Terrific

In a piece explaining how there’s no actual economic recovery going on and that we’re actually sinking toward a possible douple-dip recession, NY Times columnist Paul Krugman admits that “it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now.

“So [administration] officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.”

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41 thoughts on “Terrific”

  1. In my mind its official at this point that Obama will tap Hillary as a running mate for 2012 to shore up his base. Folks on the left are pissed, me included. And judging by the performance so far that I’ve seen from this administration I guess its safe to say that I’ll be hardpressed to vote for him again. An Independent 3rd party candidate at this point is also a certainty.

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  2. Can I bring up that your psychic friend wasn’t too far office with her August prediction? The stock market dropped significantly about the time she predicted. Can you ask her when Tree of Life is going to be released?

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  3. For more than a year, the Democrats had complete control of the Congress. ANY legislation that they wanted passed would have passed if they really wanted it to. The recovery’s failure lies with the Democrats, so they should man up and deal with it.

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  4. ltl01: Actually, because of the debacle getting Franken seated, the time frame of their 60-seat Senate majority was actually shortened, but Krugman’s point supersedes that: they should have (from January 20, 2009 to today) pushed for everything, and even if they were limited to what they eventually got anyway, the blame would be solely on the Republicans, and not on them.

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  5. PoT: The general electorate assigns responsibility or blame to the party in power, that’s just reality. To attempt to create an outcome in which the Republicans would be “to blame” is wishful thinking at best.

    I’m not convinced the election outcome will be as bad as democrats expect come November. The Media has a vested interest in stoking a sense of chaos to give themselves something to report; Dems need to stick to their guns and push their programs.

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  6. Agreed on the last part, Linc, and to a certain extent with the rest of it, but I feel like forcing GOP Senators to actually stand and filibuster when they obstruct, for example, unemployment extensions, is more effective than just not getting it done or wheeling and dealing in the background.

    Plus, then you give the 24/7 media monster some drama to gorge on and set up the elections as Democratic policy ideas vs. Republican obstruction rather than the perception of failed Democratic governance vs. Republican/Tea Party noise…

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  7. You hope someone in the Obama administration is paying attention to Paul Krugman. I loved his recent column countering falsehoods and distortions about social security. November is suddenly closer. I was reminded of that this week while watching “Wheel of Fortune” on a Minneapolis station. On came an expensive-looking commercial for Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. It is apparently going to be one of a series attacking her Democratic opponent for being in love with taxes.

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  9. I think it’s more that we haven’t spent correctly… too much of the stimulus was made up of tax cuts and not employment-building spending.

    Fewer tax cuts + tax increases on the top 1% + spending cuts in non-productive or market-distorting* programs (military expenditures, farm subsidies) = better budgets and stronger economies.

    *Milton would love it…

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  10. Im so tired of all the negatve, negative, negative. Everything is NOT doom and gloom. I own a business that sells a product that is leisure industry related in the $500 range all around the county. While Ive had my ups and downs things have gotten much better as people DO spend money. The country is NOT a giant dust bowl. Everybody is NOT broke! Some are but the majority is not!

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  11. Don’t rain on the Bad News Parade, poseidon! Our nation’s cable TV stations depend on it.

    Because it’s the WORST _______ IN HISTORY!!!

    (economy, natural disaster, oil spill, president, Alaskan person, etc)

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  12. And the democrats torpedoed Hillary for….this?

    We succeeded what is probably the worst administration since Harding with a huge popular mandate and an enormous reservoir of goodwill along with a complete majority, and yet somehow have managed to piss almost all of that away.

    Since inauguration day, the republicans have shown a unified, negative front against the democrats which has thrown them into disarray and damn near paralyzed them as a whole. No one seems inclined to, or knows how to be aggressive with these scorched earth type bastards or how to protect the president from the stinging slaps he gets on almost a daily basis.

    I like Obama, he’s a very smart man and seems to be a genuinely nice guy. I just don’t believe that in these hostile times with an opposition that is verging on total, unreasoning, insanity, that we should have a nice guy as president.

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  13. Exactly Homie Cat.

    I still don’t understand how this is a double dip. All I’ve seen is one big dip that shows no signs of stopping.

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  17. poseidon72: Refreshing.

