The Victorious Opposition

I was both surprised that Obama went there and that one of the Justices went there, too. When it happened, I commented on it to my wife right away, because it was so suprising.

My comment in response to “foreign influence” was “what, like George Soros?”

The “progressives” are on the wrong side of this argument. The fact that monied interests have too much power in our political process is a big problem. But you cannot fix it by abridging speech. I am not sure how you fix it, but I know that’s not it.

The speech was top-to-bottom hypocritical. I agreed with a huge amount of what he said - and believe not an iota of it. It’s a great campaign speech. And as one Democratic focus group member said on CNN - it would have meant a lot more if he’d acted that way from the start of his first year rather than just talking that way at the end of it.

The only “BIOB” in the speech was about the deficit spending and growth of government during the Bush years. Was he wrong? On that, he clearly was not wrong.

I loved the “2,000,000 jobs saved” thing. Absolutely no one believes that number - not the CBO, not CNN, not anyone with half a brain. Not to mention - what the hell does it mean anyhow.

I was surprised to see the Republicans standing up for various points he made about health care reform, and Gov. McDonnell’s emphasis on it the GOP response. This just reemphasizes the point I made earlier about why isn’t the GOP taking the lead on this. The argument that “it’s toxic and they’re staying away from it” certainly wasn’t reinforced by their handling of it during the SOTU and the response.

I was displeased with Virginia’s Theocrat in Chief invoking scripture in the GOP response. Unsurprised, but disappointed.

The GOP leadership laid down the law that there would be no “you lie” moment at this event, and they get props for doing that, and the rank and file get props for following through. That would be a good lesson for both parties to learn for the future (I’m looking at you, Rep. Grayson).

All in all - it was a great speech. A phenomenal campaign speech. A well-staged event. And completely, utterly, but expectedly, content-free and fact-challenged. If he or the Democratic leadership follow through on 1/10th of what he claimed they would do, I’ll be astonished.

The fact that monied interests have too much power in our political process is a big problem

I don’t know if that is true or not. Granted, we don’t want people like OBL, Hugo, and Little Kim organizing Washington PAC’s and running Reelect Obama ads, but I think your average voter is smarter that you give him credit for. Living in a blue state I see at least a 3 to 1 ratio for Democrat ads to that of the GOP, but they do not sway me in any way. My union still sends its monthly news letter, routinely packed with their political spin. In the 27 years that I have been getting this rag, I can’t remember one time a GOPer was endorsed, but I don’t want government regulations telling them what they can and can not do with regards to backing candidates.

Was he wrong?

Yes, he was. The people do not buy the line ,” We are going to spend our way out of that deficit hole that meanie Bush got us into”. Where Bush was guilty of robbing a liquor store, Obama just pilfered Fort Knox. Bush was spending billions, Obama is spending trillions, the sin may be similar, the magnitude, not even in the ball park.

This just reemphasizes the point I made earlier about why isn’t the GOP taking the lead on this.

You have not been paying attention

Yeah, Yeah, I know, you will poo poo everything in here, but they are doing things, refuting that notion of the “party of NO”.

I was displeased with Virginia’s Theocrat in Chief invoking scripture in the GOP response. Unsurprised, but disappointed.

And I had just the opposite reaction. Not knowing much about this guy, I was very impressed. No rancor, no acrimony, an upbeat message delivered well and inclusive to all. And I liked the setting, a lot. Those responses to the SOTU from the other party that we usually get (the ones where the guy is delivering it in a broom closet, and he is talking to the mop, not good). I will be watching this guy’s political future.

All in all - it was a great speech.

It would of been, had it been a campaign speech. As a ,“I’ve already been in office one year and have a track record” speech, it exposed all of his lies and duplicity. How funny that he rails about lobbyist exposure and influence when he populated his White House with them. How funny that he rails about earmarks, when his Omnibus Bill had over 8 thousand of them. How funny that that he thinks he can “buy’ more jobs and derail spiraling unemployment with more government projects, when his almost one trillion dollar Stimulus Bill was crafted for the sole purpose of keeping the jobless rate under 8%, it’s now over 10%. How funny that there was zero mention of Gitmo, the GWoT, and his laughable policies of coddling captured terrorists. Probably the most singular and defining statement by Scot Brown (aside from being the 41st vote against Obamacare) was ,“I believe that we should spend government money defeating terrorists, not defending them”. If he can’t see this storm brewing, he is in big big trouble. And how funny that he wants more transparency, he promised this, along with running the most ethical administration in history, it was that exact lack of ethics that rankled all those Mass. voters.

