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Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

Tony Stark said:
Now that passed anyway without them, and despite Republican lies, it did help in the recovery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/u...ed-the-economy.html?ref=topics&abt=0002&abg=0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...nds-stimulus/2012/06/06/gJQAnFnjJV_story.html
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Asking whether or not the stimulus helped is the wrong question. Of course it helped. When the economy is in a deep recession, a stimulus in some form is better than nothing. But there were alternatives to doing nothing. A smarter stimulus, that directed money to places where it could be spent quickly as opposed to shovel-ready projects which didn't exist, would have been better. Transfer payments in the form of refundable tax credits would have been better. Tax cuts would have been better (a wage tax holiday would have been the best probably). The stimulus was bad because it represented a lost opportunity to do something better. And it would have been trivial to do something better. What thought did Obama even put into its design anyway? All he did was agree to sign whatever Democratic Christmas wish list that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid put in from of him and then head off to the golf course.
 
Tony Stark said:
http://ourfuture.org/20140923/the-cost-to-our-economy-from-republican-obstruction-and-sabotage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...d-the-senate-if-it-didnt-have-the-filibuster/
http://www.mic.com/articles/11510/s...-jobs-bill-face-backlash-from-american-public
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/09/cost-our-economy-republican-obstruction
http://johnsvor.blogspot.com/2010/10/31-bills-republicans-have-blocked-in.html
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This is just a bunch of random stuff. There are banking reform bills in there and campaign finance reform bills and all kinds of stuff that Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree on. I can't do your work for you. Pick something that would clearly have helped the economy that the Republicans blocked out of spite. If all you can find are policies on which there is legitimate disagreement, then it doesn't really count, does it? Just as one example, Democrats claimed that unemployment extensions helped the economy. Republicans claimed that they hurt the economy. Now that the Republicans finally got their chance to block them at the end of 2013, the evidence is coming in that the Republicans were right. On the minimum wage, Republicans honestly believe that raising the minimum wage will hurt employment. I agree. They're not blocking a minimum wage hike to hurt Obama. Quite the opposite actually.
 
I know this will fall on deaf ears, but most Republicans, in their heart of hearts, also want what's best for the country, and are not, in general, of lesser intelligence than Democrats.

There's real concern about the long term effects of runaway debt. Regardless of what started the ball rolling, we may have missed the last opportunity to rein in spending and prevent dire consequences down the road.

The nation's debt was 10.6 trillion when Obama took office. It's now over 18 trillion. Maybe that's cause for concern, maybe not. History will judge.

In any case, I think either party painting the other as idiots is, well, idiotic.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Asking whether or not the stimulus helped is the wrong question. Of course it helped. When the economy is in a deep recession, a stimulus in some form is better than nothing. But there were alternatives to doing nothing. A smarter stimulus, that directed money to places where it could be spent quickly as opposed to shovel-ready projects which didn't exist, would have been better. Transfer payments in the form of refundable tax credits would have been better. Tax cuts would have been better (a wage tax holiday would have been the best probably). The stimulus was bad because it represented a lost opportunity to do something better. And it would have been trivial to do something better. What thought did Obama even put into its design anyway? All he did was agree to sign whatever Democratic Christmas wish list that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid put in from of him and then head off to the golf course.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009#Tax_incentives

Given the fact that tax cuts were the biggest part of of the stimulus package, do you still object? Do you think that Republicans opposed it for policy reasons?


sunmaster14 said:
This is just a bunch of random stuff. There are banking reform bills in there and campaign finance reform bills and all kinds of stuff that Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree on. I can't do your work for you. Pick something that would clearly have helped the economy that the Republicans blocked out of spite. If all you can find are policies on which there is legitimate disagreement, then it doesn't really count, does it? Just as one example, Democrats claimed that unemployment extensions helped the economy. Republicans claimed that they hurt the economy. Now that the Republicans finally got their chance to block them at the end of 2013, the evidence is coming in that the Republicans were right. On the minimum wage, Republicans honestly believe that raising the minimum wage will hurt employment. I agree. They're not blocking a minimum wage hike to hurt Obama. Quite the opposite actually.
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My point was that they blocked everything they could. And since they decided before hand to do everything they possibly could to make the President a failure, it is perfectly reasonable to to conclude that this is what they were doing. This isn't to say that they disagreed on policy on some of it too, but the using the filibuster on everything was not a normal practice before Obama.

As for something specific, Obama proposed the Americans Job Act. It was another stimulus package that was mostly tax relief. But Republicans blocked it.

They also blocked a jobs bill for veterans. It wouldn't have had a huge affect on the overall economy given the small amount. I don't believe for one second that they blocked it because they disagreed on the merits. They just didn't want to give Obama a win.
 
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Tax cuts are a terrible option for stimulus. I think it pays out at 20% return. Transfer payments have a multiplicative effect and maybe infrastructure spending was the best bet.
 
