraculous if everything was fixed in 2 years given the situation when he took office.
I think what thedeadhaji was saying was that it would be nice if he had fixed ANYTHING. Fixing everything is way too much but fixing something would be nice.
Secondly, he has the most full blown partisan opposition imaginable. Republicans are currently filibustering his every proposal, despite his centrist positions. Yet Obama is the one to take the political blame for things not being accomplished.
Why could Bill Clinton get 10 times more accomplished with a Republican-controlled congress than Obama could while he held a filibuster proof majority?
I HOPE you realize that Bill Clinton tried to get similar health care legislation passed... and failed, right?
Also it's damn hard when your "filibuster proof majority" is EXACTLY 60 people and you need EVERY SINGLE member of your party (which is more opinion-diverse than the other party) to be on board.
On September 27 2010 21:36 xxpack09 wrote: I HOPE you realize that Bill Clinton tried to get similar health care legislation passed... and failed, right?
Also it's damn hard when your "filibuster proof majority" is EXACTLY 60 people and you need EVERY SINGLE member of your party (which is more opinion-diverse than the other party) to be on board.
dont forget that this number includes independent democrates like joe lieberman, who's not a democrat at all but more often than not joining the ranks of conservative sellouts.
EPT![[image loading]](http://tutorsquill.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/stimulus-vs-unemployment-september-dots.png)
