Obama pusses out again

[Dominus Atheos]

No, the stimulus barely qualified as a bandaid. As I just said, the actual "stimulative" spending only came to $274 billion. Even the bills biggest supporters aren't saying it single-handedly saved the country from a bigger recession. Here's a chart showing the predicted effect of the stimulus and the actual impact:


Found on google image search

As any person who wasn't so stupid they need to go live in a hut alone with their shame can clearly see the economy is actually performing worse then the Obama administration predicted it would with no stimulus. If the stimulus was actually supposed to prevent a bigger recession then we must be in a depression.

I never said the bill "singlehandedly saved the country from a bigger recession", so you know just where you can shove that little strawman of yours.

Yes you did. You just dishonestly cut out your own quote where you said it.

And despite what you may think of the stimulus bill, it did stave off the complete collapse of the financial system in this country

Oh look, there it is right there in black and white (or whatever color scheme you have the board set up for). Look at that blatant, baldfaced lie. Man, I'm embarrassed for you. You delete your quote where you said that, then claim you didn't, then I post the quote, showing what a liar you are. Maybe I should save the posts in this thread as soon as they're made since I know you still have edit privileges and based on what you did here, it's only a single step up to edit your posts to delete the quote that shows you as a liar.

Secondly, unemployment shot up at a rate which far exceeded the projections Obama's advisers were basing their own calculations upon when they were crafting the Stimulus package and by the time the measure passed Congress, it was too late to appropriate more money for it in the fiscal year or redraft the plan. However, as this Staten Island Advance article points out:

*snip*

The record is still mixed and far from complete, but the spending did start taking the edge off the worst effects of the recession —one of them being that whole states did not end up going broke last year.

I never said the stimulus was useless, I said it was only a bandaid. And unlike some people I left my full post in the quotebox so you can verify for yourself. But actually, I'll just requote it:

the stimulus barely qualified as a bandaid.

See? Maybe you should try leaving your quotes intact sometime.

Oh, and as for your cute little chart, here's a more updated version:



Do I see the beginning of a downward trend in that curve? I believe I do.

So a two month figure counts as a trend in magikal patrick-land? Idiot. And your trend has already been broken by February's unemployment figures which remained flat at 9.7

Idiot.

You certainly are, as shall be further demonstrated:

"I know you are but what am I"? Seriously? You're down to elementary playground-level insults?

So, in short, your little knickers are in a twist because Obama staved off the country's crash into ruin like you hoped would come about in order to achieve your magickal New Left Renaissance™. Also, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread, Obama's foreign policy has been markedly different from the Bush "My Way Or The Highway" approach and he is in fact trying to wind down the two wars we're currently mired in. Thank you for continuing to demonstrate that you are, in fact, an idiot.

What the fuck is it with you and my supposed obsession with a magickal New Left Renaissance™? I haven't mentioned anything about that in this thread. Way back almost 2 years ago I made the prediction that there was going to be a huge economic crash and the party that was in power when it happened would be made unelectable, so I wanted the republican to get elected so they would get blamed rather then Obama and the democrats.

Lo and behold the economy crashed that fall and the republicans got the blame and the Democrats swept the elections that year! It sure looks like my prediction came true. While I admit I seriously overestimated the democrats willingness to take advantage of it, I'd call a Democratic president elected on a 200 electoral vote margin and both houses claiming supermajorities to be a magickal New Left Renaissance™. I only wish the democrats elected had the spine and willingness to take advantage of it.

Oh, you did more than make a "prediction" (of a process that was already underway, which is rather like predicting more rain during the monsoon season), kiddo.

At the time McCain was polling ahead of Obama, so please stop making such easily disprovable lies. If you're going to lie about something, at least make it something that requires a little effort to disprove. Normally I wouldn't be giving advice on how to lie to my opponent, but I'm just so embarrassed for you, I can't help it.

Shall we just take a quick review of the imbecilities you were so eagerly spewing less than two short years ago, in the "Does McCain Already Have The Election Won" thread:

So what I'm hoping, and willing to take a gamble on is after their messiah loses, democrats finally get it through their head that playing nice with republicans won't get them anywhere and they need to hit back, even harder then they get hit. Hopefully when 2012 rolls around, they can nominate someone cut from an entirely different cloth then Kerry and Obama, someone willing to go after every weak point their opponent has, with none of this "family is off limits" naive crap. Anyone care to guess what would happen if Obama had a 17 year old daughter that wasn't married and got knocked up? Here's my guess: the election would be over. Every member of the republican party would start hammering him on that, and every so called journalist would start mindlessly parroting those lines, and telling people this issue is important enough that because of it you can't vote for obama, and every moron sitting in front of the boob tube would believe them, and the election would be over with McCain winning in a landslide.

Which is what the media is best at: mindlessly parroting the talking points they are given. So many people think the media is biased, that not me. I think they're just so lazy they don't bother doing any analysis of anything to determine it's truth or importance, just what effect it may have on the election. I believe if democrats start employing the same media and spin tactics republicans do, the media would treat them the same as they treat republicans now (not Fox, obviously). So I'm hoping the 2012 democratic candidate will be a real candidate, and not a wishy washy push over like Kerry or Obama. I'm worried if Obama wins, the democrats might keep fielding candidates like them. That's the biggest reason I support John McCain.

