After years of calling Obama a socialist/Communist/Marxist Communist, the GOP now accuses him of being a crony capitalist.
The New Republic
—via ryking:This is not a story from The Onion.
Reblogged from Diadoumenos
The New Republic
—via ryking:This is not a story from The Onion.
Even worse are the president’s befuddling, muddled attempts to lure Republicans into bipartisanship by negotiating with himself before even offering a proposal. Everyone in the world except Obama seems to understand what Republicans will do. They will support most of his bad ideas, then either block the good ones or bargain for even deeper concessions from Obama as the price for agreeing to a tiny fraction of his good ideas.
But Obama’s hodge-podge bipartisanship also loses the opportunity to present a coherent message that government action—emphatically including running a deficit until the economy is well on the road to recovery—is needed to boost demand for goods and services. That’s what’s needed to get big corporations to invest the trillion-plus dollars in profits they’re hoarding and hiring more employees. That means more direct government employment, contracting, investment and income support so that sales improve for private businesses that can then hire more people and feel greater confidence about the future and invest.
Instead, he presents a confused picture of what ails and what might revive a troubled economy—making unnecessary concessions to Republicans’ mistaken arguments that the problem is too much regulation, too high tax rates, or too little profit. And especially when he also continues to talk about trimming Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, despite his punchy demands to “pass this jobs bill,” he has to leave a lot of the working and middle class majority wondering, “Which side is he on?”
Paul Krugman, The New York Times
—via kateoplis:
O.K., about the Obama plan: It calls for about $200 billion in new spending — much of it on things we need in any case, like school repair, transportation networks, and avoiding teacher layoffs — and $240 billion in tax cuts. That may sound like a lot, but it actually isn’t. The lingering effects of the housing bust and the overhang of household debt from the bubble years are creating a roughly $1 trillion per year hole in the U.S. economy, and this plan — which wouldn’t deliver all its benefits in the first year — would fill only part of that hole. And it’s unclear, in particular, how effective the tax cuts would be at boosting spending.
Still, the plan would be a lot better than nothing, and some of its measures, which are specifically aimed at providing incentives for hiring, might produce relatively a large employment bang for the buck. As I said, it’s much bolder and better than I expected. President Obama’s hair may not be on fire, but it’s definitely smoking; clearly and gratifyingly, he does grasp how desperate the jobs situation is.
But his plan isn’t likely to become law, thanks to Republican opposition. And it’s worth noting just how much that opposition has hardened over time, even as the plight of the unemployed has worsened. […]
So, at this point, leading Republicans are basically against anything that might help the unemployed. Yes, Mr. Romney has issued a glossy, well-produced “jobs plan,” but it might best be described as 59 bullet points with nothing there — and certainly nothing to justify his assertion, bordering on megalomania, that he would create no fewer than 11 million jobs in four years.
The good news in all this is that by going bigger and bolder than expected, Mr. Obama may finally have set the stage for a political debate about job creation. For, in the end, nothing will be done until the American people demand action.
sarahlee310 sez: I sent faxes to my Congressional members tonight and have postcards ready to mail tomorrow - to district and DC offices. What will you do?
