Calm down! The freeze is just politics… appallingly incompetent politics

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Entering office some important tasks faced President Obama.

I felt that the most vital were these two:

1) Finishing off whatever remaining influence the Republican Party had
2) Educating the public about the deficit in the context of the economic crisis.

Those were the key priorities, IMO, because they were prerequisite to solving all our other problems. Without working on those two things the agenda couldn't advance and the economy couldn't be fixed.

He did not do either.

He did not even try to do either. In fact, he did the opposite of both!

The Panglossianism about how the freeze is good politics is insane.

Though the freeze will be null as policy (some wiggly BS adding up to nothing fiscally) it is a concession that the Republican view of our problems is correct and that the Democratic view is incorrect.

The message “Democrats suck and Republicans were always right about this incredibly important stuff” is not really great politics.

At least not for Democrats.

[ProSense]

1. Your headline is supposed to inspire calm?

:rofl:

[ibegurpard]

4. No, it is supposed to whack some sense into people

who might believe the nonsense you and others are spouting.

[paulk]

7. why don't you address the post?

instead of your usual snide little aside...

[ProSense]

9. I did.

Anything else thread police?

[paulk]

18. you did not.

you just posted what you usually do -

meaningless shit meant to disrupt or distract from any serious discussion

[ProSense]

23. Your bitterness aside, I did. n/t

[paulk]

24. there's that "bitterness" word again

the meme of the week.

blah, blah, blah


do they give you a certificate along with that plastic "junior propagandist" badge?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Sorry I couldn't rec you out of the hole, but this analysis is exactly right.

This is part, but only part, of what is going wrong.

Take health care reform, for example. The problem was that the middle class was sinking under high premiums, high copays, and high deductibles for plans that they couldn't get to work for them half the time because of recissions, limited provider lists, pre-existing condition exclusions, non-portability, and a plethora of other snares and snags put in place by an industry intent on maximizing income while paying as little as possible out on claims.

So the Democrats fixed it. Now we have all the above plus mandates that penalize us if we can't afford the nonfunctional private plans we are required to have.

[tbyg52]

3. >>It is appallingly bad politics.

As is becoming the norm.... :-(

[zulchzulu]

5. It's politics... which is never "good"

As I indicated in another thread, it's merely a chance for Blue Dogs and those who need an Ace in the hole to counter Republican "claims" of out-of-control spending to not have an opening.

It's not that it's an admission that Republicans are good at correcting problems. It's grabbing their arrow on this issue and cracking the fucking thing in half and handing it back to them.

[laughingliberal]

6. K & R nt

[paulk]

8. the Obama administration is acting like it's the Republicans

with the 59 - 41 majority.

it's pathetic, is what it is...

[Phx_Dem]

10. Disagree. It will help counter GOP "tax and spend" criticism in the Fall.

Obama has cut taxes and frozen some spending. And, realistically, it will cut some unnecessary spending. It's not going to hurt the economy. The President is not as fucking stupid as most Democrats are.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. If it were not a contemptible scam it would indeed hurt the economy.

"And, realistically, it will cut some unnecessary spending. It's not going to hurt the economy."

Stimulative effect is not a function of necessity. Cutting "unnecessary" spending hurts the economy. You have been exposed to this core concept dozens of times in the forum yet reject it for whatever reason.

The reason it will, in narrow and specific terms, not hurt the economy is that the whole proposal is bullshit... it is a lie.

But if it was not a lie it would indeed hurt the economy.

[Phx_Dem]

13. Even the progressive idol, Krugman, has saidm ad nauseum,

that much of the funds included in the stimulus would do absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy. So either every single dime adds to the economy, in which case Krugman and other economists who agreed with him, are full of shit, or King Paul is correct and not all money has a stimulative affect.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. I'd have to see a citation, but it's more than likely that you misunderstood

Krugman would never say that any net dollar of deficit spending would do absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy.

He was widely dismissive of some stimulus proposals as being less effective than others.

Even deficit spending to pay people to dig potholes to fill them back in has stimulative effect. It is not optimal policy but still net stimulative.

And since Krugman is practically on suicide watch over this freeze stunt as being a disaster for the nation he's an odd one to cite.