I did not expect him to role up in a ball and go “fetal” on stage, but some accountability would of been nice, some, “Yeah, I f—ked up, but I hear you now, and this is what we are going to do to change course”......................no such luck.

I don’t know if that is true or not.

Of course it’s true. This is why incumbents have so much power - they have the money. This is why lobbies and special interests have so much power - they provide the money. This isn’t an “evil corporations” thing as the “progressives” would have it - it applies equally to corporation, unions, special interests, PACs, etc. The size of your voice in government is determined by the size of your bankroll in the vast majority of circumstances. It’s a very rare thing for incumbents to lose or the little guy to win over the big guy. And that’s a problem.

Yes, he was. The people do not buy the line,

I’m not talking about the “spend our way to recovery” nonsense (I’ve written about that nonsense before). But the reality is that the Bush administration and GOP Congress led us into this mess. The current GOP leadership and the talking heads routinely try to lay it all on the Democrats (e.g. listen to any Republican politician at a Tea Party event), and that’s complete bullshit. Obama was right about what he inherited, plain and simple.

You have not been paying attention

Well, no, I wasn’t aware of that. It was also 2 days after my post. I’ll look at it.

I will be watching this guy’s political future.

So will I. In abject terror. He’s a disaster in the making.

It would of been, had it been a campaign speech.

That’s what I said. In the words immediately following your excerpt…

You have not been paying attention

Following up on this again. This is a much broader initiative than healthcare reform. I’m reading through the policy outline now, and will top-post about it when I’m done. The congressional tracking sites don’t list anything that Rep. Ryan introduced yesterday (not sure how long it takes for Thomas and related sites to get feeds of that sort; usually a day or two). So I’ll probably need to update after I see the legislation (the policy website has people-speak, but doesn’t seem to have the draft legislation, and as we all know, people-speak and legislation-speak don’t necessarily correlate).

That said - my point about failing to take the lead on healthcare issues still stands. Pelosi is still gunning forward. We need to hear more from the GOP on this specifically. What Gov. McDonnell said last night was intriguing, as I said in my initial response, but if they let the Democrats take the lead back on this issue while trying to make a broader message, they are missing a golden opportunity.

The size of your voice in government is determined by the size of your bankroll in the vast majority of circumstances

And you think this guarantees the outcome, oh boy, I guess Meg Whitman is a shoe in since she is out spending Moon Beam Jerry Brown, but don’t tell the voters since the polls have her trailing. Given the two options of either government interfering and making arbitrary senseless restrictions, or, letting the process play out on its own, I will gladly pick the latter, this way we don’t the FEC telling us what books can be published in what years, and no special treatment afforded to anyone (even playing field) so Foxnews is not granted special dispensations over say Exxon Mobil (because Fox is a news/media conglomerate and Exxon is not).

But the reality is that the Bush administration and GOP Congress led us into this mess

If you want to give him a “get out of jail free” card in perpetuity, that’s fine but sooner or later he has to own up to his mess. Bush may have started this chess match, initially making the first 4 bad moves, but Obama took over and made 27 worse moves after that, when he is checkmated, blaming Bush will ring hollow.

Well, no, I wasn’t aware of that. It was also 2 days after my post. I’ll look at it.

But it was days before you said this:

This just reemphasizes the point I made earlier about why isn’t the GOP taking the lead on this.

That’s what I said. In the words immediately following your excerpt…

I know that, but the point being it was not a campaign speech, he has a track record, he owns this lemon now. Telling us what he would like to do means Jack, we can see what he has done.

I guess Meg Whitman is a shoe in

Meg Whitman may be one of the exceptions to the rule (I was, btw, quite clear in what I said, and didn’t say it was a guarantee).

