The Stimulus Seems to have failed

[BobTheDonkey]

Sigh. OK, you'll never say anything negative about the Republicans. Good thing to know.

Took you this long to figure that out?

 

[ideogram]

I did say I was a newbie.

 

[Dorian Gray]

Who is claiming that GOP representatives are above hypocrisy? Let's just stick to the facts and get the politics out of it. The Stimulus has been a bust.

Okay, let's look at the facts. You say it's a bust. 110 Republican representatives disagree with you. If they were saying it was a bust too, you'd be first in line to cite their condemnation.

Bush had a stimulus bill too. You're saying nothing about that bill whatsoever.

What was that you were saying about hypocrisy?

 

[BeAChooser]

OK, you'll never say anything negative about the Republicans.

Well, newbie, if you knew anything about my posting history, you'd know that is false.

I've criticized republicans on numerous occasions on this very forum.

And I was thrown off Free Republic, before coming here, ... for criticizing republicans.

Just because I think republicans are in favor of SMALLER government than democrats, doesn't mean I have *nothing* negative to say about republicans.

Any other false claims you want to toss out since your participation in this debate has now decended to that level?

 

[BeAChooser]

Okay, let's look at the facts. You say it's a bust. 110 Republican representatives disagree with you.

Well they are wrong. See? I can criticize republicans.

 

[ideogram]

Any other false claims you want to toss out since your participation in this debate has now decended to that level?

I believe you have the power to decide where the debate goes from here.

 

[BeAChooser]

I believe you have the power to decide where the debate goes from here.

No, actually the power is in your court since you've chosen to ignore most of the material I've posted to you.

Although you can be sure I will be pointing out further evidence of The Stimulus' failure.

 

[ideogram]

No, actually the power is in your court since you've chosen to ignore most of the material I've posted to you.

I respond to whatever interests me. I can't respond to everything.

I presume that you respond to whatever interests you. I see some things you haven't responded to.

 

[BeAChooser]

So ideogram, when are you going to wake up and realize that the Stimulus was a slush fund to reward Obama's friends and buy votes in future elections?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-08-redblue_N.htm

7/9/2010

Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election.

… snip …

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows.

 

[BeAChooser]

And in a true sign of desperation to pull attention away from the Stimulus failure, Obama is now spouting blatant hypocrisy like this ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100717/pl_nm/us_obama_republica

Obama casts Republicans as party of the rich

Here are the facts …

http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/2010/07/top-10-richest-us-lawmakers/

8 of the top 10 wealthiest members of Congress are Democrats

28 of the top 50 richest members of Congress are Democrats

Who's the richest?

1. Sen. John Kerry (D) … snip …
2. Rep. Darrell Issa (R) … snip …
3. Rep. Jane Harman (D) … snip …
4. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D) … snip …
5. Sen. Mark Warner (D) … snip ...
6. Rep. Jarred Polis (D) …snip …
7. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R) … snip ...
8. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) … snip ...
9. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) … snip ...
10. Rep. Harry Teague (D) … snip …

The hypocrisy is even more evident when you look at Obama. He's NEVER worked in private enterprise. He's been on the government dole all his life. And he's now VERY wealthy and STILL living off our dime.

 

[BeAChooser]

http://mayfieldeconclass.blogspot.com/2010/07/stimulus-failure.html

July 9, 2010

Stimulus Failure

In the world’s leading economy, 8 million jobs have been lost. The US government disappeared almost a million jobseekers from the unemployment lists in the last two months to try to make the numbers look better. Still, fewer people have jobs now than when the stimulus began. Those workers with jobs earn less than they did then. And those who lose their jobs wait longer than ever to find a new one. Housing is sinking again, too, with nearly half of all the mortgaged houses already worth less than their mortgages. Illinois has stopped paying its bills. California is laying people off wholesale...

Time to wake up and admit the obvious folks.

The Stimulus FAILED and more of the same isn't going to help. It is just going to make matter worse.

 

[BeAChooser]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq4YCbHBCl4 "Obama's 2009 EPIC FAIL of the year: JOBS JOBS, JOBS"

Ask yourself if the Stimulus met the stated expectations of ANY of the democrats (seen in this video) who spoke out in favor of the Stimulus Bill?

(Now of course it might have met the unstated expectations of these democrats ... see post #289. )

 

[jimbob]

I don't have much time to respond. But here we go:

2009-02-02: Advance 2008 Q4 Report: GDP at -3.8% (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/30/afx5987590.html)

2009-02-07: Stimulus Passed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Stimulus_Act_of_2008)

2009-02-27: Second 2008 Q4 Report: GDP revised to -6.1% (http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp408p.pdf)

And sometime shortly there after, it was revised down further to -6.3% (http://useconomy.about.com/od/economicindicators/a/GDP-statistics.htm)

Pretty big difference.



