Obama's got "better stuff to do"

[1KielsonDrive]

Great rant ! I agree, but how is the bully pulpit going to improve our economy ?

Because basically what you said in the rest of your post, rendered the bolded part moot.

And you'd suggest what?

[1KielsonDrive]

Well you write like you have first hand experience of this type of transaction so I bow to your superior knowledge. But it's still Obama's Economy stupid - which has a far truer ring to it than the gobbledigook you had to devise in an attempt to excuse him. Hope he runs on it.

Shows to go ya', you're missing basic comprehension. I never attempt to excuse NO!Bama. You were trying to excuse the previous 8 years which caused this whole mess. NO!Bama isn't making it any better but he sure as hell didn't create it.

[firstandten]

And you'd suggest what?

I would suggest that it would take a lot more than the bully pulpit you want Obama to jump on to improve this economy.

[1KielsonDrive]

I would suggest that it would take a lot more than the bully pulpit you want Obama to jump on to improve this economy.

And you may be correct. Considering what he's done so far, reaching across the aisle and all, it sure as hell wouldn't hurt to try it. He's viewed as a gutless wonder. Not quite true, but he's certainly not the most assertive, aggressive president. if you're suggesting he has no other tools at his disposal, I'd be likely to agree with you on that. That's why I'm suggesting if he's going to accomplish anything, he better get off his ass and speak out - take a stand.

[firstandten]

He is using tools in the toolbox to fix the economy. Economics however is an inexact science. Besides politics complicates things even more. I believe the problem independents and people within his own party has with him is that he is a "stay the course" kind of guy and doesn't react to the 24 hour news cycle get it done now mentality that we see more and more.

It makes him seem weak and uncaring, but he's anything but that.

We are over a year before the election, lets see where we are this time next year. Lets judge him on the economy at that point not based on one bad report after several good ones, because the political pundits need something to fill the airwaves on a daily basis.

[Mikeg]

He is using tools in the toolbox to fix the economy. Economics however is an inexact science. Besides politics complicates things even more. I believe the problem independents and people within his own party has with him is that he is a "stay the course" kind of guy and doesn't react to the 24 hour news cycle get it done now mentality that we see more and more.

It makes him seem weak and uncaring, but he's anything but that.

We are over a year before the election, lets see where we are this time next year. Lets judge him on the economy at that point not based on one bad report after several good ones, because the political pundits need something to fill the airwaves on a daily basis.

President Obama was once very interested in using the tools in his economic toolbox but he has since lost interest and dropped the daily economic briefing he had asked for at the beginning of his term. According to his press secretary at the time, Obama felt is was “important that each day he receive the most up to date information as it relates to the economy." Obama promised that in return for passing his $0.8 trillion stimulus spending plan, unemployment would not exceed 8.5% . But politics complicates things and he decided to let the Democrat leaders in Congress fill the plan with a boatload of pork. They passed the stimulus plan and then forgot about the economy while Obama changed the agenda to fixing the healthcare crisis, check that, the health insurance crisis.

Economics however is an inexact science and while they focused on writing health insurance legislation, the unemployment numbers sailed way past 8.5% and more than two years later remains stuck at around 9%. Nonetheless, the President is a "stay the course kind of guy" and remains committed to try and spend our way into economic recovery, despite the evidence that it hasn't worked yet to improve employment outside of the government and road construction sectors.

We are 17 months before the election and at the recent monthly rates of new job growth, there is no way that the economy will be creating jobs above the replacement rate by then and the actual numbers of unemployed will still be far greater than what is was when Obama came into office and sold the country his stimulus plan. The unemployed, underemployed and those who personally know them will be the ones to judge this president come election day - regardless of political punditry or the pathetic rationalizations of his die-hard supporters.

"It's the economy, stupid" and Obama remains stuck on stupid.

[ghettopalmetto]

Obama promised that in return for passing his $0.8 trillion stimulus spending plan, unemployment would not exceed 8.5% .

I believe a statement was made by one of Obama's economic advisors that without the stimulus, unemployment was likely to rise above 8%. Clearly, the economy was in worse shape than anyone thought. Please provide citation where President Obama promised that unemployment would not exceed 8.5%.

But politics complicates things and he decided to let the Democrat leaders in Congress fill the plan with a boatload of pork.

Please cite examples of said "pork". Nearly 40% of the stimulus bill was tax cuts. The bulk of the balance was funding for infrastructure projects, aid to states, and extensions of unemployment benefits.

If Obama's economic strategy, i.e. the stimulus, was so stupid, please show me the Republican proposal for boosting employment. As far as I'm concerned, we're repeating 1937, where concerns about long-term debt are suddenly and irrationally more important than short-term growth in GDP and employment.