Of course, she’s gotten to where she is in this campaign specifically because of her money. She has basically zero political background or expertise. She’s where she is because of her background as a CEO with an incredible bankroll. I’m quite sure there are many other potential GOP candidates, more qualified and far more capable than Meg Whitman, who didn’t have the remotest shot at competing with her bankroll.

So the Meg Whitman example (which I considered using myself) shows that she’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Given the two options of either

False dichotomy. Finding ways to control the influence of money in the political process doesn’t equate to restrictions on speech. The concept that “money is speech” is bullshit. The problem is that restrictions on money can restrict speech, and that’s not an acceptable compromise. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue other avenues (which, as I said, I don’t really have an answer for).

If you want to give him a “get out of jail free” card in perpetuity

Give who a “get out of jail free” card? Obama? Are you kidding?

My point is that the Republicans are giving Bush and themselves a “get out of jail free” card every time they deny culpability for their role in getting us into this mess in the first place.

Again, a false dichotomy. Requiring that the GOP accept its culpability for the fundamentally unsound things they did when they had absolute power in no way implies I give the Democrats a free hand with their absolute power nonsense. I write about it all the time.

And I don’t know where you got that 4 vs 27 thing. Just making up numbers? Back it up. Bush and the GOP did a huge amount of damage with growth in government spending, budget deficits and enhanced entitlements. Trivializing it like that just reinforces my point.

But it was days before you said this:

Actually it was less than 24 hours, but whatever. And, if you read my followup comment, not to mention reading the relevant documents, that point still holds.

False dichotomy.

I don’t think so. If you can come up with ways to address problems you see in the system, I’m all ears, but McCain/Fiengold was not it, as we’ve seen, not only on how it viewed free speech but how it restricted certain entities over that of others.

My point is that the Republicans are giving Bush and themselves a “get out of jail free” card every time they deny culpability for their role in getting us into this mess in the first place.

You haven’t seen that here. Who has said that everything was rosy the day Bush left office but now things are in the shitter?

Bush and the GOP did a huge amount of damage with growth in government spending, budget deficits and enhanced entitlements

And again, apparently you can’t see the difference between goofing by an inch and goofing by a mile.

I don’t think so.

So McCain/Feingold or nothing. Nope, no false dichotomy.

No, I don’t know how to solve the problem. I’ve said that a bunch of times now. But I don’t believe that just because McCain/Feingold has problems you stop trying to address an obvious problem.

You haven’t seen that here.

Paranoid much? We see it all the time from the GOP leadership and punditry. And yes, we see it here with the continued denials. Like:

goofing by an inch and goofing by a mile.

Because turning a couple-hundred-billion-dollar surplus into half a trillion dollar deficit is an “inch”. Not to mention all the expansions of entitlements (Medicare Part D, for example) and the expansion of government control (NCLB, for example).

Yes, Obama and the Democrats are out of control. I’ve been saying that for a year, and never hesitated to say so. But it’s not comparing an “inch” and a “mile”. It’s more like comparing a “kilometer” and a “mile”. This trivialization of the impact of the Bush fiscal/policy legacy is exactly what I’m talking about.

I like dwex’s kilometer and mile analogy better, it seems more accurate for total expenditure.  But I would also like to note that the kilometer was done roughly over 8 years, and the mile has been done in one, so if you normalize the data over time, you end up with two vastly different velocities of “oh shi-” when it comes to taking all of our precious monies.

That’s the real concern.  That this first year is just a game of “just the tip, just to see if it hurts…” to the new administration. 

And boy, does it hurt.  And it might *actually* just be the tip.  The best case scenario, afterall, is that we still have 3 more whole years until the chance to change the executive branch presents itself.

I’m reading through the policy outline now, and will top-post about it when I’m done

Might not get to this until tomorrow; see my current top post. My wife and I have some stuff to deal with, and I’m currently only 20 pages into the 100 page GOP document.

That’s the real concern.  That this first year is just a game of “just the tip, just to see if it hurts…” to the new administration. 

True, but Obama did touch on this in the speech with freezing spending and paying for his share of the deficit.  Of course, it remains to be seen, but I am cautiously optimistic that we will not see these types of increases year after year.