The other reason is the attitude of the voting public. After the last 8 years, and especially after the 06 elections, I assumed Americans had learned their lesson about conservatism. But apparently not. Apparently they haven't figured out that the 3 major ideals of modern American are forcing as many people as possible to obey the rules people think are in a 2000 year old collection of books (which book is "thou shalt not get abortions" and "thou shalt let gay people marry" in again? Was it Leviticus or the Gospel of John?), helping the rich get richer even at the expense of the poor getting poorer, and keeping everyone scared so they don't realize the two previous things. My hope is that people wise up after another 4 years and the impending economic crash J, Her Grace, and the Admiral keep predicting which will be caused by the housing crisis caused by the deregulation of the market by republicans, the exploding deficit caused by the Iraq War and drunken sailor-like spending by the bush administration, and the climate crisis caused by global warming. Global warming may not be directly caused by republicans, but I just bet if Al Gore had been elected, we wouldn't be having this problem. After all those things happen, and if the Democrats can come out swinging and make sure the republicans get all the blame they deserve, they'll be swept out of office and running on a republican ticket will be a poison in almost every state in the union.

Obviously the last part is much less sure, end even the first part may never happen, so supporting McCain is a huge risk, but I don't see any other alternative. Letting things continue as they are is unacceptable.

. . .

With luck, enough people will suffer as a result of 12 years of trickle-down economics and deregulation, and someone will have the balls to lay the blame squarely where it belongs, that people reject those principles and all the principles of conservatism in general. It's unlikely, and probably impossible, but the alternative is much worse. Think of it this way: It's a question of a lot of suffering over the next 4 years, or even more suffering spread out over the next hundred. Conservatism needs to die, and this is the best way I can think of.

Your programme for bringing about the New Left Renaissance™, in your own words from September of 2008.

Red herring. You can't debate my statements now, so you're forced to go back several years to find a statement that you can.

Idiot.

You certainly are, simply on the basis of that spew of yours I've just quoted. But there's more to follow:

So then you really are going with "I know you are but what am I". Wow.

Fine then. Up your nose with a rubber hose!

Sooooooooo..... it's far better to simply wait for everything to fix itself after the country crashes into ruin because that will bring about, somehow, someway, the magickal New Left Renaissance™? Have I mentioned lately that you are, in fact, an idiot?

Red herring. I still haven't heard your plausible idea for fixing things.

Asked and answered. But then, perhaps I didn't use simple enough words for your benefit. Let's try again: get done what you can, when you can, in whichever way your side can. Really, that actually is a plan compared to what you've ever offered: "Let Republicans grind America into powder -->?--> Eventual Happiness.

Your plan grinds america into powder way more then my plan. As was obvious during the election and have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in the last year, "what you can get done" is: jackshit. At least my plan has an endgame past "grind America into powder".

Idiot.

You certainly are one, as the evidence continues to demonstrate:

Liar liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire.

Insane babble is hardly a refutation of anything, Atheos. Especially as, had the GOP actually gotten what it wanted back in 2005 (which wasn't at all a given, since the Republicans didn't have solid support on the measure as your own article points out and which you might have noticed had you bothered to read it), they would not now have the filibuster weapon they're using against the Obama agenda today —as, ironically, this American Spectator op/ed piece points out. Which is why the compromise put forth by the "Gang of 14" was agreed to so swiftly —because neither party wants to lose the filibuster as a weapon. Which means the point I was making is still valid. Which means that you are, in fact, an idiot.

Stop lying about the content of a link. Seriously, its just embarrassing. Even if people are too lazy to click through, you can bet that your opponent will post the relevant portion and expose you for the liar you are.

While Republicans hold 55 Senate seats, three members of the GOP rank and file have already announced plans to side with the Democrats. By most counts, that left the balance of power in the hands of a small group of GOP senators who remained publicly uncommitted — Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Of that group, Democrats viewed Warner as most likely to side with them, and he has been active in compromise negotiations under way in recent days.

Oh hey, look at that! It says the republican party has 48 confirmed votes and 4 fence sitters of which only one was likely to side with the democrats. Wow, look at how easy it was to expose your blatant lie.

No, Atheos —instead, we'll see just why Salon.com also says that you're an idiot:

Apr 20, 2005 | A vote on the Republicans' nuclear option could come as early as next week, but it's still not clear that Bill Frist has the votes to blow up Senate tradition.

There are 55 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Assuming that all the Democrats and independent Jim Jeffords -- who will announce his retirement today -- vote against the elimination of the filibuster, Frist will need to hold on to 50 votes from Republicans; Dick Cheney will provide the tie-breaking 51st vote if necessary. That means Frist can stand to lose five Republican senators. If he loses six, the nuclear option is dead.

Here's how the math looks now. John McCain and Lincoln Chafee have already announced that they'll vote no. Assuming they stick to their guns, Frist can win only if he limits his further losses to three. As the New York Times does the counting today, there are six Republicans who could go either way: Virginia's John Warner, who tells the Times that he sees the Senate as "the last bastion of protecting the rights of the minority" and that people should be "very careful" before making any changes; Olympia Snowe of Maine, who has said she has "deep concerns" about going nuclear; Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, who said over the weekend that he's been telling both sides, "don't include me in your count right now"; Susan Collins of Maine, who says that, while she's concerned about the "overuse" of the filibuster, she's also "concerned that a rule change will further charge the partisan atmosphere to the point that we will not be able to conduct business"; Oregon's Gordon Smith, a blue-state Republican who said in February that he's urging his colleagues to find a way to avoid the nuclear option; and Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who has at least paid lip service to the idea that he really, really wants to avoid the need for a "nuclear" confrontation.

The six are facing intense lobbying from their Senate colleagues; Warner had nearly back-to-back meetings with Frist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid Monday. They're getting a lot of external pressure, too -- and not all of it in the form of that silly Phil A. Buster animated advertisement. Frist will participate in a "Justice Sunday" program this weekend, a beamed-into-churches TV thing built around the idea that the Democrats' use of the filibuster is an attack on people of faith, and right-wing religious groups like Focus on the Family are holding Republicans feet to the fire. But there's also pressure coming from the other direction, and sometimes from unexpected sources. Gun Owners of America, which bills itself as America's only "no compromise gun lobby," is urging its members to fight the nuclear option. The reason? "Ending filibusters = more gun control."