To understand why this recession is different, you need to look at the big picture:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=527&pictureid=3334[/qimg]

This graph depicts quarterly GDP, private investment, government spending and exports between 1970 and 2010. I didn't bother to add unemployment, because it wasn't immediately obvious how to do so, and we all know that losing 0.5 million jobs a month is pretty terrible.

This is the same graph from 1975 to 1985, so that you can get a bit better detail:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=527&pictureid=3335[/qimg]

To refer to our current situation as just another recession is a big mistake. I think these graphs pretty well demonstrate such. I think these graphs also demonstrate that for as bad as things got, and especially how quickly they were getting worse, we're not doing too bad.

Slight nitpick: Could you replot the data on a log-scale for the y-axis, so that proportional changes are the same throughout?

 

[BeAChooser]

Slight nitpick: Could you replot the data on a log-scale for the y-axis, so that proportional changes are the same throughout?

LOL! Now you're asking him to prove that I'm right.

 

[jimbob]

LOL! Now you're asking him to prove that I'm right.

I like to see facts and data presented in the most appropriate fashion.

It helps analysis

 

[ideogram]

So ideogram

I am pleased that I interest you so much.

Apparently you are shocked -- shocked! -- that federal spending involves pork.

I see the article you linked to says the total aid involved is $17 billion, out of $787 billion total, or about 2%. Also according to the article, this is only the first piece of the package.

Obama casts Republicans as party of the rich

Surely you don't expect everyone to forget that Republicans consistently advocate reducing taxes on the rich.

I guess you really do want to snow people, since I don't see how this is relevant to the stimulus.

Also, can we have less links to blogs? You know you can find a blog to say anything you want, right?

The Stimulus FAILED and more of the same isn't going to help. It is just going to make matter worse.

Again, bad predictions doesn't mean the stimulus will make things worse.

You are so proud of your "facts", but you refuse to acknowledge basic well-known facts, such as that the Republicans have lost all credibility as the party of fiscal responsibility. Of course you don't want to talk about the fact that Bush also signed a stimulus bill.

You can snow me with more "facts" than I have time to respond to, but cherry-picking facts is just another way to lie.

 

[Cavemonster]

And in a true sign of desperation to pull attention away from the Stimulus failure, Obama is now spouting blatant hypocrisy like this ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100717/pl_nm/us_obama_republica



Here are the facts …

http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/2010/07/top-10-richest-us-lawmakers/



The hypocrisy is even more evident when you look at Obama. He's NEVER worked in private enterprise. He's been on the government dole all his life. And he's now VERY wealthy and STILL living off our dime.

Your first link is broken, but if it's a statement like any other's made by Obama on the Republican party, it isn't a criticism of their members of congress for having money, but for serving the interests of the rich above those of the poor and middle class, and any trickle down republican will openly admit to that.

Neither Obama nor I give two craps about how much money senators and congressmen have, the problems are in how they vote.

And

STILL living off our dime.

is just ludicrous. Are you referring to his salary for being President?

 

[kevinquinnyo]

[...]

You are so proud of your "facts", but you refuse to acknowledge basic well-known facts, such as that the Republicans have lost all credibility as the party of fiscal responsibility. Of course you don't want to talk about the fact that Bush also signed a stimulus bill.

You can snow me with more "facts" than I have time to respond to, but cherry-picking facts is just another way to lie.

I don't think BeAChooser is lying by omission, as you suggest by presenting the facts that he has.

He's just making his case. If you disagree that the stimulus was a bust, then present some evidence to the contrary.

It appears that the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing toward the stimulus failing to achieve its stated goals.

 

[BeAChooser]

I see the article you linked to says the total aid involved is $17 billion, out of $787 billion total, or about 2%.

I think you misunderstood the article. That $17 billion "is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally." Don't just look at it as $17 billion out of $787 billion, but as a sampling of where the $787 billion is going. A sample that doesn't bode well for the rest.

Surely you don't expect everyone to forget that Republicans consistently advocate reducing taxes on the rich.

Apparently you forget why they do that. And we again must look to history to understand that (but then democrats never seem to want to do that, do they?). History shows that increasing taxes on the wealthy above a certain amount is counterproductive to economic growth and reduces total tax revenues. Haven't you ever heard of the famous Laffer curve?

Lowering the taxes (unless they are already low) stimulates an economy, and overall creates more wealth which benefits everyone. History shows that reducing taxes on the wealthy from the rates that democrats advocate results in more wealth and more revenue for government. One would think that as often as that has played out in real world cases that by now democrats would accept that.