It is true that the 2009 budget was not really an “Obama” budget.  The fiscal year 2009 started in October 2008.  Its the 2010 budget we need to examine for clues as to how Obama will do fiscally.  This (and some other reasons) is why I always said I would give it a year before I made any decisions on how he’s doing.  The first year is essentially on the job training.

It has been a year and I will be using the SOTU address as a baseline for how I evaluate his performance.  I feel pretty much the way dwex does about the speech - sounds great but we’ll have to see what he can actually get done.  Obama hasn’t surprised me much, but I’m in awe of how poorly Pelosi and Reid have performed with their huge majorities, Democratic president and GOP incompetence.  I am unsure of how Obama can actually get much done with those two silly shits in charge of Congress.  Those majorities will undoubtedly shrink this fall so it won’t get any easier for him going forward.

Paranoid much?

Accusatory much? I assumed you understood the concept of “here”, here does not mean what I wrote, here means this blog, what anybody wrote, so I guess you can show me where somebody stated that it was all rainbows and butterfly’s the day Bush left office as compared to mushroom clouds and toxic waste now.

I like dwex’s kilometer and mile analogy better,

My analogy of inches/miles what not used for accuracy of the each president’s blame in the deficit, only that there was a difference, a big difference, as you acknowledged in your next sentence. A year over year quadrupling of the debt (from Bush’s last year in office to Obama’s first) is significant.

True, but Obama did touch on this in the speech with freezing spending

Considering that this only effects certain “discretionary” spending (less than 1/6 of the over all budget) and that in his first year he exploded the budgets of all the governmental programs (the EPA for example had it’s budget raised by over 30% this year), many view this gesture not only as hollow but a back door approach to maintaining blotted programs beyond what even congress could cut (if they were so inclined).

Accusatory much? I assumed you understood the concept of “here”, here does not mean what I wrote, here means this blog, what anybody wrote, so I guess you can show me where somebody stated that it was all rainbows and butterfly’s the day Bush left office as compared to mushroom clouds and toxic waste now.

You took what I wrote about “the GOP” and tried to rebut it with “well, we don’t say that here”. Which is weak, paranoid evasion of the fundamental issue, which is GOP leadership, Sunday morning talking heads and various Republican pundits, about which I’ve been quite clear.

I’ll stick with “paranoid much?”...

What’s all this talk about Obama, Bush and Clinton budgets?  Do people forget that it’s Congress that holds the purse strings?  And just think about the implications of that when you refer to the surplus in the 90s (also don’t neglect the economic bubble factor there) and the deficits of the last few years.

The budget proposals come from the White House. There is rarely any substantive change between the annual White House proposal and what Congress eventually passes - the President’s priority agenda items are pretty much always what winds up as the priority items in the legislation. The changes are usually in the lower priority items and various things around the edges (like pork). At least, that’s been the case for the Bush/Clinton/Bush years. And I expect it will remain so for the Obama years.

There’s a feedback loop outside the appropriations process. The Clinton surpluses were absolutely in the Clinton budget proposals, but those proposals were obviously modulated by the fact that he had to get his budget past Congress.

Where we’ve been in the most trouble was the first two years of the Clinton administration and the first six years of the Bush administration. I cannot fathom that that cycle is going to change in the Obama cycle of single-party rule.

I can’t disagree with the argument that, from a fiscal perspective, having a Democratic president and Republican Congress (at least one house) works out best. Of course, there’s all that other stuff that goes one (the non-libertarian parts of the Republican Congress) that make it less than optimal in that configuration.

It’s not inconceivable that the GOP will get the Senate back in 2010 (I don’t expect them to pick up that many seats, but can’t rule it out). Even if they only pick up half a dozen seats, it will modulate the fiscal overreach of the Obama budget proposal that comes in early 2011, I would expect.

It may be that all the Presidents pull the most-controversial stuff out of the budget process (e.g. Hillary-care and Obama-care, Medicare Part D and NCLB were all separate, new legislation, rather than budget expansions - not to mention the extra-budgetary military mission expenditures from both the Clinton and Bush administrations). And hence the budget, generally, goes through with relatively little controversy. It’s a theory, anyhow.

