Obama rejects 'petty politics' of stimulus foes

[ray245]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has fired a biting campaign-style attack on Republicans and the former Bush administration, seeking to drive his 900 billion dollar stimulus plan through Congress.

As a debate in the Senate raced to a tense climax, the president rejected Republican complaints the package was too large and lacks sufficient tax cuts, seeking to turn his election win last November into political dominance.

He took his debut flight as president on Air Force One to a retreat of Democratic House of Representatives members in Virginia, and delivered the most combative and partisan speech since taking office last month.

In searing attacks on Republicans, Obama said Americans had not voted for "false theories of the past and they didn't vote for phony arguments and petty politics."

"They didn't vote for the status quo, they sent us here to bring change. We owe it to them to deliver," a fired up Obama said at a resort in Williamsburg, Virginia.

"This is the moment for leadership that matches the great test of our times."

The president also rejected Republican arguments that the massive stimulus plan should be defeated because it will expand the budget deficit, which is already heading for more than one trillion dollars.

"I found this deficit when I showed up," Obama said, in a clear swipe at the administration of former president George W. Bush.

"I found this a national debt double wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office," he said.

Obama also Thursday set a date for a primetime news conference on Monday night, the first of his presidency.

Earlier the president told lawmakers the "time for talk is over," with dismal unemployment figures released on Thursday and more expected Friday, reflecting the depth of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

"These numbers that we are seeing are sending an unmistakable message, and so are the American people," Obama said, as senators haggled over the details of the bill, which combines tax cuts and infrastructure spending, in an increasingly ill-tempered debate.

"The time for talk is over, the time for action is now because we know that if we do not act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse," Obama said.

Once the Senate has voted, both chambers of Congress will have to agree and vote on a joint package, before sending it to the president's desk to be signed into law.

The bill passed the House last week -- but without a single Republican vote, scuppering Obama's plan for a bipartisan bill after the opposition party complained it was shut out of the process.

New government figures Thursday showed US jobless claims soared to their highest level since October 1982, with more US workers on the unemployment rolls than at any time since the data were first published in 1967.

Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, a key ally of the president, blamed Republicans for the acrimony fomenting around the plan on Capitol Hill, but said he was not worried early setbacks would taint his friend's young presidency.

"Nobody said it would be easy," he told reporters.

"As the president said, old habits are hard to break, and if we're going change the environment, the climate and the attitude in this town, we're going to have to be patient and go through some rocky periods."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090206/ts ... 0206061127

Would the Republicans even listen to what Obama is asking for?

[Chris OFarrell]

Oh no no no, just wait!

They'll leap on this and scream loudly from Rush on down that this proves that Obama is a big phony and doesn't want to be 'bipartisan'!

Of course, the fact that the Republicians just got their asses smashed in an election, are trying to throw this package out and trying to have the Democrats agree to a 'compromise' package which is pure Reganomics and everything the GOP wants sort of again confirms the GOP's idea of 'compromise' is "Bend the fuck over and think of England, bitch"...

[ray245]

Oh no no no, just wait!

They'll leap on this and scream loudly from Rush on down that this proves that Obama is a big phony and doesn't want to be 'bipartisan'!

Of course, the fact that the Republicians just got their asses smashed in an election, are trying to throw this package out and trying to have the Democrats agree to a 'compromise' package which is pure Reganomics and everything the GOP wants sort of again confirms the GOP's idea of 'compromise' is "Bend the fuck over and think of England, bitch"...

Seems like the Republicans really want to screw the entire world upside down because their beliefs are not accepted in the stimulus plan, and they will proceed to blame the economic mess onto Obama, hence allow themselves to get reelected in 2012.

Americans have one party that seems to be happy to bend over all the time, and another party that is downright stubborn and selfish. Great.

Why can't the Democrats secure a 60 seat in the Senate.

[K. A. Pital]

"I found this deficit when I showed up,"

That's a good retort. In fact, every single time the Republicans whine about Obama's economic policies, they should be immediately spoken to in this fashion. "You did all the crap. I'm moving it out. You're either with me or you're irrelevant."

[The Romulan Republic]

Good. The unanimous House vote showed what the GOP congressmen thought of Obama's attempts at bipartisanship. Fuck them.

