Obama prepares for first State of the Union address
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0
adaydream
Keep marching ahead for change. Yeah we need jobs..jobs..jobs, but we don't need to stop what's in the process. < :-)
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TumbleDry
I see the dollar suddenly drop again...
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Odogma
Teleprompters in place; new platitudes and excuses ready for deployment; obligatory blame Bush tactic still a go-er. Will first person references top the fifty mark?
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RomeoRamenII
Obama has absolutely no clue about what's needed.
The baseline problem is consumer credit. The U.S. economy has run on consumer credit for at least the past 50 years. Employers are not going to hire employees to make new products when their existing inventories are gathering dust. No credit = no sales. No sales = no jobs.
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RomeoRamenII
This speaks to Obama's dysfunction. First, we have to spend trillions to fix the economy and now, a year later, we have to "freeze" spending (not now, by the way, but next year, maybe, on some things after the democrats have a chance to increase spending more) in order to fix the economy.
It's a trick play by this administration designed to fool voters into not booting the dems out in November.
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GJDailleult
Romeo makes two great points and he is right. It's all about debt, the problem is that debt levels in the US and world economy hit unsustainable levels. Tax credits do nothing about that. And stimulus plans and spending freezes may or may not be the right thing to do on their own, but to do both makes zero sense.
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RomeoRamenII
According to this article, "a skeptical public" must be the 52% who voted for Obama is disappointed that they didn't get the unicorns and gumdrop rainbows that he promised them a little over a year ago because the 48% of us who did not vote for him were skeptical of him all along.
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RomeoRamenII
Looks like the democrat's strategy of calling those who were against Obama's failed policies astro-turfers, "tea baggers", Nazis, un-American, etc., didn't quite go as planned. Now, Obama wants/needs to instantly reinvent himself into an "I feel your pain" kind of guy. What's next? Will he start doing professional 'rassler The Rock's "Peoples' Eyebrow" when he addresses the public?
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Madverts
"According to this article, "a skeptical public" must be the 52% who voted for Obama is disappointed that they didn't get the unicorns and gumdrop rainbows that he promised them"
I think you guys on the extreme right-wing expect unicorns from Obama if you honestly think the mess he inherited was to be fixed inside a year.
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Madverts
"Nazis, un-American, etc."
Oh, and ramen - coming from you who was one of the shrillest JT posters employing identical tactics during the politics of fear from the Bush era, heh, you have no idea how much I enjoyed reading that comment. Brightened up my day, Bubba.
0
sailwind
No offense to all,
But at least to me if this was his to be resignation speech I'd understand. He's not up to this job......my honest opinion.
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Madverts
sailwind,
When you chose to join the radicals you left reason at the door. If the Republicans had anything to offer other than the standard procedure of the stagnant two-party sytem, (that simply being "NO" to everything the opposition do), then I might attempt to understand your position.
Simply sitting their with your wounds from 2008 and deluding yourself "if McCain were president things would be different" is just that - delusion. That's a man-sized problem Obama wanted to inherit. In fact, I seem to remember saying this early 2008....
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Sarge
"the mess he inherited"
Nothing compared to the mess his successor will inherit.
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Madverts
I'd say that Prediction, coming from you at least, is a great boost for President Obama.
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sailwind
Madverts
My country is now so NOW far in debt by Obama we will never get out of it, my country took a chance on this guy to change the course and make our government BETTER not BIGGER...he has failed and is now up to us to get his ass BACK to reality, I will be blunt back into the right direction, electing Scott Brown should have finally clue Obama and you as to what is really going on in America right now.....Oh. now I forgot Blame Bush is and always will be your response.
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Sarge
So, Madverts thinks Obama is going to fix the economy by killing jobs and ballooning the debt. Incredible...
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yabits
It's amazing how invested the Republicans are in the failure of a president and their country. They wanted Bill Clinton to fail -- even warned us that his 1993 tax hike package would send the nation down the tubes, and instead we got record job creation and economic growth with zero inflation.