[Phx_Dem]

20. Krugman says that not all spending is stimulative, here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/17/paul-krugman-stimulus-too_n_167721.html

The $787 billion stimulus is not nearly enough to fill the "well over $2 trillion hole" in the economy, Krugman said. "A fair bit of the bill is not really stimulus," he adding, noting that just about $650 billion would actually spur consumer spending and other types of stimulus.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2167

"It's helpful, but it does not cover even one-third of the gap, so it's disappointing," Krugman said. Out of the $789 billion approved, only about $600 billion adds real stimulus, in Krugman's opinion. "So you've only got $600 billion to fill a $2.9 trillion hole." What's more, he argued that $350 billion of the package slated for tax cuts will provide some, but not much, stimulus traction because households are likely to save rather than spend large portions of it. That's the "paradox of thrift," Krugman noted. Normally, encouraging savings is a great plus for an economy. But in a downturn, households (and businesses) worry about the future more, and decide to conserve resources and spend less -- just when spending is needed most.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25krugman.html?ei=5124&en=666576ca1e66bdcb&ex=1359003600&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=print

The goal of a stimulus plan should be to support overall spending, so as to avert or limit the depth of a recession. If the money the government lays out doesn’t get spent — if it just gets added to people’s bank accounts or used to pay off debts — the plan will have failed... sending checks to people in good financial shape does little or nothing to increase overall spending.... On the other hand, money delivered to people who aren’t in good financial shape — who are short on cash and living check to check — does double duty: it alleviates hardship and also pumps up consumer spending.

Comment (mine): So, if we had cut out the parts of the stimulus that is not effective (tax cuts to rich people, debt payments, etc), it wouldn't have a negative impact on stimulating the economy, right? How is that any different that freezing/cutting unnecessary, wasteful discretionay spending and/or transfering those funds to programs that are stimulative and are working?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

22. A very respectable reply and I will treat it with respect

He is discussing the relative merits of things vernacularly using terms like "real stimulus," "not really stimulus" and "little or nothing"

The reason he qualifies everything is that as unqualified statements it isn't literally true.

Hiring one person would be said to "do nothing to solve the unemployment crisis," though of course it would do something to solve it.

If you give people a tax cut and they bank all of it and it has no effect whatsoever on their spending that is not stimulative. But no real world tax cut actually leads to zero spending... tax cuts that are unlikely to be spent are less stimulative and in a discussion of various proposals one would say they are not "really stimulative" "real stimulus" etc., which doesn't mean zero, it means small.

The instance that started this, of federal deficit spending on programs (somewhat different than tax cutting or cash rebates) doesn't run into those caveats because all government spending, even very inefficient government spending, is spent.

The efficiency of program spending is irrelevant to its short-term economic effect provided it is actually spent... put out into the economy. Some of the most effective stimulus could be in the least efficient programs. For instance, most farm subsidies are rotten policy but if the subsidy is spent on jet-skis or fine dinners it is quite stimulative, dollar for dollar.

Infrastructure is "better" stimulus than dropping money from a helicopter because sound infrastructure helps the economy long term. But the helicopter drop is ideal if the only motive is to get borrowed money into circulation.

Reducing the deficit by any method means less government borrowing and thus (except in an idealized thought-experiment) less borrowed money circulating.

My statement that removing any net dollar from the deficit impinges the economy in our current environment is true, but I see where you are coming from re: the Krugman quotes.

And, most importantly, reducing government inefficiency does not help the economy is a deficit/stimulus environment. It is good government, but not stimulative.

The optimal approach would be to cut bad programs and re-purpose all the money into better programs. But that wouldn't reduce the deficit any.

[inna]

12. Buh-bye New Deal, Hello Raw Deal.

[Goldstein1984]

15. Rec to +2

You know you are absolutely wasting your time by using reason on those mainlining the party platform, don't you?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. but mainlining which party platform?

The irony is that this was a Republican Party campaign promise, not ours.

Does it still count as a promise kept?

[Goldstein1984]

19. That's the beauty of merging the parties the way they are

[bertman]

17. The level of incompetence gives me the feeling that their idea of accomplishments is

way different from the average Democrat's.

Rec and kick for this thread.

[Hawkowl]

21. Incompetence to eclipse all previous dem Presidents

I really am staggered by the level of POLITICAL incompetence Obama is demonstrating. I expected him to be a right of center, corporate good ole boy. But he seems to be extremely gifted at letting the Republicans set the agenda and define him while he simultaneously alienates his base in trying to suck up to his enemies.