I get what you’re saying dwex, but my point is that people seem to ignore the Congressional factor completely when they’re talking about budgets.  Putting my partisan hat on, for all Obama’s blustering about the deficit he “inherited”, he seems to forget that his team had already been managing the purse strings for two years.

That argument would hold up if Congress passed a deficit-spending program when the White House had proposed a surplus budget. Or even if there were a substantive difference in the size of the deficit proposed by the White House and what got passed in Congress.

As I said in Rich’s other thread - Obama and the Democrats clearly own the deficit-spending program in the 2010 budget (and most probably in subsequent budgets; we will reportedly see the 2011 plan in a couple of weeks). But Bush and his fiscal team own the deficits in their plans.

Did the Contract With America Congresses pass budgets that were radically different from the White House proposals for fiscal ‘95-01? I don’t believe they did.

I know it’s a great partisan thing to blame the Democratic Congress for fiscal ‘07-09 deficit spending, but that doesn’t hold any water whatsoever if the input budget plan largely matches what they passed.

I know it’s a great partisan thing to blame the Democratic Congress for fiscal ‘07-09 deficit spending, but that doesn’t hold any water whatsoever if the input budget plan largely matches what they passed.

That’s total garbage.  At the very least, they bear equal responsibility.  Frankly, I could give a rip what the President proposes.  It’s Congress that has the power of the purse, and if they don’t exercise it in any meaningful way, just rubber-stamping whatever the President wants, the responsibility still remains with them.

That’s total garbage.

No, that’s the reality. You can’t claim credit for the Contract With America Congresses, disclaim responsibility for the first Bush six years, and blame the Democrats for the last Bush two years. That’s utter bullshit.

It’s also the standard line of the Republican leadership and their associated talking heads.

So yeah, I call that kind of crap out.

You can’t…disclaim responsibility for the first Bush six years

Woah, ho, ho, did you ever see me do that?  I make no bones about the fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican Congress during Bush’s term, so don’t go there, partner.

My point is that people seem to ignore the responsibility Democrats hold for the record deficits of the last three years, pinning the responsibility on Bush when Congress is really the one they should be blaming, since it alone has the power of the purse.

Jesus, but you and rich (a few comments back) are both paranoid. “You” is a generic term for “people who are not me”, and the context was clarified with the immediately-following sentence.

I’ll write “some random set of GOP-type people who aren’t writers here, but are the vast majority of GOP-type people with written/spoken opinions” next time…

I will be watching [Bob McDonnell]’s political future.

Well, here’s a note on that front for you. Just got my weekly email from my State Senator (not the Delegate I wrote about yesterday). Seems like McDonnell’s a “Do What I Say, Not What I Do” kind of guy:

I noted from the text of his speech that McDonnell specifically criticized the President’s “stimulus plan” from 2009.  Of course, that stimulus money was used by the General Assembly in a bipartisan manner to fill our budget gaps last year.  But that’s not the issue.

What I find fascinating is that the Governor—while criticizing the President’s 2009 stimulus plan—has recently prescribed the exact same elixir for Virginia, i.e. having government jump-start the economy by spending money.

The new Governor’s “jobs plan” announced on Tuesday consists of AT LEAST $50 million in new spending, in addition to the usual tax credits for preferred industries.  This spending goes to the following “core priorities” of Virginia government:

—the Virginia Tourism Council for new television ads
—the Virginia Wine Promotion Fund for promoting Virginia wines
—the Motion Picture Opportunity Fund for ....... making movies?

If a Democrat had proposed this new spending, he would have been ridiculed from one end of the Capitol to another.  But now we have a Republican Governor telling us we “need to spend money to make money.”  (that’s a quote from Monday’s speech by the Governor to the Assembly).

Umm, isn’t that exactly why President Obama is being criticized?  And how is this Virginia stimulus not deficit spending, since our new Governor has failed to give any details for actually cutting the state budget?

I’ll write “some random set of GOP-type people who aren’t writers here, but are the vast majority of GOP-type people with written/spoken opinions” next time…

Try “one”, as in “one can’t disclaim responsibility…”