The person they wanted to succeed turned out to be such a miserable failure they put him up twice.
And now they are back to doing what they do best: tearing down a decent, intelligent person who is trying to do all he can with the hand that's been dealt to him.
0
Sarge
"Yes, we can"
Well, he certainly can give interviews and speeches. ( 158 interviews and 411 speeches in his first year )
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Madverts
"Oh. now I forgot Blame Bush is and always will be your response."
Jeez sail, I can read your anger in that post just by the way you typed it. You were abusing the keyboard there, weren't you?
I'm not blaming bush for everything actualy, in fact it seems to be the only report you can muster mate - all I can say on that subject is please try to remember back to the invasion years when people like me were laughed/shrieked down by the hardcore right-wing when asking how you were going to pay for all the wars he was starting.....
President Obama's task is a difficult one, and I'm sure he's far from perfect. Aside the election of Mr Brown (whom we've yet to see his performance) I see you decline to show me what solution the Republicans have, other than the simplistic world of just opposing evrything Obama intends to do - right or wrong.
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yabits
Haters, actually.
And thus is revealed the Republicans' fondest wish.
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Sarge
yabits, we conservatives aren't invested in the failure of our country, just our president, who's ruining it.
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Madverts
Ok then sarge - I'm always prepared to listen to bright young talent.
Take on the poser I put to sailwind.
What solution are the Republicans offering from opposition to todays challenges facing the US?
0
sailwind
My Solution?
This is yet in a nutshell:
That when it comes to basic economic orientation, the main "change" in this presidency is a reversion to the pre-Bill Clinton days of Keynesian faith in centralized planning by technocratic experts in the name of empathizing with the downtrodden. It didn't work then, and it isn't working now.
You want to win back the faith that most voting Americans placed in you 14 months ago? Start by taking your own promises seriously, rather than treating them as short-term fixes for your long-term drop in popularity. Continue by taking the American people seriously, by acknowledging that their differences of opinion with you on economic policy spring from a genuine place. And finish by doing something no president since Bill Clinton has even tried: Scale back ambitions. Pay as you go. Limit the growth of government.
A thousand central planners before you have learned it the hard way: Prosperity isn't something the government creates, it's something the government, in the best case, can enable, mostly by establishing a set of simple rules and getting the hell out of the way.
From the National Review......I could not articulate better than this Adverts.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/advice-to-barack-obama-by-two
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yabits
How does that explain one of the most prosperous places on the planet, where the government owns or controls nearly half of all industry?
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yabits
Out of the mouths of babes...
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sailwind
Clarify please?
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Madverts
Sail,
There isn't a users manual for being in charge, certainly not for people like Bush or Obama. We haven't seen an economic downturn such as this since the Wall Street Crash, and life is certainly light-years away from what it was 80 years ago - so I'm usnure how your writer can critisize what is going on in the Obama government whilst simaltaneously offering nothing in return.
It' easy to screech NO sat in opposition at every oppertune moment whilst the voters are frustrated with the current situation and your democracy is based on a stagnant to party system - with many voters sadly rooted to the very foundations of weak-mided partisanship.
When I see some sense from the GOP I'll be the first to aknowledge it. Like I said last year, they should have split the party after embarassing defeats in 06 and 08 and got rid of the radical elements.
Thank-you for at least attmepting to produce a response, but I remain equally un-clear as to which Republican holds the key to any kind of solution to the economic problem, or what said solution might be.
0
adaydream
Nobody really wants to fix the problems. First stop spending on stuff we don't need, freeze expenditures that are not the entitlements packages already enacted, jobs...jobs...jobs..., pass health care reform, don't escalete the wars anymore and raise taxes.
Republicans can only say tax cuts. That's all that they can think of. Screw the needs of the country. I keep hearing the whining about taxes breaks for the rich running out. Too bad, you got your tax breaks, now it's time to refill the treasury the only way possible.