[Duckie]

House Republicans, you mean. They're a rabid, stupid bunch and all the moderates got replaced by Democrats this year.

Senate Republicans can be quite nice. Senator Snowe is one of the most loyal democratic voters there is, and her name is Olympia Snow (R-ME). She has a 91% D vote for this latest congress. Which is about the same as your average Democrat. Better than conservative ones. I'd rather have Collins and Snowe and a few others than Blue Dogs.

[The Romulan Republic]

House Republicans, you mean. They're a rabid, stupid bunch and all the moderates got replaced by Democrats this year.

Senate Republicans can be quite nice. Senator Snowe is one of the most loyal democratic voters there is, and her name is Olympia Snow (R-ME). She has a 91% D vote for this latest congress. Which is about the same as your average Democrat. Better than conservative ones. I'd rather have Collins and Snowe and a few others than Blue Dogs.

Fair enough. And in the Senate, Obama may actually need some GOP support.

But the House Republicans are worthless. Obama can more or less treat them two ways: tell them to shut up and play along or fuck off, or take it up the ass from them while he loses his base and sinks the country. I'm happy to see him leaning towards number one.

[ray245]

Now he is kicking into high gear.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A fired-up Barack Obama ditched his TelePrompter to rally House Democrats and rip Republican opponents of his recovery package Thursday night – at one point openly mocking the GOP for failing to follow through on promises of bipartisanship.

In what was the most pointedly partisan speech of his young presidency, Obama rejected Republican arguments that massive spending in the $819 billion stimulus bill that passed the House should be replaced by a new round of massive tax cuts.

“I welcome this debate, but we are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin,” said President Obama – sounding more like Candidate Obama than at any time since he took the oath of office less than a month ago.

Obama, speaking to about 200 House Democrats at their annual retreat at the Kingsmill Resort and Spa, dismissed Republican attacks against the massive spending in the stimulus.

"What do you think a stimulus is?" Obama asked incredulously. "It’s spending — that's the whole point! Seriously.”

Stabbing hard at Republicans who once aligned themselves with his predecessor, Obama made it clear that the problems he seeks to address with his recovery plan weren’t ones of his making.

“When you start hearing arguments, on the cable chatter, just understand a couple of things,” he said. “No. 1, when they say, ‘Well, why are we spending $800 billion [when] we’ve got this huge deficit?’ – first of all, I found this deficit when I showed up, No. 1.

“I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.”

After his remarks, Obama, clearly caught up in the moment, made the party get-together feel even more like a campaign rally with his signature call-and-response chant.

“Fired up?” he asked the Democratic lawmakers. “Ready to go!” a group of them shouted back.

In his speech, Obama went on to contrast the kind words of House and Senate Republican leaders with their increasingly strident opposition to the stimulus package.


“We were complimented by Republicans saying, ‘This is a balanced package . . . we’re pleasantly surprised,’” he said. “Suddenly, what was a ‘balanced package’ is suddenly out of balance.”



As the Senate deliberated in Washington – and packed it in for the night without finalizing a deal — Obama brushed pressed House Democrats to finalize the bill "without delay" when it emerged from the upper chamber.

"Let's think big right now," the president urged House Democrats. "Let's not think small."

Obama’s words bore only a vague resemblance to the prepared remarks the White House distributed to reporters as he began to speak. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Obama appeared to ditch his TelePrompter about a third of the way through the speech.

“He went to his heart, I think he spoke from his heart,” Clyburn said. “He went back to being the Barack Obama that Americans fell in love with when they went to the polls.”

Despite the hero's welcome Obama got in Williamsburg, there remain some skeptics of the plan within his own party. But if there was any tension between Obama and the House Democrats, it was hard to see it in the room. Before Obama spoke, House Democrats and their spouses posed for cell phone photos with the president – and even with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, gobbling berries and cream in white shirtsleeves, rushed out of the hall at one point, barking into his cell phone along the way as he wove between tables packed with his former House colleagues.

When Obama finally spoke, he called Pelosi “a rock” and “the great speaker of the House.” And he said that House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey and other House chairmen had acted with “discipline” in passing their version of the stimulus bill.