Aaannnnnnnd:

WASHINGTON -- Somewhere in the midst of Bill Frist's opening statement Wednesday on George W. Bush's nomination of Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals -- after Frist had blown off Harry Reid's suggestion for a senators-only meeting to discuss the nuclear option, after he'd argued at length that filibusters of judges were unprecedented and unconstitutional and never before even "contemplated" in more than 200 years of Senate history -- New York Sen. Chuck Schumer rose to ask whether the Senate majority leader might yield for a question.

Frist refused, saying he'd prefer to finish his statement first. So the Senate majority leader railed on, arguing that Republicans had treated Bill Clinton's nominees fairly and that the Senate must now "do its duty and vote" on every last one of Bush's nominees. When he finally finished, Schumer rose to ask his question again.

"Isn't it correct," Schumer asked Frist, "that on March 8, 2000, my friend from Tennessee voted to uphold the filibuster of a judge, Richard Paez?"

The correct answer is yes -- Frist was one of a handful of Republican senators to vote against cloture on Paez' nomination -- but that's not what Frist said Wednesday morning. Instead, he launched into a rambling response that began with a stammering stutter-step -- "Mr. President, the, in response, the Paez nomination, we'll come back and discuss it further..." -- and ended with the claim that the Democrats were trying to "assassinate" judicial nominees by filibuster. In between, Frist revealed the extraordinarily thin reed on which the Republicans have hung their trumped-up outrage over the way Democrats have treated Bush's judicial nominees -- and possibly the reason that Frist is having such a hard time holding on to the Republican votes he needs to go nuclear.

By putting Owen's nomination on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, Frist took his first concrete step toward forcing a confrontation over the nuclear option. Although centrists from both parties are still working furiously to strike a compromise deal that would avert what Republican Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter calls "mutual assured destruction," Frist has made his intentions clear: Unless he's assured up-or-down votes on every Bush nominee, he'll move to kill the Democrats' right to filibuster -- with a tie-breaking vote by Dick Cheney if necessary -- early next week.

But Frist needs to hold on to 50 Republican votes to get there, and Schumer's question Wednesday underscores the difficulty he faces: Too many people -- and maybe even too many Republican senators -- understand that what the Democrats have done to Bush's nominees is at least no worse than what Republicans did to Bill Clinton's.

To justify changing the rules of the Senate -- and breaking those rules to change them -- Frist desperately needs to be able to argue that he's engaged not in an affirmative power grab but in a defensive reaction to the sins of the Senate Democrats. Ideally, he'd be able to claim that the Democrats' filibusters are unprecedented. But he can't do that, and everyone knows it: In 1968, the Republicans led a filibuster of Abe Fortas, Lyndon Johnson's pick to serve as chief justice of the United States.

So Frist has fallen back on a more careful formulation; he says that there's no precedent for denying a floor vote to a judicial nominee who enjoys the support of a majority of the Senate. Frist injected that "majority support" qualifier into his speech Wednesday so often and so abruptly that it sometimes seemed that someone was sending him electric shocks to remind him.

But then came Schumer's jolting question, and Frist had to narrow his claims about what's unprecedented all over again. The problem: Paez was ultimately confirmed, meaning that he necessarily had "majority support." It's the ultimate "gotcha." Not only have Republicans done that which they say is unprecedented, but Frist is one of the ones that did it.

Frist tried mightily Wednesday to distinguish his vote against cloture on Paez from the Democrats' votes against cloture on Bush's nominees, but his explanations never quite took. Paez ultimately got a vote, Frist insisted, but that vote just confirmed that he had "majority support." The Paez filibuster wasn't led by party leadership, Frist said. True enough, but what's worse -- having a nominee blocked by 44 members of the Senate voting in line with their leaders, or having a nominee blocked by 14 renegade senators, as the Paez nomination was, or having a nominee blocked by a secret "blue slip" hold from a single senator, as dozens of Clinton's nominees were?

Frist also seemed to argue that the Paez nomination was an isolated event, while Democrats, he said, have "obstructed not one nominee but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 in a routine way." But as Judd Legum notes at Think Progress, a filibuster of judicial nominees is either constitutional or it isn't. There's no way for Frist to argue the Constitution allows him to filibuster one judicial nominee but prohibits someone else from filibustering 10.

Frist was followed on the floor by Harry Reid and then by Specter, whose role as Judiciary Committee chairman puts him in charge of managing the debate over the Owen nomination on the Senate floor. But if Specter was supposed to be leading the charge for the Republicans, it seemed that Frist's performance -- and Specter's own reluctance to embrace the nuclear option -- had made him exactly the wrong man for the job.

Specter all but begged for a deal that would avert Frist's plan, and he admitted what Frist would not. Acknowledging that Republicans had used their own tricks to block "more than 70" Clinton nominees, Specter said the nuclear option controversy "did not arise because the Democrats thought [Bush's nominees] were unqualified, but because it's payback time for the Republicans' treatment of Bill Clinton's nominees." On paper, it sounds like an accusation. In person, it was all admission. "It's important to acknowledge," he said, "that both sides have been at fault."

Specter refused to say how he'll vote on the nuclear option, tracking the language of GOP Virginia Sen. John Warner, who told reporters the day before that there was power in remaining silent. Specter said that the Senate works best -- that moderation and consensus can be reached -- when neither party is sure of its vote count.

That certainly seemed to be the situation Wednesday afternoon. While Frist and Reid continued to rattle sabers and take shots at one another -- in an afternoon appearance on the Senate steps, Reid said the only person in a black robe Americans should fear is Darth Vader -- a half-dozen or so senators continued a flurry of meetings aimed at averting the nuclear option. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters that the time for a compromise is upon the Senate; the first in a series of votes leading to the nuclear option -- and with it, the clarity that will give one side or another a whole lot more bargaining power -- could come this week.

