The Observation Deck

So much for change!

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While I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues to bring down the price tag of this bill, the fact is we still face a trillion dollar spending bill. Making it worse, the bill is 93% spending and only 7% stimulation. Over the past few days I have fought to include more in the way of real stimulus through higher percentage of infrastructure and defense spending, while working to cut much of the typical government waste often found in a bill of this size. Yet Democrats have blocked these efforts.

"The good news tonight is that the American people are catching on to the fact that this is the largest spending bill in history and are becoming more and more vocal in their opposition. My offices in Oklahoma and Washington DC have been flooded with emails, phone calls and faxes overwhelmingly opposed to this trillion dollar legislation. They can rest assured that my vote remains an unwavering ‘no.'"

I thought spending = stimulus?

They spend money to build things and construction workers get jobs to build them.

Don't tell me you are one of thoes tax cuts nuts?

8 years of tax cuts got us where?

Jim DeVito wrote:I thought spending = stimulus?

They spend money to build things and construction workers get jobs to build them.

Don't tell me you are one of thoes tax cuts nuts?

8 years of tax cuts got us where?

It was not the Bush tax cuts that caused the mortgage meltdown or the credit markets to freeze. It was the dems in congress who prevented republicans from putting tougher regulations on Fannie and Freddie that caused this financial meltdown. The Bush tax cuts gave most working people more of the money that they earned!

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/ ... chart.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63siCHvuGFg

Jim DeVito wrote:I thought spending = stimulus?

They spend money to build things and construction workers get jobs to build them.

Don't tell me you are one of thoes tax cuts nuts?

8 years of tax cuts got us where?

I never understood the theory that the problem with the economy is that people have too much take home pay.

Free markets, free minds, risk taking, entrepeneurship, investment, private property and limited government have led to economic growth and prosperity everywhere they were tried.

Our current economic "crisis" is as much driven by a mass panic attack as by economic fundamentals. Example: I watched just enough of Larry King last night to see a consumer counselor in an uproar because one of her clients owes $750,000 on a house worth ony $250,000. What's the government going to do about that she asked? She thought we needed a government department of guaranteed annual housing apprecitation.

Government by panic:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/113820- ... llar-panic

The panic serves the government well. By crowding out private investment, encouraging despair and engineering a continuing stream of crisis the bureaucracy increases its power.

The last thing Obama wants is an economic recovery.

Here is a a short history of Japan's efforst to spend its way out of economic "crisis":

http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/bg2222.cfm

Of course our own trillion dollar package only contains $30 billion for roads over a two year period. The only thing this package builds is government and dependency on government.

It does however contain $90 million for Milwaukee schools even though the district has empty buildings and no construction plans:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/38762217.html

The porkulus bill is based on the broken window theory of economic development:

To build an economy hire 20 people to break windows in the morning. In the afternoon hire another 20 people to fix the windows. Continue this program until economic prosperity is achieved.

If economic prosperity is not achieved blame it on:

The fact that not enough windows are being broken.

Stephen Eisel wrote: It was not the Bush tax cuts that caused the mortgage meltdown or the credit markets to freeze. It was the dems in congress who prevented republicans from putting tougher regulations on Fannie and Freddie that caused this financial meltdown. The Bush tax cuts gave most working people more of the money that they earned!

Um... I thought Republicans don't like regulations on the market. Wasn't that the reason for the meltdown on Wall Street? Unless, they changed that along with their "direction" for the party.

To build an economy hire 20 people to break windows in the morning. In the afternoon hire another 20 people to fix the windows. Continue this program until economic prosperity is achieved.

Bill, To be honest wanted to stop reading when you said Larry King. But the above cought my eye. That is an economic recovery plan that I can get behind.

Stephen, Seems to me you can not be happy with anything. You bash the republicans when it suits your you tube quota ans likewise with democrats. Perhaps there is a third flavor of kool aid we should be trying. Perhaps the kind that come is a trash can How do you purpose we fix this mess?

Bill Call wrote:
Free markets, free minds, risk taking, entrepeneurship, investment, private property and limited government have led to economic growth and prosperity everywhere they were tried.

in America's own history this hinged on enormous amounts of cheap land, protectionism, corporate welfare, low education standards, and extremely high tolerance for fatalities, pollution, and injuries. relatively poor communications and information technology prevented every producer from having to compete intensively with every other producer: profit margins were higher.

