The Obamanation

[Ibby]

Plus, progressives argue (and vice-versa for conservatives, just an example) that the president with congress has the power to help the markets by intervening to strengthen the working class through infrastructure and small-business spending, and can hold him responsible for making the deal with congress. Plus, I've heard it fairly legitimately argued that if Obama wanted to risk the blowback from people like Merc accusing him of issuing edicts and declaring himself king, he actually COULD issue a host of stimulative executive orders. I'll try to find the link after I shower explaining the precedent for executive power for each of the measures proposed.

[Undertoad]

the president with congress has the power to help the markets by intervening to strengthen the working class through infrastructure and small-business spending

That's what we like to think. In reality, the economy is more powerful than all that, because it includes everything.

So often, well-intended and seemingly logical government measures wind up like pushing on a rope. The stimulus was like that. Hey let's have the government spend a huge amount, more than ever before, because economists tell us that government spending can take up the slack of less spending everywhere else.

And so they pushed that rope, but the economy failed to take up the slack. Why, well, that's a terrible and difficult question, because at the root of all economics is human behavior, and that's amazingly hard to predict.

intervening to strengthen the working class through infrastructure and small-business spending

All data shows that people, the economy, and the state of the nation improve when people are homeowners. Homeowners are stable, raise better families, are invested in their community, improve schools through local taxation, and have a future retirement plan in their home's equity.

So, let's have a government program to strengthen the working class by offering them mortgage deals!

Oops?! Well it was logical at the time.

[Ibby]

I guess I misunderstood your argument. I assumed you meant that the president PERSONALLY couldn't do anything about it, not that government at all can't really do much about it. And that's really just a fundamental difference in beliefs, that it is hard to prove one way or the other because there's always a counterargument - because there's always a compromise. For example, I would say that it wasn't JUST the program to offer mortgage deals to the working class that "oops"ed, it was (more importantly, in my view) also a shortcoming on the financial side, with securitization and repackaging and all that fun stuff, that also encouraged banks to offer mortgages to people who REALLY couldn't afford it, etc.

[Undertoad]

So Fannie and Freddie supplied the wood, not the spark. The larger point is that Fannie and Freddie was government, intervening to strengthen the working class. And the economy said, well that outcome is going to be exactly the opposite of what was well-intended, because this is the economy, and everything's connected.

I see this all the time. How about college education. It works the same way. The government, with the best of intentions, announces that it will make available cheap money for people going to college. Thus several generations benefit from greater educations.

But over time, College, with all the best of intentions, finds a huge new market of people who can afford them, on top of the people who have enough to pay. Thus College increases its price by more than double the inflation rate. Now Government and all the people who can afford it are paying double (six figures at some places) for something with no additional worth.

Medicare part D. Government, with all the best of intentions, announces that they are going to pay for old people's drugs. The drug companies then double their prices to a marketplace that doesn't shop for value. Now Medicare has to pay even more and the drug companies get rich.

[Lamplighter]

Grover Norquist controls the $ for all Republican re-election campaigns,
and for Republicans, re-election it is more important than anything.
His interview below has confirmed for me how the Republican hierarchy
views and actually intends to control the Presidency.

Thoughts about differences between Republican and Democratic presidents
first occurred to me when Ronald Regan slept through his term with a nice smile and movie-star personality.
George H.W.Bush was a single term President because he did not toe the Republican line on taxes.
But George W. Bush was exactly what the Republican hieracrchy wanted
... dumb but a "nice guy" who stayed in tow of Cheney and Rove.

Surprisingly, Norquist inadvertently complimented Obama, saying:

if Obama had “wanted to govern when he had 59 [or] 60 senators and
a solid majority in the House, that’s the time to have done whatever he thought was useful
and he did” a few of those things.
For instance, Norquist noted, the president pushed through Congress the health-care bill,
the Dodd-Frank banking bill, and the stimulus package.

Obama “did all those things,” Norquist said. “The things on his list of things to do, he did;
everything he talks about now is that which he didn’t do when he could have” done it,
given solid Democratic legislative majorities during the first two years of the Administration.

Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner
Richard Sincere
2/20/12

Grover Norquist surveys the 2012 political and legislative landscape

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, is a prominent conservative activist.
He informally heads up what is known as the “Leave Us Alone Coalition” and
works behind the scenes to promote conservative ideas in government.<snip>

Norquist pointed out that Obama’s State of the Union Address in January
“was a list of things he says he wanted to do,” but, he said,
Obama “was president for two years with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate
[and] he didn’t do any of those things.”

Rather than the State of the Union being “a list of things he considers high priorities,” it is,
Norquist explained, “a list of things he thinks it will be clever to talk about in his reelection campaign.
It’s not a list of things he actually wants to do” because otherwise “he would have done them.”<snip>

Looking forward to the presidential election, Norquist predicted that
the Republicans are going to nominate a candidate “whose job will be,
if he gets elected, to sign the bills that Boehner and McConnell send him.”<snip>

As a result of these political conditions, Norquist reiterated,
“we should have a Republican House and Senate in 2013.
The big fight now is [to] pick a Republican to get across the finish line
and all we need him to do is sign the bills.”

Norquist emphasized that regardless of the Republican presidential nominee,
if he wins the election, he will need the cooperation – and the leadership –
of Congress to get any of his initiatives passed into law.<snip>

Using blunt language, he said that
“what we need is a Republican president to do what Obama did:
get his butt elected and then sit there and look pretty and read the Teleprompter.”

[TheMercenary]

Good article, thanks for sharing. I do think Norquist lives in his own little world of understanding the process. I don't think Bush was that dumb and Obama certainly is not either.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Grover Norquist controls the $ for all Republican re-election campaigns,

You can't really believe that Lamp. That is a fantasy.

and for Republicans, re-election it is more important than anything.

Completely true for both parties. And it is going to get much worse before it ever gets better.

His interview below has confirmed for me how the Republican hierarchy
views and actually intends to control the Presidency.

Again, that is a stretch of the imagination.

[Lamplighter]

Gosh Merc, I thought you were more attuned to the machinations of GOP politics.

Here's a link back to when the Republicans were, according to John Boehner,
going to come to agreement on the July, 2011 debt ceiling bill,
which included the lapse of the Bush Tax Cuts.

The press interviewed Norquist about the Norquist/ATR pledge,
and how he would respond if someone voted to allow the Bush Tax Cuts to lapse.

That link includes the "official ATR position statement",
and a recording of the interview in which Norquist says he
"... would denounce him as a tax raiser and a bad guy"
Within hours, Republicans got the message.

Boehner's agreement floundered, and he was embarrassed
time and again by the GOP sheep changing direction
and reneging on Boehner's previous agreements.

[Lamplighter]

It's baaaaaack ! - If anyone but the 1% cares

The US Dow-Jones opened at a psychological level of 13,055 - best since mid-2007.

[classicman]

UG sure does...

[Happy Monkey]

He's a disappointment in many ways, but he can get away with it because the alternatives are so much worse.

This one is baffling, though. Is he afraid that drug warriors in the DOJ will accuse him of preventing them from enforcing a law that is on the books?

[infinite monkey]

heehee

[Ibby]

Also the fact that Obama's been pretty popular and successful, in some parts of the country. To some people, I mean.

[classicman]

I was speaking in general terms, not about him specifically.

[Ibby]

Yeah, I know. I'm just saying, he's not only incumbent, he's at least fairly popular too.

[Griff]

Sunday, March 04, 2012

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15 (see trends).

I'm one of the uncommitted voters who put Obama in the White House. I would be a more natural GOP voter if they didn't fight culture wars and support corporations over individuals. Obama is still beatable if Mitt can change his message back to moderate governorship. If that happens and he loses the GOP will continue the culture war and be completely irrelevant unless someone can explain the reality of the situation to them. Maybe a huge Santorum loss would be best but having him that close with a partisan Supreme Court makes me damn nervous.