The second Salon.com piece is dated May 19th —a mere four days from the USA Today.com article you're so desperately pinning your argument upon. You may care to notice, unless you have the reading-comprehension skills of a gerbil, that the Salon.com piece clearly shows that Frist is not coming up with the votes he needs to try to ram the nuclear option through. So no, Atheos, you really are not qualified to comment upon anybody else's alleged dishonesty about what a news story actually says.

Whatever. Since I don't have proof that Frist had 50 votes and I don't really care, I'll conceed the point.

Idiot.

Yes, you are. Manifestly. But let's go on to your stumble to the finish line anyway:

I'm rubber you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.

Anyway, back to your main point. The gang of 14 compromise was "agreed to" by anyone besides the 14 members. Your article is just an opinion by some reporter, it doesn't actually quote any senators regarding their feelings about keeping the filibuster. You still have no evidence that the republican party was ready and willing to get rid of over something as stupid as appointments of district judges. Imagine what will happen when the democrats try to block a measure that cuts spending in certain progressive areas.

But the Salon.com articles certainly do so, and had you actually had competent knowledge of the players involved, you might have known where to look for further sources to confirm or deny your "gotcha". Specter, Hagel, Chaffee and Warner are known longtime veterans of the Senate with a great deal of respect for institutional continuity, while neither Snowe or Collins of Maine were going to be so eager to vote with the knuckledragging Right, being moderates themselves. The veterans know how useful a tool the filibuster is, as Warner himself pointed out in debate, which is another reason they'd not be so eager to weaken or abolish it, while Snowe and Collins only foresaw further and far more acrimonious partisan division of the Senate following in the wake of the nuclear option actually being carried through. Furthermore, Lindsey Graham was also not eager for the showdown, as pointed out here:

Lindsey Graham (R-SC), spoke clearly and put the filibuster fight in perspective in talking about the business of the Senate needing to go on, reminding the White House specifically, that the Senate is not a rubber stamp, and that kids are dying in Iraq.

All those people you just mentioned are members of the gang of 14. Farty-head.

And, um, the "Gang of 14" compromise was agreed to by the fourteen senators involved plus a majority of senators from both parties,

Source? Just because you say it doesn't make it true. So as per DR5 I'm demanding a source for that claim that it was agreed to by a majority of both parties. If your next post doesn't contain a source, I'll take that as a concession of of the point.

so the only conceivable explanation for your saying anything like "The gang of 14 compromise was "agreed to" by anyone besides the 14 members" is the one which has been so amply demonstrated not only in this rebuttal but throughout this thread: the evident fact that you are, indeed, an idiot.

Well you're a booger-eater, so there!

No, Atheos, I think rather is is you who needs to be looking up hut properties on some deserted island to go live on in shame.

Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo!

[Patrick Degan]

And here I thought you had finally had the sense to stay on the mat, Atheos. Just determined to polish those idiot credentials of yours, aren't you?

I never said the bill "singlehandedly saved the country from a bigger recession", so you know just where you can shove that little strawman of yours.

Yes you did. You just dishonestly cut out your own quote where you said it.

And despite what you may think of the stimulus bill, it did stave off the complete collapse of the financial system in this country

Oh look, there it is right there in black and white (or whatever color scheme you have the board set up for). Look at that blatant, baldfaced lie. Man, I'm embarrassed for you. You delete your quote where you said that, then claim you didn't, then I post the quote, showing what a liar you are. Maybe I should save the posts in this thread as soon as they're made since I know you still have edit privileges and based on what you did here, it's only a single step up to edit your posts to delete the quote that shows you as a liar.

Parsing sentences? Is that what you're down to as your "proof" of my alleged dishonesty? And you can shove those accusations of yours up your little ass.

Guess what, Atheos, the New York Times also says you're an idiot:

Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.

Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs — employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now.

If that had happened, what would the economy look like today?

Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill.

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

Yet I’m guessing you don’t think of the stimulus bill as a big success. You’ve read columns (by me, for example) complaining that it should have spent money more quickly. Or you’ve heard about the phantom ZIP code scandal: the fact that a government Web site mistakenly reported money being spent in nonexistent ZIP codes.

And many of the criticisms are valid. The program has had its flaws. But the attention they have received is wildly disproportionate to their importance. To hark back to another big government program, it’s almost as if the lasting image of the lunar space program was Apollo 6, an unmanned 1968 mission that had engine problems, and not Apollo 11, the moon landing.

The reasons for the stimulus’s middling popularity aren’t a mystery. The unemployment rate remains near 10 percent, and many families are struggling. Saying that things could have been even worse doesn’t exactly inspire. Liberals don’t like the stimulus because they wish it were bigger. Republicans don’t like it because it’s a Democratic program. The Obama administration hurt the bill’s popularity by making too rosy an economic forecast upon taking office.

Moreover, the introduction of the most visible parts of the program — spending on roads, buildings and the like — has been a bit sluggish. Aid to states, unemployment benefits and some tax provisions have been more successful and account for far more of the bill. But their successes are not obvious.

Even if the conventional wisdom is understandable, however, it has consequences. Because the economy is still a long way from being healthy, members of Congress are now debating another, smaller stimulus bill. (They’re calling it a “jobs bill,” seeing stimulus as a dirty word.) The logical thing to do would be to examine what worked and what didn’t in last year’s bill.

But that’s not what is happening. Instead, the debate is largely disconnected from the huge stimulus experiment we just ran. Why? As Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, the newest member of Congress, said, in a nice summary of the misperceptions, the stimulus might have saved some jobs, but it “didn’t create one new job.”