And while Obama said Americans are looking for the parties to work together on the stimulus, he said that it’s time to move past “the false theories of the past,” including the notion that tax cuts could cure all ills. In the process, he reminded the Democrats in the room – and the Republicans back in Washington – that he won the election in November.

“If you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction,” Obama said. “That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.”

But Democrats have their work cut out for them if they are going to approve the package without any GOP votes. As Obama circled the room and posed for photos before he spoke, a person in the room spotted Phil Schiliro, the president’s top legislative liaison, huddled in a tense conversation with Obey, the principal author of the House — a reminder that the bill still has a ways to go.

After the speech, Obama fielded a range of questions from Democrats in the room.

Hoping to keep jobs in his district, Georgia Rep. David Scott appealed to Obama to continue production of the F-22 fighter plane.

Responding to a question from Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack, Obama said that Gen. David Petraeus and other Pentagon officials are reviewing the military situation in Afghanistan – and that he would emphasize diplomacy with Pakistan and articulate a clear strategy for the U.S. military there.

Among the many hurdles he faces, Obama must referee an emerging divide between the fiscal conservatives in his party and those Democrats who want him to increase federal funding for key domestic priorities like education and health care. Responding to a question from Pennsylvania Rep. Chaka Fattah about that balance, Obama said, "We've inherited a mess. It's our job to clean it up."

But the president promised to begin with homeowners facing foreclosure, telling the assembled Democrats that he would include money for distressed households in the next installment of federal funding to purchase distressed mortgage-related debt.

In his bid to overcome partisan gridlock, Obama promised the assembled Democrats that he and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, would work together to mobilize voters on big issues, like energy and health care reform, utilizing the party's campaign committees in the process.

Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin, who hasn't been able to walk since he was 16, asked Obama if he would remove the executive ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Yes, Obama replied, but only after he and congressional leaders figure out a way to prevent opponents from overturning it.

The president closed his remarks by telling lawmakers and their families that he is "grateful and humbled" to be the leader of their party – and he said his “greatest partner,” Pelosi, “delivers on everything she promises.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200902 ... tico/18482

[Themightytom]

His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, gobbling berries and cream in white shirtsleeves, rushed out of the hall at one point, barking into his cell phone along the way as he wove between tables packed with his former House colleagues.

Do reporters have ADHD? Do they just narrate EVERYTHING they see or was there some grand purpose to this line I am missing...

[AMT]

His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, gobbling berries and cream in white shirtsleeves, rushed out of the hall at one point, barking into his cell phone along the way as he wove between tables packed with his former House colleagues.

Do reporters have ADHD? Do they just narrate EVERYTHING they see or was there some grand purpose to this line I am missing...

It's called painting a picture with words. The reporter probably thought it was an interesting image, and wanted to convey it.

[J]

Remember what happened last October?

1) Experts say bailout bill must pass or the world will end and everyone will die. Markets start falling.
2) Bailout bill was squashed in the House. Market crashes.
3) Bill gets tacked on as a rider in the Senate. Market panics some more.
4) Bailout bill gets passed. Market crashes again.
5) Bailout money gets abused to high heaven, lots of people lose their jobs. But the markets are up a bit!

It appears we're at step one right now with the stimulus bill.

[General Zod]

Remember what happened last October?

1) Experts say bailout bill must pass or the world will end and everyone will die. Markets start falling.
2) Bailout bill was squashed in the House. Market crashes.
3) Bill gets tacked on as a rider in the Senate. Market panics some more.
4) Bailout bill gets passed. Market crashes again.
5) Bailout money gets abused to high heaven, lots of people lose their jobs. But the markets are up a bit!

It appears we're at step one right now with the stimulus bill.

The key difference being the last bailout was just to give money to the banks with no strings attached. This one actually looks like it might wind up creating jobs in the process just from reading a few of the items on it.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Remember what happened last October?

1) Experts say bailout bill must pass or the world will end and everyone will die. Markets start falling.
2) Bailout bill was squashed in the House. Market crashes.
3) Bill gets tacked on as a rider in the Senate. Market panics some more.
4) Bailout bill gets passed. Market crashes again.
5) Bailout money gets abused to high heaven, lots of people lose their jobs. But the markets are up a bit!

It appears we're at step one right now with the stimulus bill.

So what should we do? Not pass any stimulus at all? Just give up? Not until we clean out the financial system? What?