But until we stop spending money, stop the tax breaks, get people working and get people working with health care protection will we start turning this country around. "CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN!!" < :-)
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yabits
Since 1980, the trend has been towards greater and greater deregulation and shrinking government's role in the oversight of the economy -- and that has led to utter disaster. And yet many of the Republicans are prescribing more of the same...
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sailwind
Yabits,
I live in Japan and understand the Asian mindset, they have a collective mindset from the gitgo and when it is combined with the a capitalistic concept there is no stopping them. Think of a whole nation behind building the best car Toyota and making as much cash as they can in the process, or hell Sony and Playstations's. They get it.
Our country is way to diverse for that, we believe in the individual and what he can accomplish, Microsoft and Bill Gates, it is who we are, you are not going to change that and you shouldn't even try because what drove Bill Gates is the very foundation as to why our country is so great in the first place. Every man no matter what station in life can become something by the sweat and toil of his own brow. That is America.
Adverts, Thank you for the kind words, I believe in America and the promise she holds but most importantly I believe in the individual over the Government, always have always will.
0
Madverts
"Every man no matter what station in life can become something by the sweat and toil of his own brow. That is America."
And that's why I refuse to go back because I'd stay. I do the sweat and toil thing every day here and give it all back to the government to pay slackers to sit at home and smoke weed, so I do understand the fears the right have about Obama....
I just don't think that is what he intends to do to America. He's been dealt a tough hand - through his own desire to run for office at a time we all knew things were going pear-shaped.
Only I'm intersted in hearing what Obama's critics are proposing to do, were they in charge. As yet, no poster has come to meet the challenge.
If the only thing they have to offer is "NO", then I don't think America would be any better off.
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RomeoRamenII
He needs to stop talking and start listening to Americans
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RomeoRamenII
Any guesses how many times Obama'll use the word "I" in his State of the Union speech?
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RomeoRamenII
Back when unemployment in America was 5 percent? You mean that tough hand, Adverts?
Obama proves once and for all that a marxist should never run a capitalist nation.
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amerijap
I agree. He needs to slow down. So many people are freaked out in the choas and confused with mix messages produced by the White House and the media. It's pretty hard for us to comprehend what is going on in Washignton, even though we are in this country.
Not that I know of. I don't even know which president uses the first pronoun-- Obama or Nixon.
0
lostrune2
Well, something Obama still has going for him is that among Ohio polls (a bellwether state), the leading blame for the sorry state of the economy is still Bush at 24%, followed by the banks, then Congress. Obama's poll aggregate approval rating dipped below 50% for the first time at 49% (for comparison's sake, the same as Pres. Reagan after his first year in office, before turning it around). His State of the Union address may not spike his approval rating back up (employment jobs is probably the one that could do that), but he may hope to level out the trend.
As for the banks, the American people's anger about it stems a lot from this situation: the banks insured their risky investments with AIG; when the loans went south, AIG could've defaulted on the insurance; the US government bailed out AIG and thus the banks but at 100 cents to the dollar (basically 100% of the bad investments); when regular Americans make bad investments, they lose their money; when banks made bad investments, they got all their money back. Thus the anger. A lot of Americans feel the banks shouldn't had been bailed out, or at least not at the full 100 cents to the dollar.
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pathat
Memo to President Obama: It's the economy, stupid!
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WhiteHawk
adaydream:
Oh, I'm pretty sure you've heard a few Republicans talk about cutting spending. Even seen a few do it, or at least try. Perhaps you've heard of them. John McCain? Sarah Palin? Sound familiar?
But have you heard of Pelosi or Reid talk about cutting spending?
And how do you cut spending and pass a trillion-dollar-plus health care bill at the same time?
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Madverts
Heh, so not one Republican has any idea other than "no".
I thought not.
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Madverts
There's no need to confirm that your beloved party has absolutely no solutions other than opposing everything the president says, old friend.
This thread is proof that it's easy to whine from opposition with ZERO solutions.
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