•

The case against the stimulus revolves around the idea that the economy would be no worse off without it. As a Wall Street Journal opinion piece put it last year, “The resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic — not the fiscal stimulus program — deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement.” In a touch of unintended irony, two of article’s three authors were listed as working at a research institution named for Herbert Hoover.

Of course, no one can be certain about what would have happened in an alternate universe without a $787 billion stimulus. But there are two main reasons to think the hard-core skeptics are misguided — above and beyond those complicated, independent economic analyses.

The first is the basic narrative that the data offer. Pick just about any area of the economy and you come across the stimulus bill’s footprints.

In the early months of last year, spending by state and local governments was falling rapidly, as was tax revenue. In the spring, tax revenue continued to drop, yet spending jumped — during the very time when state and local officials were finding out roughly how much stimulus money they would be receiving. This is the money that has kept teachers, police officers, health care workers and firefighters employed.

Then there is corporate spending. It surged in the final months of last year. Mark Zandi of Economy.com (who has advised the McCain campaign and Congressional Democrats) says that the Dec. 31 expiration of a tax credit for corporate investment, which was part of the stimulus, is a big reason.

The story isn’t quite as clear-cut with consumer spending, as skeptics note. Its sharp plunge stopped before President Obama signed the stimulus into law exactly one year ago. But the billions of dollars in tax cuts, food stamps and jobless benefits in the stimulus have still made a difference. Since February, aggregate wages and salaries have fallen, while consumer spending has risen. The difference between the two — some $100 billion — has essentially come from stimulus checks.

The second argument in the bill’s favor is the history of financial crises. They have wreaked terrible damage on economies. Indeed, the damage tended to be even worse than what we have suffered.

Around the world over the last century, the typical financial crisis caused the jobless rate to rise for almost five years, according to work by the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. On that timeline, our rate would still be rising in early 2012. Even that may be optimistic, given that the recent crisis was so bad. As Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson (Republicans both) and many others warned in 2008, this recession had the potential to become a depression.

Yet the jobless rate is now expected to begin falling consistently by the end of this year.

For that, the stimulus package, flaws and all, deserves a big heaping of credit. “It prevented things from getting much worse than they otherwise would have been,” Nariman Behravesh, Global Insight’s chief economist, says. “I think everyone would have to acknowledge that’s a good thing.”

So what now?

The last year has shown — just as economists have long said — that aid to states and cities may be the single most effective form of stimulus. Unlike road- or bridge-building, it can happen in a matter of weeks. And unlike tax cuts, state and local aid never languishes in a household’s savings account.

The ideal follow-up stimulus would start with that aid. It would then add on extended jobless benefits, which also tend to be spent, as well as tax credits carefully drafted to get businesses to hire and households to spend, like the cash-for-clunkers program.

By this yardstick, the $154 billion bill that the House passed in December is decent. It includes $27 billion in state and local aid, $79 billion for jobless benefits and other safety nets, and $48 billion in infrastructure spending.

The smaller bills being considered by the Senate are worse. They may end up with no state aid at all, and their tax credits sound better — with promises to help the long-term unemployed and small businesses — than they are. “The economic impact of the Senate bill, at this point, is starting to look very small,” Mr. Behravesh says.

Given what people have been saying about a successful stimulus bill, just imagine what they’ll say about one that doesn’t accomplish much.

The Concorde Monitor also calls you an idiot:

Many people have come to believe that the money spent so far under the $787 billion federal stimulus program was wasted. The truth is that things would have been much worse without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The unemployment rate, currently down to 9.7 percent, would have been higher. The president's Council of Economic Advisers says that it could have hit 11.2 percent if the spending hadn't created and, more notably, saved jobs. But direct job creation and preservation was only part of the stimulus package.

Some 40 percent of the money was used to cut taxes for workers. If that money was wasted, it wasn't wasted by Congress or Washington bureaucrats, but by people who got the extra money. But they didn't waste it, either. They spent it on things like food, gas and mortgage payments.

The stimulus money used to rebuild bridges and roads is easy to see. But it's a small part of total spending. Stimulus money was used by state governments and school districts to prevent massive layoffs. It allowed Concord's school district, for example, to transfer nearly $800,000 to the city side of the budget to help hold property taxes steady.

Stimulus money was also used to allow states to extend unemployment benefits, increase scholarship aid and subsidize COBRA payments so laid-off workers could keep their health insurance. Yet another big chunk of the stimulus money is being used to pick up a bigger share of state Medicaid costs, and some of it is being spent on tax breaks for small business. When combined, tax reductions and benefits increases account for about two-thirds of stimulus spending.
People are angry about the federal bailout of the financial industry, angry about the bailout of the auto industry, and angry about the money paid to or extorted by members of Congress in exchange for their support. But anger at the stimulus program is unjustified.

The effects of the stimulus program can't be measured by jobs created or jobs saved with any degree of accuracy. But the government can't pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy without creating or preserving jobs and boosting the economy. Whether the benefit lasts only as long as government spending continues is another matter.

Governors in 21 states are using stimulus money not just to preserve public-sector jobs, but also to stimulate job creation by the private sector. According to a recent report in the New York Times, Mississippi Republican Gov. Haley Barbour's administration is using stimulus money to subsidize the salaries of newly hired workers of companies they believe will retain the employees after the subsidies stop.

In New Hampshire, Gov. John Lynch wants to create jobs with a program that might save the state money in the long run.

His three-part plan would: use the state's unemployment fund, which received stimulus money, to use unemployment benefits to make up part of the wages lost when employers reduce hours rather than lay workers off; give unemployment benefits to workers during six weeks of training by a new employer; and help job agencies develop a plan to assess the skills of unemployed workers so potential hires can show proof of their competence. Parts of the plan need legislative approval and should get it.

The recession was so deep and the financial industry so battered that government had to act.