[J]

So what should we do? Not pass any stimulus at all? Just give up? Not until we clean out the financial system? What?

The first step is admitting and telling the truth about our problems. Then clean out the system, fully fund the FDIC, and fully fund & expand social security programs so people aren't left starving & homeless in the streets while the system implodes. At the same time we plow a trillion dollars or so into a long term energy independance & infrastructure program. We have a systemic failure in the way our economies function, and the stimulus package as it exists doesn't do nearly enough to fix the problems.

The stimulus package as it exists does not address the systemic problems in the financial system and economy, and until those problems are fixed the stimulus money won't do nearly as much good as it can no matter what it's spent on.

[Edi]

Spam split to Testing

[Illuminatus Primus]

The first step is admitting and telling the truth about our problems.

So you are convinced that a lot of them aren't mealy-mouthed "extreme centrists" or mindless middlers or simply deluded but sincere ideologues - they know what is wrong and why it is so wrong and deliberately are not doing anything because they are owned by the capitalist elite?

[J]

So you are convinced that a lot of them aren't mealy-mouthed "extreme centrists" or mindless middlers or simply deluded but sincere ideologues - they know what is wrong and why it is so wrong and deliberately are not doing anything because they are owned by the capitalist elite?

Who knows? I can't definitively prove it one way or the other. I do know that every single congressman & senator has been sent multiple faxes explaining the real problems with the economy along with a suggested solution. I do know they've received countless phone calls telling them the exact same thing as the faxes. I do know that a large number of government representatives have read and understood those faxes and phone calls.

It's time to admit we have a very serious problem, that Bank of America, Citigroup, JPM, and several other large financials are completely broke & insolvent, and they need to fail and be taken over and run down by the FDIC. We need to acknowledge the fact that the market for cars in America is only around 10-12 million units a year, and all automakers will have to drastically shrink their capacity and lay off workers. We have to admit that all the growth in the last 10 years or so was just a bad debt & credit bubble, and that debt has to be paid off or defaulted. And we need to face the fact that we're in for a lot of pain & suffering, and there's absolutely no way around it. We have to say "our policies for the last 30 years were completely wrong, and we must them, starting now, there is no return to the past". That's the truth, and no one's telling it, not in the mainstream at least.

[ray245]

So you are convinced that a lot of them aren't mealy-mouthed "extreme centrists" or mindless middlers or simply deluded but sincere ideologues - they know what is wrong and why it is so wrong and deliberately are not doing anything because they are owned by the capitalist elite?

Who knows? I can't definitively prove it one way or the other. I do know that every single congressman & senator has been sent multiple faxes explaining the real problems with the economy along with a suggested solution. I do know they've received countless phone calls telling them the exact same thing as the faxes. I do know that a large number of government representatives have read and understood those faxes and phone calls.

It's time to admit we have a very serious problem, that Bank of America, Citigroup, JPM, and several other large financials are completely broke & insolvent, and they need to fail and be taken over and run down by the FDIC. We need to acknowledge the fact that the market for cars in America is only around 10-12 million units a year, and all automakers will have to drastically shrink their capacity and lay off workers. We have to admit that all the growth in the last 10 years or so was just a bad debt & credit bubble, and that debt has to be paid off or defaulted. And we need to face the fact that we're in for a lot of pain & suffering, and there's absolutely no way around it. We have to say "our policies for the last 30 years were completely wrong, and we must them, starting now, there is no return to the past". That's the truth, and no one's telling it, not in the mainstream at least.

I don't think the approval ratings of Obama would be high if he suggested it. Hell, many members here are shocked in regards to your proposal.

[J]

I don't think the approval ratings of Obama would be high if he suggested it. Hell, many members here are shocked in regards to your proposal.

Well, his approval ratings aren't going to get any higher so he might as well use the goodwill he has right now to get the bad news done & over with so we can begin the road to recovery. I hate to say this, but if Obama keeps fooling around with rescue & stimulus plans which just cover up the underlying problems, his popularity & approval ratings will likely GWB's look good by the time he gets to the end of his 1st term.

There's a lot more at stake here than approval ratings & re-election, if Obama does not make the right choices we are looking at America going the way of Iceland. Pray that it doesn't happen.