The 20th century hinged on high progressive income taxes, higher corporate taxes, and higher capital gains taxes. when those were lowered, wall street liquidated production to trump up stock prices. it was all about mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and outsourcing.

Paul Krugman explains the most basic defense of the present stimulus package:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/opini ... ugman.html

It’s true that the normal response to recessions is interest-rate cuts from the Fed, not government spending. And that might be the best option right now, if it were available. But it isn’t, because we’re in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the interest rates the Fed controls are already effectively at zero.

That’s why we’re talking about large-scale fiscal stimulus: it’s what’s left in the policy arsenal now that the Fed has shot its bolt. Anyone who cites old arguments against fiscal stimulus without mentioning that either doesn’t know much about the subject — and therefore has no business weighing in on the debate — or is being deliberately obtuse.

Thealexa Becker wrote:

Stephen Eisel wrote: It was not the Bush tax cuts that caused the mortgage meltdown or the credit markets to freeze. It was the dems in congress who prevented republicans from putting tougher regulations on Fannie and Freddie that caused this financial meltdown. The Bush tax cuts gave most working people more of the money that they earned!

Um... I thought Republicans don't like regulations on the market. Wasn't that the reason for the meltdown on Wall Street? Unless, they changed that along with their "direction" for the party.

Yes, Republicans support free markets and like fewer regulations. This meltdown is not about republicans and regulations. It is about liberalnomics, no common sense and a very very bad plan..

Stephen Eisel wrote:

Thealexa Becker wrote:

Stephen Eisel wrote: It was not the Bush tax cuts that caused the mortgage meltdown or the credit markets to freeze. It was the dems in congress who prevented republicans from putting tougher regulations on Fannie and Freddie that caused this financial meltdown. The Bush tax cuts gave most working people more of the money that they earned!

Um... I thought Republicans don't like regulations on the market. Wasn't that the reason for the meltdown on Wall Street? Unless, they changed that along with their "direction" for the party.

Yes, Republicans support free markets and like fewer regulations. This meltdown is not about republicans and regulations. It is about liberalnomics, no common sense and a very very bad plan..

Fewer regulations equals no plan. Liberals haven't had control of economics until recently and this meltdown has been spawning for longer than that. I don't think it is accurate to say that it was all the liberals fault or all the republicans fault. Shifting the blame doesn't fix anything.

Fewer regulations equals no plan. Liberals haven't had control of economics until recently and this meltdown has been spawning for longer than that. I don't think it is accurate to say that it was all the liberals fault or all the republicans fault. Shifting the blame doesn't fix anything.

It was the Democrats who stopped the legislation from being voted on (tougher regulations on Fannie and Freddie) at a committee level (Banking Committe). Listen to their words! "We do not have a crisis? " "I am pissed off" The economy melted because of their actions or lack of action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi ... re=related

Liberals haven't had control of economics until recently and this meltdown has been spawning for longer than that

They did not need to control the economy to ruin it. They simply needed to stop the legislation that would have put tighter controls on Freddie and Fannie.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... st_hassett

But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: ``It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.''

Mounds of Materials

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi ... re=related

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This is how you do it!

Really Mr. Eisel, I think that you are more focused on delegating blame than on what future fixes will help to recover the economy.

Most politicians are not economists and have only as deep an understanding of the subject as you or I. What does that mean? It means that they probably had no idea what they were doing either way. And that I say in reference to both sides of the aisle.

So the real question is where in the world were all the economists? Why wasn't there a greater outcry for regulation over all the financial markets? How come the Bush administration's economic advisors weren't on the ball here and telling the president to get out in front of this crisis?

In all fairness, those who really understood the implications of such a meltdown should have done their job. And as I recall, no one said anything about this loud enough for anyone to care until after the crap hit the fan.

In short, don't blame the politicians, who are really just ordinary people with a public service record, blame the economists. The politicians now are just trying to do damage control to the best of their ability.

Stephen, Even if you aligations had merit. Seems to me that fanny and fredde were just 2 of the many players that mucked up the thing. Seems to me AIG, Citigroup, NatCity, PNC and others all had a hand in this debacle. How is it that tighter regulation on two companies could have fixed anything. This whole mess was brought on buy smart people making stupid decision in the interest of greed. People who bought this crap did not even know what was in it or how much it was worth. Can you blame any one party for that?

Back on point how would you fix this mess? Awful lot of criticism with no solutions.

I have really no expertise regarding what spending will and won't do. That said, I found this chart very interesting:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/arc ... mulus.html