And, sure as shit, we're seeing very similar results. Ever since the GOP made the deficit and debt its only concerns, unemployment has begun to rise again, and a double-dip recession is rearing its head. What's your plan for averting a double dip? More tax cuts???

[Mikeg]

......Clearly, the economy was in worse shape than anyone thought......

When the results go bad, the Democrats and their liberal base more often than not attempt to disavow the very policies they had previously supported and enacted. Above is the left's typical whining on the economy, basically a repeat of the excuses coming out of the undisciplined mouth of Joe Biden: "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy, the figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures in most of the blue chip indexes out there. ..."

That sounds almost exactly like the same shit we heard from Democrats who voted to make regime change in Iraq our national policy and then later followed through and voted to give the President authorization to invade Iraq. Joe Biden again, this time on Iraq and the assumptions that Saddam had WMDs: "everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them." Regarding his vote on the invasion, Biden wants to argue semantics, "It allowed the president to go to war. It did not authorize him to go to it."

The Democrats are not capable of accepting responsibility for their actions and are not fit to lead this country.

[old guy]

The Democrats are not capable of accepting responsibility for their actions and are not fit to lead this country.

You might be right. But you'd be hard pressed to make the argument that the Republicans are.

[oladub]

GP, You are right about that statement being made by President Obama's top economic advisors rather than directly by the President. However, the President signed on to it when he passed Porkulus. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...9102738AA32ijJ

In the same report was a graph purporting to show what the economy would look like with or without Porkulus. I found that graph and another graph showing what happened with Porkulus.
QE 2 Was A Disaster: Here Is Why US Fiscal "Stimulus" Was A Complete Failure As Well

[firstandten]

Nearly 40% of the stimulus bill was tax cuts. The bulk of the balance was funding for infrastructure projects, aid to states, and extensions of unemployment benefits.

If Obama's economic strategy, i.e. the stimulus, was so stupid, please show me the Republican proposal for boosting employment. As far as I'm concerned, we're repeating 1937, where concerns about long-term debt are suddenly and irrationally more important than short-term growth in GDP and employment.

The 40% in tax cuts really stimulated the private sector in creating jobs didn't it !

And oh, we have Rep gov's refusing stimulus money for infrastructure projects. Florida for one, I'm sure there others.

And without the extensions of unemployment benefits, keeping our teachers and other public employees on the job the recession would have been much worst.

Folks on here harp that the stimulus didn't create jobs, how could it when it was too busy plugging up holes, besides that wasted 40% in tax cuts that didn't create private sector jobs

Thats why the stimulus wasn't large enough.

No one has answered how do you grow the economy and create jobs when two of the key industries housing and manufacturing that lead in economic recovery are not and will not be the same due to downsizing, outsourcing and globalization.

Technology one of the growth industries we can't take advantage of because our kids aren't educated enough to do so due to funding cuts that Repubs are pushing.

So GP's question remains the same whats your plan ?

[ghettopalmetto]

GP, You are right about that statement being made by President Obama's top economic advisors rather than directly by the President. However, the President signed on to it when he passed Porkulus. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...9102738AA32ijJ

The link you providided quotes PolitFact, which has this neat little paragraph at the end of the piece:

"We think its a big stretch to call the economic projection a "promise." The administration never characterized it that way and included plenty of disclaimers saying the predictions had "significant margins of error" and a higher degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is "unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." And so we rule the statement by Cantor — and other Republicans who have said the same thing — Barely True."

Care to comment? And Mikeg has still not identified any of the so-called "pork" in the stimulus bill. Nor does he propose what would have happened to the economy-in-freefall without it. Instead, he presents a biased opinion, unsubstantiated with facts, that does nothing to refute the facts contradictory to his own baseless opinions.

So let's hear it, geniuses. How do you decrease unemployment? More tax cuts? Read every page of every Congressional bill out loud? Eliminate the entire federal budget? Cry "Constitution!" every time the President opens his mouth? Pray to Jesus? What???

[oladub]

The link you providided quotes PolitFact, which has this neat little paragraph at the end of the piece:

"We think its a big stretch to call the economic projection a "promise." The administration never characterized it that way and included plenty of disclaimers saying the predictions had "significant margins of error" and a higher degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is "unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." And so we rule the statement by Cantor — and other Republicans who have said the same thing — Barely True."

Care to comment? And Mikeg has still not identified any of the so-called "pork" in the stimulus bill. Nor does he propose what would have happened to the economy-in-freefall without it. Instead, he presents a biased opinion, unsubstantiated with facts, that does nothing to refute the facts contradictory to his own baseless opinions.

So let's hear it, geniuses. How do you decrease unemployment? More tax cuts? Read every page of every Congressional bill out loud? Eliminate the entire federal budget? Cry "Constitution!" every time the President opens his mouth? Pray to Jesus? What???