Tony Stark said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009#Tax_incentives

Given the fact that tax cuts were the biggest part of of the stimulus package, do you still object? Do you think that Republicans opposed it for policy reasons?





My point was that they blocked everything they could. And since they decided before hand to do everything they possibly could to make the President a failure, it is perfectly reasonable to to conclude that this is what they were doing. This isn't to say that they disagreed on policy on some of it too, but the using the filibuster on everything was not a normal practice before Obama.

As for something specific, Obama proposed the Americans Job Act. It was another stimulus package that was mostly tax relief. But Republicans blocked it.

They also blocked a jobs bill for veterans. It wouldn't have had a huge affect on the overall economy given the small amount. I don't believe for one second that they blocked it because they disagreed on the merits. They just didn't want to give Obama a win.
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I'm pretty sure you'll next hear all the "good" reasons Republicans blocked them. So the retort will move from what did they block to they had good reasons for blocking.

KJODS

Knee Jerk Obama Derangement Syndrome.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I know this will fall on deaf ears, but most Republicans, in their heart of hearts, also want what's best for the country, and are not, in general, of lesser intelligence than Democrats.

There's real concern about the long term effects of runaway debt. Regardless of what started the ball rolling, we may have missed the last opportunity to rein in spending and prevent dire consequences down the road.

The nation's debt was 10.6 trillion when Obama took office. It's now over 18 trillion. Maybe that's cause for concern, maybe not. History will judge.

In any case, I think either party painting the other as idiots is, well, idiotic.
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Adding trillions of dollars to the national debt was unavoidable given that he was left with a $1.5T deficit (which has been cut by 2/3) by his Republican successor. There was simply no way to do it without extreme cuts in spending. Which would have been an extremely stupid thing to do in the midst of a recession. In fact, doing so would have almost certainly have turned it into a full blow depression.
 
DavidJames said:
I'm pretty sure you'll next hear all the "good" reasons Republicans blocked them. So the retort will move from what did they block to they had good reasons for blocking.
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Ahh again, because they didn't have anything to do with helping the economy. It again was as Sunmaster pointed out a Pelosi/Reid wish list.
 
Tony Stark said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009#Tax_incentives

Given the fact that tax cuts were the biggest part of of the stimulus package, do you still object? Do you think that Republicans opposed it for policy reasons?
Click to expand...

The wage tax cut was good, although not nearly big enough. The AMT tax cut was meh. It has almost no effect on incentives because almost nobody understands what their marginal tax rate is under the AMT. Also, it doesn't put money back into taxpayers' hands until they file their tax return, and the numbers in Turbotax miraculously turn out to be lower than they had expected.

Almost all of the other so-called tax cuts are really just forms of spending. In recent decades, it has become a common political tactic to design spending or subsidies as tax credits or rebates (e.g. the tax credit for buying a electric vehicle). This is obviously not a tax cut in its economic effect. If it doesn't reduce the tax burden on economic activity which is being discouraged by a tax (e.g. work), then it's not really a tax cut.
 
Tony Stark said:
So you know better than economists about what helped the economy?
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If you ask economists for a simple answer, they'll give you a simple answer. Any economic model will tell you that increased government spending, or tax cuts, will lead to higher GDP and lower unemployment in the short term. It's practically a tautology. Most economists are responding to these questions in that light. If you asked them whether the stimulus, or various other economic policies of Obama, were the best solutions available at the time, then I think you would see a lot more dissent.
 
sunmaster14 said:
If you ask economists for a simple answer, they'll give you a simple answer. Any economic model will tell you that increased government spending, or tax cuts, will lead to higher GDP and lower unemployment in the short term. It's practically a tautology. Most economists are responding to these questions in that light. If you asked them whether the stimulus, or various other economic policies of Obama, were the best solutions available at the time, then I think you would see a lot more dissent.
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Yes, many would say that the stimulus should have been much bigger. Paul Krugman was saying so back in 2009. That's not what Republicans were saying.

Also, logger was asking what Obama did to improve the economy not whether what he did was the best possible solution. The fact of the matter is that the stimulus bill was one of the first things that he signed into law and, as economists agree, it helped the economy in some relatively dire times.
 
Health-care law will cost taxpayers less than expected, CBO says (Washington Post)

President Obama’s health-care law will cost taxpayers substantially less than previously estimated, congressional budget officials said Monday, in an upbeat note for a program that has faced withering criticism since its passage five years ago.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office attributed the savings to spending on medical care in coming years that will not be as great as previously forecast. As a result, the agency said, insurers are not expected to charge Americans as much for coverage, and the government will save on subsidies for low- and moderate-income people.

What’s more, the CBO has concluded that companies are not canceling health insurance policies as often as had been anticipated earlier this year. Fewer Americans consequently are planning to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, generating more taxpayer savings.

In total, the health-care law will cost taxpayers $142 billion, or 11 percent, less over the next decade than estimated in January. The cost of providing subsidies for people to buy insurance on the state and federal marketplaces — the centerpiece of the law — will be 20 percent lower than projected.
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