[ray245]

I don't think the approval ratings of Obama would be high if he suggested it. Hell, many members here are shocked in regards to your proposal.

Well, his approval ratings aren't going to get any higher so he might as well use the goodwill he has right now to get the bad news done & over with so we can begin the road to recovery. I hate to say this, but if Obama keeps fooling around with rescue & stimulus plans which just cover up the underlying problems, his popularity & approval ratings will likely GWB's look good by the time he gets to the end of his 1st term.

There's a lot more at stake here than approval ratings & re-election, if Obama does not make the right choices we are looking at America going the way of Iceland. Pray that it doesn't happen.

The problem is, can Obama or his successor be able enact the second phrase of your plan? We do not need the Republicans to take over a incomplete plan, given that the Republicans seems happy to mess things up.

Speaking in regards to banks, can the US just go 'communist' on it, and just nationalize all those failing industries, restructure every of those major industries from scratch? Nationalise the Citigroup, nationalise GM, Ford and any other industries that is in huge trouble right now.

Can't they take a further step, use this emergency as a reason to adopt the more aggressive and socialist policies with the intent to privatize those industries after this crisis?

[Guardsman Bass]

It would have helped if Obama had started with a higher figure than the one he presented and is arguing for (like if he had started off arguing for $1.2 trillion in spending instead of $775 billion). He was going to lose the greater aggregate of the Republicans, by and large - most of the moderate Republicans have been booted out and replaced by Blue Dog Democrats - but perhaps he could have made some of the surviving Republican moderates and Blue Dogs happy by letting them carve off chunks of the bigger number (down to, say, "only" $900 billion) so they could show how "fiscally responsible" and "bipartisan" they are.

In any case, this just means they'll have to go through the whole damn process again, probably, in another few weeks or months. In the mean time, he gets to castigate and importune, and hope that the current compromise passes.

[aerius]

It would have helped if Obama had started with a higher figure than the one he presented and is arguing for (like if he had started off arguing for $1.2 trillion in spending instead of $775 billion).

The problem with that is it risks spooking the bond market (ie. China & Japan refuse to buy any more T-bills) and if that happens it's game over. If the US government can't get others to buy & finance its debt, the yields go way up and all interest rates follow which shuts down lending, screws up the entire currency exchange market as everyone panics and kills what's left of the banking system. That's how you get a Depression.

[Guardsman Bass]

It would have helped if Obama had started with a higher figure than the one he presented and is arguing for (like if he had started off arguing for $1.2 trillion in spending instead of $775 billion).

The problem with that is it risks spooking the bond market (ie. China & Japan refuse to buy any more T-bills) and if that happens it's game over. If the US government can't get others to buy & finance its debt, the yields go way up and all interest rates follow which shuts down lending, screws up the entire currency exchange market as everyone panics and kills what's left of the banking system. That's how you get a Depression.

Would the bond market believe that he'd seriously get that amount in one go? I'm pretty much operating on the assumption that it would be argued down, until you got to something like the $900 billion to $1 trillion amount.

[Elfdart]

It would have helped if Obama had started with a higher figure than the one he presented and is arguing for (like if he had started off arguing for $1.2 trillion in spending instead of $775 billion). He was going to lose the greater aggregate of the Republicans, by and large - most of the moderate Republicans have been booted out and replaced by Blue Dog Democrats - but perhaps he could have made some of the surviving Republican moderates and Blue Dogs happy by letting them carve off chunks of the bigger number (down to, say, "only" $900 billion) so they could show how "fiscally responsible" and "bipartisan" they are.

In any case, this just means they'll have to go through the whole damn process again, probably, in another few weeks or months. In the mean time, he gets to castigate and importune, and hope that the current compromise passes.

What the Dems should have done once the Torture Party voted unanimously against the bill (in spite of Obama bending over backwards for them) is to strip out of the bill everything the Republitards wanted. What's the point in giving them anything if they can't be bothered to vote for it? Obama doesn't understand that his "reaching out" is construed as weakness by the Torture Party, who will simply demand more while giving away nothing.

[Duckie]

That'd be great, Elfdart! He'd ride that flaming stimulus bill down like the bomb in Dr. Strangelove due to losing the Senate Republicans and Blue Dogs but damn if he wouldn't show those conservatives!