The stimulus program could have been better and should have been bigger. But it's doing a decent job of keeping the economy afloat until it can swim again and people employed who would otherwise need assistance.

And also Steven Hertzberg of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Nearly a year ago, Congress took a decisive step to shore up an economy in free fall by passing the $787 billion stimulus bill. Since then, we have seen millions of Americans enter the ranks of the unemployed, billions of dollars spent on economic recovery, and quarterly growth swinging from the largest decline in a generation to positive territory in the same year.

Cut through all the numbers, though, and this is what you find: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saved us from plunging into a second Great Depression.

That's tough to fathom for many Pennsylvanians who are out of work or have lost their homes in the wake of the worst recession since the Depression. But on this first anniversary of the recovery act, let's take a look at a few of the legislation's achievements:

84,000 additional Pennsylvania jobs: Wall Street's excesses have robbed Pennsylvania of more than 200,000 jobs since the recession began two years ago. By contrast, the stimulus kept tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians - our neighbors, friends, and relatives - employed.

189,000 Pennsylvanians kept out of poverty: This is a major success by any measure. Extended unemployment benefits, tax credits for struggling families, and enhanced food-stamp benefits, among other provisions, kept those Pennsylvanians hit hardest by the recession from falling into poverty last year.

$80 billion to U.S. consumers in the third quarter of 2009 alone: Is it any wonder that the economy started growing again when this money began making its way to Main Street?

I could give you more numbers, but you get the picture: The Recovery Act brought the economy back from the brink.

And these figures probably underestimate its impact, because they don't take market psychology into account. When the legislation passed, the economy was plunging at a pace similar to that of the 1930s. If Congress had sat on its hands, unemployment now could easily be 12 percent to 15 percent - and on its way to 20 percent.

That being said, the work is not done. Thousands of Pennsylvanians are still unemployed, and we face a jobs crisis of mammoth proportions.

And yet that all-too-familiar pre-crisis paralysis has reemerged in Washington. No longer faced with the potential collapse of the economy, politicians have lost the will to aid working families.

Our leaders need to muster the courage to act decisively again. Since private businesses and consumers aren't quite ready to drive our economic engine without a strong assist from government, we need a "Main Street Jobs Act" in Washington as well as in Harrisburg.

At the state level, Pennsylvania could tap into more than $600 million in additional federal funds for unemployment benefits, assistance for low-income families, and postsecondary-education grants for part-time workers. What are we waiting for?

At both the state and national level, policymakers should mobilize more private investment in conservation and renewable energy. The green economy is the future, and Pennsylvania is ahead of many other states. Policies are already in place to mobilize $7 billion in private investment for green projects in Pennsylvania over the next three years, which is one reason our economy is doing better than other states'. Now we need to build on that progress.

We also need state and federal policies that lift the incomes of middle-class families - such as a higher minimum wage and requirements that publicly funded green jobs pay decently. Remember: Flagging family incomes, combined with consumption financed by unsustainable borrowing - including loans against inflated home values - helped get us in this mess. Restoring middle-class income growth will pull us out - and keep us out by sustaining private consumption and investment for the long term.

With the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a year ago, Congress took the first major step toward bringing the economy back from the brink. And it worked.

Now we need our leaders to take additional steps to assure that the economy delivers for regular Pennsylvanians and Americans. Otherwise, unemployment will remain high for years to come.

As does the Baltimore Sun:

With all the billions the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (better known as the federal stimulus bill) has poured into the economy, you'd think it could have managed some better marketing. There seems to be a widespread belief that the $862 billion program, enacted one year ago, was a waste of money that has done nothing to pull the nation out of recession. Granted, the country still has big problems, primarily a dreadful labor market. But to conclude the stimulus has done no good is to forget how bad things were, to underestimate how much they have turned around and to ignore how much more the program still has to offer.

At the time the stimulus bill passed last year, America's economy was shrinking at an annualized rate of 6.4 percent. The first quarter of 2009 was the worst in a string of economic contractions dating back almost without interruption for a year and a half. Less than six months after the stimulus passed, the economy was growing again, and by the fourth quarter of last year, it was growing at an annualized rate of 5.4 percent. The economy had already lost more than 4.1 million jobs before the stimulus bill took effect. Nearly 3.9 million more have been lost since then, but economists agree that without the stimulus, things would have been worse, by as much as 2 million jobs.

The first waves of stimulus spending were weighted toward aid to state governments, which prevented massive layoffs in state capitals across the nation that would have taken teachers out of classrooms and police off the streets; strengthening the social safety net to provide additional help to the unemployed and impoverished; and reductions in payroll taxes. Unlike the Bush administration's stimulus programs, in which the treasury sent checks to taxpayers that were largely saved or used to pay down debt, the Obama stimulus tax cuts came gradually in the form of reduced payroll tax deductions designed to make sure more of it was spent.

And the program isn't done. The spending that will come next is weighted toward infrastructure, both physical and digital, that will not only put people to work now but will also pay lasting dividends. According to The Washington Post, just $31 billion that was allocated for road construction, expansion of broadband service, energy efficiency, high speed rail, smart grid upgrades, electronic health records and other projects has been spent. That leaves nearly $200 billion yet to come.

The stimulus has not single-handedly returned the economy to growth and prosperity. But it has helped stave off what many feared little more than a year ago might turn into a full-fledged depression, and it still has more punch left. It may not have been perfect, but it was certainly not a mistake.

Which means the argument is sustained no matter how you try to twist it to suit whatever little meaning exists in that fantasy world you obviously live in. Further, there is a world of difference between "staving off " disaster and "singlehandedly preventing" disaster. But then I forget you need things explained to you in direct and very simple terms at all times.