I provided two links; not one as you are implying. The second contained the graphs of the Obama economic alchemists showing what they believed the unemployment rate would be like with and without Porkulus. An additional line is added showing how wrong they were about the benefits of Porkulus. Who called this a 'promise' by the way? You are setting up a straw dog argument again. It was just a projection by the adminstration which time proved wrong. Truman might have said, "The buck stops here". Obama would rather say something along the lines of "included plenty of disclaimers saying the predictions had "significant margins of error" and a higher degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is "unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." [[translated: Yadda, Yadda, we don't know what we are doing.)

Regarding pork: First I'll cherry pick a paragraph like you did from the first article. "Their report projected that the stimulus plan proposed by Obama would create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010. The report also includes a graphic predicting unemployment rates with and without the stimulus. Without the stimulus [[the baseline), unemployment was projected to hit about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009. But in June, the unemployment rate was 9.5 percent."

Note that it was supposed to create millions of jobs. That didn't happen. Instead, even you admitted to that failure in your post to firstandten, "keeping our teachers and other public employees on the job the recession would have been much worst. Folks on here harp that the stimulus didn't create jobs, how could it when it was too busy plugging up holes" So instead of infrastructure, much of it was used to keep teachers and other public employees on payrolls. That is by definition pork.

One way would be to emulate President Harding who did next to nothing to resolve the depression of 1921. Debts were liquidated quickly and the economy was booming again two years later. Obama instead transferred a lot of the bad debt from bankers to taxpayers and they are yet to be liquidated so the recession wears on. I keep suggesting that Congress move a higher percentage of taxation from income taxes to import taxes. It would suddenly make sense to manufacture things in the US = jobs, jobs, jobs. Import corporations, owned primarily by the rich, would have to pay a higher percentage of taxes while individuals would pay less. That is a constitutionally delegated power which the President and Congress have at their disposal. I realize you hate the restrictions of constitutional government so on that point we differ. I contend that if Congress and the President observed the limitations of the Constitution, we wouldn't be in this mire of paying for all these wars, otherwise subsidizing corporations, and sending our jobs off to China.

[firstandten]

This is the reason I said you need to stay the course and not get too frantic over any one monthly report. The media will have you believe the sky is falling

Report from Austan Goolsbee Council of Economic Advisors concerning May 2011 numbers

Today’s employment report shows that private sector payrolls increased by 83,000 in May and the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent. There are always bumps on the road to recovery, but the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past two years.
While the private sector has added more than 2.1 million jobs over the past 15 months, the unemployment rate is unacceptably high and faster growth is needed to replace the jobs lost in the downturn. The initiatives put in place by this Administration – such as the payroll tax cut and business incentives for investment – have contributed to solid employment growth overall this year, but this report is a reminder of the challenges that remain. We are focused on promoting exports, reducing regulatory burdens and making the investments in education, research and development, and infrastructure that will grow our economy and create jobs. We will continue to work with Congress to responsibly reduce the deficit and live within our means.
Overall payroll employment rose by 54,000 in May. Solid employment increases occurred in professional and business services [[+44,000) and education and health services [[+34,000). Sectors with employment declines included local government [[-28,000), retail trade [[-8,500), and manufacturing [[-5,000). Despite the decline this month, manufacturing has added 238,000 jobs since the beginning of 2010, the best period of manufacturing job growth in over a decade.
The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.

BTW a link to an intelligent and comprehensive article on the recovery act from Time magazine

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...013683,00.html

[Mikeg]

Obama's got "better stuff to do".......

....like creating another coordinating committee:

Obama Administration Establishes White House Rural Council to Strengthen Rural Communities


Apparently, Obama needs this new "council" because under his Agriculture Secretary, the USDA and 24 other executive branch departments, agencies, and offices aren't doing enough to "enhance Federal engagement with rural communities".

So let's add a 26th group to the mix - that ought to really "enhance the Federal engagement"!

[Big Dog]

It just might. We'll have a wait and see.

[HistoryNotHisStory]

People yell and scream and cry about Jobs.

The purpose of the U.S. government is to not create jobs. Businesses create jobs. And Businesses are taking manufacturing jobs overseas.

What the American worker needs to understand is the days of good manufacturing jobs is O-V-E-R. The jobs loss overseas will not return.

What workers and American people need to do is to create their own income. Quit being lazy and create your own opportunity.

Quit being a welfare society begging the government for jobs. Become entreprenaurs, create businesses.

Do something. Quit crying and JUST DO IT!

[Mikeg]

It just might. We'll have a wait and see.

What makes you think that adding a council in Washington DC "just might" make a difference out there in flyover country?

Apparently the 25 executive branch departments, agencies, and offices under the President's direction aren't able to produce the results the Obama wants. So the instinctive reaction of the former community organizer is to create a committee and add another layer to "coordinate", without bothering to hold his Cabinet members accountable for the poor results.

