bobbyw24
12-24-2009, 07:13 AM
Barack Obama / Getty Images
As the Senate prepares to pass its version of health-care reform legislation, Obama's advisers have portrayed a highly successful year pushing important bills through Congress, comparing his record to those of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Presidential scholars offer a more cautious appraisal, even as they note that Obama is operating in a more partisan time in Washington than those Democratic predecessors had. Obama's legislative record includes the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in February, a mix of tax cuts, infrastructure spending and aid to state and local governments that was the largest of its kind. It also includes a variety of bills addressing issues of particular interest to his political base that had been languishing for years. Although Obama noted in the interview that "the most important thing we did this year was to ensure that the financial system did not collapse," health-care reform dominated his agenda and will stand as at least one pillar of the legacy he leaves behind. He has come under sharp criticism for the size and shape of the legislation, including from former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, who has said he would prefer that the Senate defeat the bill rather than pass what he considers weak legislation. In the interview, Obama vigorously defended the legislation, saying he is "not just grudgingly supporting the bill. I am very enthusiastic about what we have achieved." "Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill," Obama said. "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill." - Washington Post
Dominant Social Theme: FDR (New Deal) and LBJ (Great Society) were great American leaders ... just like America's Nobel prize winning president. Obama (the New Dealer) will save the day!
Free-Market Analysis: So President Barack Obama believes that ensuring the financial system did not collapse was the "most important thing" he did this year. Well, what about the unemployment thing which many analysts put above 20 percent (and we think may be closer to 30 percent in the US)? Or the collapsing euro in that European Union thing? Or the increasing evidence of fraud in that Climategate thing? These are all things that things within the real world would tend to cast doubt upon, if you want to look at those things that way.
And we do. From our humble point of view (and the view of millions of unemployed) perhaps it would have been better to let Western economies collapse rather than try to stabilize them. They are collapsing gradually anyway. Pumping trillions into Western economies has for the most part propped up dying businesses - and the result is that capital can't flow efficiently to new businesses. The thing that Obama (and other Western leaders) helped accomplish is the prolonging of this devastating downturn by ensuring that price-points were obscured and new ventures could not be quickly formulated because the old ones were in the way.
Are "things" really working so well in the real world. The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com) links to four articles that seem to indicate otherwise ...
Recovery not as strong as previously thought ...
http://www.thedailybell.com/685/Obama-Financial-Rescue-my-Most-Important-Thing.html
As the Senate prepares to pass its version of health-care reform legislation, Obama's advisers have portrayed a highly successful year pushing important bills through Congress, comparing his record to those of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Presidential scholars offer a more cautious appraisal, even as they note that Obama is operating in a more partisan time in Washington than those Democratic predecessors had. Obama's legislative record includes the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in February, a mix of tax cuts, infrastructure spending and aid to state and local governments that was the largest of its kind. It also includes a variety of bills addressing issues of particular interest to his political base that had been languishing for years. Although Obama noted in the interview that "the most important thing we did this year was to ensure that the financial system did not collapse," health-care reform dominated his agenda and will stand as at least one pillar of the legacy he leaves behind. He has come under sharp criticism for the size and shape of the legislation, including from former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, who has said he would prefer that the Senate defeat the bill rather than pass what he considers weak legislation. In the interview, Obama vigorously defended the legislation, saying he is "not just grudgingly supporting the bill. I am very enthusiastic about what we have achieved." "Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill," Obama said. "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill." - Washington Post
Dominant Social Theme: FDR (New Deal) and LBJ (Great Society) were great American leaders ... just like America's Nobel prize winning president. Obama (the New Dealer) will save the day!
Free-Market Analysis: So President Barack Obama believes that ensuring the financial system did not collapse was the "most important thing" he did this year. Well, what about the unemployment thing which many analysts put above 20 percent (and we think may be closer to 30 percent in the US)? Or the collapsing euro in that European Union thing? Or the increasing evidence of fraud in that Climategate thing? These are all things that things within the real world would tend to cast doubt upon, if you want to look at those things that way.
And we do. From our humble point of view (and the view of millions of unemployed) perhaps it would have been better to let Western economies collapse rather than try to stabilize them. They are collapsing gradually anyway. Pumping trillions into Western economies has for the most part propped up dying businesses - and the result is that capital can't flow efficiently to new businesses. The thing that Obama (and other Western leaders) helped accomplish is the prolonging of this devastating downturn by ensuring that price-points were obscured and new ventures could not be quickly formulated because the old ones were in the way.
Are "things" really working so well in the real world. The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com) links to four articles that seem to indicate otherwise ...
Recovery not as strong as previously thought ...
http://www.thedailybell.com/685/Obama-Financial-Rescue-my-Most-Important-Thing.html