Secondly, unemployment shot up at a rate which far exceeded the projections Obama's advisers were basing their own calculations upon when they were crafting the Stimulus package and by the time the measure passed Congress, it was too late to appropriate more money for it in the fiscal year or redraft the plan. However, as this Staten Island Advance article points out:

*snip*

The record is still mixed and far from complete, but the spending did start taking the edge off the worst effects of the recession —one of them being that whole states did not end up going broke last year.

I never said the stimulus was useless, I said it was only a bandaid. And unlike some people I left my full post in the quotebox so you can verify for yourself. But actually, I'll just requote it:

the stimulus barely qualified as a bandaid.

See? Maybe you should try leaving your quotes intact sometime.

You mean like I actually did do:

No, the stimulus barely qualified as a bandaid. As I just said, the actual "stimulative" spending only came to $274 billion. Even the bills biggest supporters aren't saying it single-handedly saved the country from a bigger recession. Here's a chart showing the predicted effect of the stimulus and the actual impact:

*snip chart*

As any person who wasn't so stupid they need to go live in a hut alone with their shame can clearly see the economy is actually performing worse then the Obama administration predicted it would with no stimulus. If the stimulus was actually supposed to prevent a bigger recession then we must be in a depression.

The ACTUAL quote-box from my post on page 3 of this thread. And no, I did not reword your spew into saying "the stimulus was useless". No, you really are not qualified to be commenting on anybody else's alleged dishonesty, idiot.

Oh, and as for your cute little chart, here's a more updated version:



Do I see the beginning of a downward trend in that curve? I believe I do.

So a two month figure counts as a trend in magikal patrick-land? Idiot. And your trend has already been broken by February's unemployment figures which remained flat at 9.7

No, a three-month figure counts as a marker that a trend is halting or slowing when it shows a flatlining or a clear downward turn —the view from the real world as opposed to Atheos-world where up is down and any idiocy is tortured into pseudo-plausibility.

"I know you are but what am I"? Seriously? You're down to elementary playground-level insults?

Look who's talking.

At the time McCain was polling ahead of Obama, so please stop making such easily disprovable lies. If you're going to lie about something, at least make it something that requires a little effort to disprove. Normally I wouldn't be giving advice on how to lie to my opponent, but I'm just so embarrassed for you, I can't help it.

That's right, Atheos. Keep pretending you can run away from your own idiotic spew. Keep pretending that you can actually convince anybody with more than two braincells to rub together that you didn't actually say what you said —being your statement of support for a McCain presidency on the hopes that he and the GOP would grind the country into powder, discredit themselves more or less permanently, and usher in the Promised New Left Renaissance™.

Red herring. I still haven't heard your plausible idea for fixing things.

Asked and answered. But then, perhaps I didn't use simple enough words for your benefit. Let's try again: get done what you can, when you can, in whichever way your side can. Really, that actually is a plan compared to what you've ever offered: "Let Republicans grind America into powder -->?--> Eventual Happiness.

Your plan grinds america into powder way more then my plan.

Your "plan"? Is that what you call it? Really? How amusing.

As was obvious during the election and have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in the last year, "what you can get done" is: jackshit. At least my plan has an endgame past "grind America into powder".

And in Atheos-world, I'm sure that's how things actually look. To anybody who has to live in the real world, however, just letting everything crash and burn in the "hope" that public outrage will make conservatives permanently unelectable is actually not an option. Furthermore, as the numbers continue to show that America is not presently being ground into a powder, I think we have to move to terms beyond "idiot" to describe what you are now showing yourself to be.

Anyway, back to your main point. The gang of 14 compromise was "agreed to" by anyone besides the 14 members. Your article is just an opinion by some reporter, it doesn't actually quote any senators regarding their feelings about keeping the filibuster. You still have no evidence that the republican party was ready and willing to get rid of over something as stupid as appointments of district judges. Imagine what will happen when the democrats try to block a measure that cuts spending in certain progressive areas.

But the Salon.com articles certainly do so, and had you actually had competent knowledge of the players involved, you might have known where to look for further sources to confirm or deny your "gotcha". Specter, Hagel, Chaffee and Warner are known longtime veterans of the Senate with a great deal of respect for institutional continuity, while neither Snowe or Collins of Maine were going to be so eager to vote with the knuckledragging Right, being moderates themselves. The veterans know how useful a tool the filibuster is, as Warner himself pointed out in debate, which is another reason they'd not be so eager to weaken or abolish it, while Snowe and Collins only foresaw further and far more acrimonious partisan division of the Senate following in the wake of the nuclear option actually being carried through. Furthermore, Lindsey Graham was also not eager for the showdown, as pointed out here:

Lindsey Graham (R-SC), spoke clearly and put the filibuster fight in perspective in talking about the business of the Senate needing to go on, reminding the White House specifically, that the Senate is not a rubber stamp, and that kids are dying in Iraq.

All those people you just mentioned are members of the gang of 14. Farty-head.

Yes, and your point is... what, exactly?

And, um, the "Gang of 14" compromise was agreed to by the fourteen senators involved plus a majority of senators from both parties,

Source? Just because you say it doesn't make it true. So as per DR5 I'm demanding a source for that claim that it was agreed to by a majority of both parties. If your next post doesn't contain a source, I'll take that as a concession of of the point.

Sigh:

A bipartisan Senate agreement on judicial appointees bore its first fruit yesterday when the chamber voted 81 to 18 to stop filibustering a nominee who has waited four years for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. A confirmation vote for Priscilla R. Owen of Texas is scheduled for today, with Republicans predicting she will pass comfortably.

At least two other nominees have been assured up-or-down votes under the deal. But the Senate's newfound comity may not survive over the long term, several members warned, because party leaders differ on the accord's meaning and several outside groups are still pressing for the type of showdown the negotiators averted.