Anyone with executive experience knows that to solve underperformance you need to find the organizational obstacles and remove them - not "coordinate" around them.

[1KielsonDrive]

What makes you think that adding a council in Washington DC "just might" make a difference out there in flyover country?

Apparently the 25 executive branch departments, agencies, and offices under the President's direction aren't able to produce the results the Obama wants. So the instinctive reaction of the former community organizer is to create a committee and add another layer to "coordinate", without bothering to hold his Cabinet members accountable for the poor results.

Anyone with executive experience knows that to solve underperformance you need to find the organizational obstacles and remove them - not "coordinate" around them.

And how do you know this? Executive experience? Did you just add "coordinate" around them? Have you ever been a community organizer, thereby giving you insight into a community organizer's instinctive reactions? Even if what you say is true, is your point that NO!Bama is the only presidente in history to add a layer of bureaucracy or "coordinate'? I'm no NO!Bama fan but you seem to only point a finger at him and nobody who's preceded him. Let's face it, there's plenty of blame to go around at all times. And there is nobody making real and serious attempts at 'Change You Can Believe In'. Not now, and not the previous 16 years. Do you expect it from any of the republicrat candidates? Once in power, they'll do what all politicians do - pay back their contributors. And that ain't you and I.

[Papasito]

the ONLY way they will defeat Obama in 2012 is hammer him on the economy

There's a mountain of policies, decisions, acts and events they can hammer Obama on. If the ONLY thing they use against Obama is the economy, they have already lost.

[ghettopalmetto]

There's a mountain of policies, decisions, acts and events they can hammer Obama on. If the ONLY thing they use against Obama is the economy, they have already lost.

It doesn't matter. No matter who wins the Republican nomination next year, this WILL be the platform:

1. Cut taxes
2. Cut regulations
3. Repeal health care reform.

None of the seven boobs on television last night has a single original, plausible idea. The GOP prescription for whatever ails us has been the exact same for 30 years--no matter what the scenario.

And as much as people are dismayed about the economy, the GOP has yet to present a single economic growth idea or jobs bill since taking over the House. All we hear about it balancing the long-term budget, when what we really need is some job creation and economic growth in the short-term. If any of the candidates had any solutions, we certainly would have heard about them by now.

[coracle]

How many jobs have you created gp?

[Mikeg]

And how do you know this? Executive experience? Did you just add "coordinate" around them? Have you ever been a community organizer, thereby giving you insight into a community organizer's instinctive reactions? Even if what you say is true, is your point that NO!Bama is the only presidente in history to add a layer of bureaucracy or "coordinate'? I'm no NO!Bama fan but you seem to only point a finger at him and nobody who's preceded him. Let's face it, there's plenty of blame to go around at all times. And there is nobody making real and serious attempts at 'Change You Can Believe In'. Not now, and not the previous 16 years. Do you expect it from any of the republicrat candidates? Once in power, they'll do what all politicians do - pay back their contributors. And that ain't you and I.

How do I know this? I've had 20 years of managerial work experience at a large corporation in the private sector, 16 years of which was at the executive level. I was also an appointed public official for 6 years in a city of 80,000 people where I learned how to chair public hearings, accept and respond to public criticism and also deal with self-styled "community organizers". I currently volunteer my services on the board of directors of three different organizations. Two of those boards are community associations where I live and the other is a non-profit whose board includes retired businessmen, educators and elected offficials. Over the years, I've learned a thing or two about how to get results not only from direct reports, but also from committee members and from volunteers. In the process, I also learned what kinds of organizational structures and approaches tend to get the best results and what not to repeat. But enough about me.

This thread is about President Obama, yet all I read is comments excusing his poor performance because of the previous administration, the Republicans in Congress, "they all do it", etc. There's no need to thread-jack. Bush and the Republicans have been - and remain - the subject of plenty of other threads in this forum. If you want to bring up "the republicrat candidates", start your own damn thread.

[maxx]

I would suggest that it would take a lot more than the bully pulpit you want Obama to jump on to improve this economy.

Yes. And the U.S. economy has undergone a structural change that is not likely to return.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13every.html

"... An accurate count would reduce manufacturing’s share of the gross domestic product, or total national output, to less than the 11.2 percent that the Bureau of Economic Analysis has reported through 2009, the latest figure available. That 11.2 percent would be closer to 10.5 percent, if all of the imported components were counted as imported instead of domestically made. Even the 11.2 percent figure is down sharply from the 14.2 percent share of just a decade earlier, and the nearly 30 percent of the heyday 1950s, when almost every product bought by Americans was also made here..."

[Big Dog]

Looks like we are heading to be third world and fast. No, I have no solution, like the experts in this thread.