    As a whole, we tend to embrace pessimism and worst case scenarios.The future may deliver a day where we all financially eat it, but optimism feels a lot better.

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  18. Our economy has been fucked up for years, now Obama has clean up the mess. If the repubs take control of the house, nothing is going to get done. And to top it off, Beck is having his bullshit rally in DC this weekend.

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  19. MW: Um, how is taking back the civil rights movement from all those minorities who screwed it up so badly “bullshit”? Clearly the people who need their civil rights protected from the neo-Black Panthers in charge these days are white, straight, middle-class church-goers…

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  20. The rally is bullshit because Beck is using it to push his message about Obama being a racist. And of course he didn’t know what date MLK made his famous speech? Perils of Thinking, how about trying to do that? And buy some gold while you’re at it.

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  21. Hmmm… thought you would have noticed I was being all lefty earlier in the thread, thereby making the sarcasm more obvious. Sorry about that…

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  23. Crabtree, have you been following the scuffle between Krugman and Niall Ferguson? Ferguson stakes out an interesting position of supporting the initial stimulus but thinking what Krugman is calling for now is Keynesianism run amok. I tend to agree with him.

    People need to relax about unemployment. It’s high but there is no real difference between 9.5 and 8, which is what Romer was anticipating.

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  28. “A little afternoon reading:”

    So, you’re saying that you think that people who have no control over content being biased in one direction balances the people who do have control over the content being biased in the other direction?

    What an interesting theory. If you were an intelligent person who could write out more than two sentences in response to any given point, I’d love to hear you explain your position further, but I assume you’re now just going to throw up a link to how racist lefties are against Jews. (It’s been almost a week since the last time you used that one.)

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  30. That’s weird, Prager. They were there before. The whole post is gone. Is the one above a repost or an all new link?

    (not in a link following mood this morning)

    And this doesn’t involve you, Gordn27. You are way out of your league!

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  32. Jeff: I think he could’ve gotten a bigger plan, but he seemed to think he could cut corners. I don’t think the Republicans will win that easily, though. Look how effective the tea-baggers alone have been in the primaries.If the GOP was smart, it’d co-opt the Dems, much like Ike and Dick did with ending war. But this current generation of “fiscal” conservatives wants to have its military-industrial complex and complain about the deficit, too.

    62Lincoln: Sharon Angle sounds like a friggin’ nut-job, but I don’t think I want a door-mat like Reid to keep calling the shots, either. He and Pelosi have probably held back more useful legislation more than anyone besides Dodd. Anyway, most of these losers act like they won because they were popular, but they only got their majority because of how awful Bush was at running the show. So forcing them to earn their keep isn’t necessarily a bad thing, assuming they actually care about what we think over the big banks, big oil, and big insurance.

    Homie: Again, you’re talking about a woman whose family is responsible for NAFTA, DOMA, the Iraq war, the end of Glass-Steagal, and the (anti-)bankruptcy bill.

    Travis: http://www.deadline.com/2010/08/bbc-chief-puts-the-boot-in-to-murdochs/

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  33. I agree that the Republicans won’t win that easily either this Nov. The mainstream Republican candidates will lose votes from the Tea Party. Although I voted for Hillary, I don’t think Obama is doing that bad of a job. Yeah, he probably did things, such as Obamacare, that could’ve waited when the economy got better. But it has taken this country over 40 years to finally pass a bill where the insurance comanpies can NOT drop an insurer or deny an insurer coverage due to a pre-existing illness. Obama knew he had the votes in Congress so if he wasn’t going to get it done now–then when?! HE DID THE RIGHT THING. And Americans–Republicans and Democrats–can blame Obama for high unemployment, lousy economy, etc., but do you really think Obama is responsible for it all? Do you really think we would be in this mess if Greenspan hadn’t lowered the interest rates as low as he did during the Bush Administration?: Yeah–homes were flying off the shelves–so to speak. People were refinancing and stimulating the economy with fancy plasma TV screen, SUVs, etc. The economy never looked better–right? Well, look at where it got us: massive foreclosures. All because Greenspan lowered the interest rates to a ridiculous amount and didn’t know when to raise it. So now Bush and Obama are paying for his mistake. I wish Americans would get their scapegoat right.

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