"This is a truce, not a treaty," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). He criticized the agreement and predicted the GOP majority soon will be back on the verge of voting to bar filibusters of judicial nominees. Disputes over two appellate court nominees not mentioned in the accord -- Brett Kavanaugh and William J. Haynes II -- threaten to renew sharply partisan debates next month, Hatch and others said.

Lawmakers' and interest groups' reactions to the agreement, crafted Monday by seven Democratic and seven Republican senators working outside their leaders' circles, ranged from praise to anxiety to indignation. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), having lost control of the issue, responded cautiously and avoided praise that might antagonize conservative groups angry over GOP concessions. The agreement "makes modest progress but falls far short of guaranteeing up-or-down votes on [all] judicial nominees," he said in a floor speech.

Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) portrayed the pact as a huge Democratic victory and a stinging rebuke of President Bush and congressional Republicans. Bush, Vice President Cheney and others should "stop to learn some lessons from the American people's rejection of their extreme tactics," he said in a news conference. "Washington Republicans have wasted months by trying to pay off their far right instead of doing what's right."

Bush, who greeted Owen at the White House, said earlier in the day: "I'm pleased that the Senate is moving forward on my judicial nominees who were previously being blocked. These nominees have waited years for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, and now they'll get one."

The two-page bipartisan agreement denied Frist the votes he needed to carry out the threat to ban judicial filibusters. It also obligated the seven Democratic signers to refrain from filibusters of judges except in "extraordinary circumstances."

The pact specifically promised to drop long-standing Democratic filibusters of Owen and two other appellate nominees strongly opposed by liberals: Janice Rogers Brown of California and William H. Pryor Jr. of Alabama. Their confirmation votes are likely next month, Senate aides said. The agreement said there would be no commitment to allow votes on two other nominees, William G. Myers III and Henry Saad.

Beyond those provisions, however, the agreement is rife with ambiguity and with bipartisan understandings built around mutual trust rather than clear-cut legalisms, a number of senators said.

Democrats repeatedly said the proposed filibuster ban -- often called the "nuclear" or "constitutional" option -- is now "off the table" for the remainder of the 109th Congress. Not true, said Republicans, warning they will try to ban judicial filibusters the minute Democrats use the delaying tactic to thwart a nominee for anything short of demonstrated ethical shortcomings. "Extraordinary circumstances," both sides agreed, are open to various interpretations.

"I do believe we're going to have to go back to the constitutional option," Hatch said. He predicted that Democrats will be unable to resist filibustering a Bush appointee to the Supreme Court, where many expect one or two vacancies this year.

Democrats said they achieved their top goal: preserving the right to filibuster judicial nominees. But several Republicans said the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner where it will be extremely difficult to exercise that right. To filibuster a Bush nominee on the grounds that he or she is extraordinarily objectionable -- and to have Republicans refrain from banning such filibusters -- will require at least six GOP negotiators to join Democrats in saying the filibuster does not violate their agreement's spirit, lawmakers said.

Under the pact, a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee will be "almost impossible," Frist said. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of the 14 negotiators, agreed. "If there's a filibuster for a Supreme Court nominee in the future, where one of the seven Democrats who signed the letter participates [in the filibuster], all bets are off," he said in an interview.

Some conservatives said Democratic negotiators, by accepting Owen, Brown and Pryor, have seriously undermined their ability to object to future nominees on grounds of their political philosophies. Because those three "were characterized by their opponents as the president's most conservative nominees, it is now clear that the Democrats have removed a nominee's 'judicial philosophy' as a means of identifying an 'extraordinary circumstance,' " said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a key negotiator, said that "if any of the Democrats who signed [the letter] felt compelled because of extraordinary circumstances to launch a filibuster, they would talk with the rest of us" about consequences.

Democrats hailed the agreement's call on Bush to consult with senators before nominating judges. If the president does so, he will be less likely to nominate judges on the far political right, said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). And if he refuses to consult, Kennedy said, GOP moderates might feel free to oppose a sharply conservative pick. "I think the people who signed the letter, including the Republicans, would feel that's certainly a betrayal of their understanding," he said, and in such cases, "I'm not sure a filibuster will be needed."

Senators differed on the likely fate of Myers, an Idahoan. Frist's staff said Senate leaders will seek a vote on the appellate court nominee, presumably triggering a Democratic filibuster that would kill his chances. The filibuster would not violate the two-page agreement, Senate aides said, but it might cause some Americans to wonder why Democrats were using the delaying tactic so soon after the heralded announcement. "The American people are going to be smart enough to realize what's going on here," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.

The backdown by both sides in the wake of the Gang's intervention and subsequent votes on judicial nominees in accordance to the deal, along with the continuing observance of its terms throughout the remainder of the term of the 109th Congress, demonstrates the consent to the deal by the majority of the Senate. Which means the point stands and you know just where you can shove your little DR5 demand, idiot.

[K. A. Pital]

Excuse me, but where is the proof that Patrick somehow abused the edit function and deleted his prior statements? I've got a complaint, so let's settle this little problem. I don't have much time to investigate, so Atheos, show me where and how the abuse was done, if you please.

[Edi]

Excuse me, but where is the proof that Patrick somehow abused the edit function and deleted his prior statements? I've got a complaint, so let's settle this little problem. I don't have much time to investigate, so Atheos, show me where and how the abuse was done, if you please.

Patrick has not edited a single one of his posts. The edit notifications are missing and the quotes DA refers to can be found by a simple ctrl-f search for those strings with Firefox.

It seems that DA is accusing Patrick of selective quoting (i.e. leaving some things out of quotes) rather than editing posts, but it is yet to be shown that there is anything malicious going on in that regard. I don't have the time (and to be honest, not much of an inclination either) to wde through every single post in this thread since he beginning of the previous page.