But democrats NEVER learn. Despite the fact they need only read the Wikipedia article on the Laffer curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve ) which points out that during Reagan's presidency, the top marginal rate in the US fell from 70% to 28%, yet overall tax revenue went up. Wikipedia points out that when Laffer showed the curve to Russia and the Baltic states, they instituted lower tax rates and their economies took off. Other examples Wikipedia names are the "Kemp-Roth tax act, the Kennedy tax cuts, the 1920s tax cuts and the changes in the US capital gains tax structure in 1997." And it points out that "US federal revenues, as a percentage of GDP, have remained stable at about 19.5% over the period 1950 to 2007 despite significant changes in margin tax rates."

The bottom line is that increasing taxes on the wealthy above a certain point gains the US nothing and generally hurts the overall economy. So it would appear that democrats are discarding logic and economic experience merely to gain a political advantage based on the fact that there are more non-rich then rich people and the fact we have a one person/one vote system. Doing that is almost as despicable as selling Communist China access to restricted technology and secrets for campaign cash (which the Clinton administration did).

Here, for your edification:

http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm

The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis. Furthermore, the key assumption of static revenue analysis that economic growth is not affected by tax changes is disproved by the experience of previous tax reduction programs. There is little reason to expect static revenue analysis to evaluate the economic or distributional effects of current tax reform proposals much better than it evaluated the Reagan tax program 15 years ago.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2003/08/The-Historical-Lessons-of-Lower-Tax-Rates

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates

There is a distinct pattern throughout American history: When tax rates are reduced, the economy's growth rate improves and living standards increase. Good tax policy has a number of interesting side effects. For instance, history tells us that tax revenues grow and "rich" taxpayers pay more tax when marginal tax rates are slashed. This means lower income citizens bear a lower share of the tax burden - a consequence that should lead class-warfare politicians to support lower tax rates.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/01/Ten-Myths-About-the-Bush-Tax-Cuts

Ten Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts

Not that you'll take the trouble to read any of that.

Again, bad predictions doesn't mean the stimulus will make things worse.

I already addressed this claim of yours in post #259. My response is some of the material you simply chose to ignore. So here's a truism for you. Repeating lies and nonsense over and over doesn't make it true. (Although sometimes I think democrat leaders and the liberal media think it does, because they've managed to fool their gullible base for a long time using just that dishonest tactic). You looking to advance in the organization?

but you refuse to acknowledge basic well-known facts, such as that the Republicans have lost all credibility as the party of fiscal responsibility.

LOL! You not only ignore the lessons of history, you don't even manage to keep up with the current news. Sounds to me like you're just a typical democrat, ignoring the fact that Obama and the democrats have now tripled the deficit and doubled the projected 10 year national debt after just 2 years in power ... with no end to such irresponsibility in sight. I certainly acknowledge that republicans lost quite a bit of their credibility where fiscal responsibility is concerned when they let democrats walk all over them during the last Bush adminstration, but according to recent polls …

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues

July 2, 2010

Voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of 10 key issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

The latest national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows voters trust Republicans more by a 48% to 39% margin on the economy, an issue that has consistently been the most important among voters for several years.

I'd say it's primarily democrats who now have a credibility problem, despite all the current spin in the MSM claiming that Americans trust democrats more to fix the economy. I think you're going to find out how false that claim is come November.

And by the way, republican voters have already kicked some of the republicans who were fiscally irresponsble to the street in the primaries. Any indication that democrats did the same? Not that I've heard.

 

[BeAChooser]

Your first link is broken

Here, try this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100717/ts_nm/us_obama_republicans_3

but if it's a statement like any other's made by Obama on the Republican party, it isn't a criticism of their members of congress for having money, but for serving the interests of the rich above those of the poor and middle class, and any trickle down republican will openly admit to that.

That later part is untrue. In fact, just read my last post to ideogram and you'll see where you went wrong in your logic.

Also, the first part is untrue. Obama's stated reasoning in calling the GOP the party of the rich is that the GOP has block efforts to extend unemployment benefits, thus hurting those who lost their jobs (with the presumption they are all poor).

The reality is that he's just passing the buck for his trillion dollar Stimulus effort being a Total Failure. He's just using the typical class envy and class warfare tactic that democrats pull out every time one of their ill-conceived economic schemes doesn't work and they need to firm up their gullible political base.

Obama is also lying again because he neglects to mention that all the republicans have asked for before agreeing to an extension is "pay-as-you-go" (paygo), an approach which Obama had previously praised. Republicans asked the democrats to either cut somewhere or raise revenues to pay for unemployment benefits. Obama refused. He claims he's fighting spending yet does nothing to actually fight spending. He's a liar.

Quote:
STILL living off our dime.

is just ludicrous. Are you referring to his salary for being President?

And the free house. And free cars. And free planes. And all the other perks that come with being His Majesty. You just don't get it, do you?