blackaeronaut Wrote:Prove to me that McCain-Palin would have done a better job and I might take your argument more seriously. Sure, they would have had an easier time getting shit done once the Republicans swept the House of Representatives, but the shit that would have been accomplished probably wouldn't have been what this country needed. (Seriously, the Republicans' idea of how to save the budget... WTF?) For the mistakes Obama made, I'd gladly take them in exchange for stopping the recession dead in it's tracks.B.A. As Logan noted we're still mired in a recession. And to tell the truth at this point it is an open question if the MacCain-Palin would have done any worse than the Obama admin has to date. I'll also note that the main reason the Republicans swept the last elections is that the Democrats in Congress pushed ahead with a lot of really unpopular projects which pissed of a good swathe of the electorate. Nor for the matter did they address some of the big issues behind the financial and housing maket crisis these namely being IMO.
a.) Banks that are too large for their own good and which if they collapse quite literally break the depositor protection insurance systems. Quite frankly it would have been beter to break up the large national banks into smaller regional banks with a strict upper limit at how large a bank could be.
b.) Overly close relations between legislators and Goverment sponsored Entities. A situation that has not changed in the least. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae despite being quasi government run enterprises where literally buying off the political powers that be to ensure that oversight would be easygoing.
Quite frankly the close relations between former Senator Dodd and the financial sector makes any law with his name on it suspect. (Yes this is the same Dodd who currently is a paid shill for both RIAA and MPAA who also warned that any legislator who opposed SOPA would face consequences.) As with the large banks Fannie and Freddie need to be broken up into smaller regional banks.
Let me point out some of the major screwups.
-Cash for clunkers was basically a waste of money.
-The Economic stimulus package that was so loaded with pork and did not generate anywhere near the amount of economuic benefit or jobs it was claimed that it would do.
-TARP which still hasn't paid off.
-The entire green jobs fiasco which was a nice idea on paper, the execution of it was inept at best if not curiminally corrupt see what happened with Solyndra. Quite frankly they would have gotten more bang for the environmental buck by building 100 new nuclear reactors. I'm all for clean energy but can we at least do the math as to which solutions will genrate the most benefits.
-High speed rail issue which will if executed literally become a financial blackhole for California (As if Claifornia isn't already mired deeply in a self inflicted fiscal crisis.
-As for the deficit issue it needs to be addressed. Despite the claim that raising taxes on the rich will help control it as sooon as anybody does the math of actually doing so the gains are only amount to 2-5% increase in revenue which is nowhere near what would be needed to address the deficit. To tell the truth it is necessary to cut the U.S. budget and so far the administration has not in the least made any serius attempt at doing so.
Take a hard look at the situation in Europe with the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy Greese & Spain) in which the bills for all the years of taxing selective Peter to pay collective Paul plus borrowing from Alice (Banks) to keep the collective Paul from rioting have all come due with there are no more Peters to tax as there are no longer any to tax and Alice is no longer willing to lend money because she isn't sure she will get it back. Greece being the worst off of the pack with a public sector that has literally taxed the private sector out of existance.
The U.S. isn't that far from ending up in the same boat as the PIIGS but for us the solution will probably be along the lines of lets inflate the hell out of our currency and thus devalue the debts we owe.
I could keep on going but I'm going to cut off here...
--Werehawk--
My mom's brief take on upcoming Guatemalan Elections "In last throes of preelection activities. Much loudspeaker vote pleading."