Well the day I have been looking forward to-is getting closer. With luck I will be back across the Atlantic ocean this weekend. Romania has been nice-but ten weeks is about six weeks two much. I’ve seen the city pretty much through and through, driven around southern Romania and up into the mountains. I am very ready to go home. Last couple of nights all I have done is stay in and watch movies on my computer. Problem is, I either need to down load some new ones or get some new entertainment. I’ve pretty well been through all the ones on my external hard drive. Another reason to get back home-even if it is too Shopping Mall USA.
Speaking of movies, one thing I am excited about is that when I get back, the new Wall Street movie should be out. That I am going to go see. If I can’t get the S.O. to go with me-I will go by myself.
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Clive Crook has a great column up about how Obama has just folded like a cheap suit this fall-and he is right. If the Democrats get killed this fall, they will have no one to blame but themselves. It seems that no one, and I mean no one, will step to the plate and take leadership-and in the process show the country why the “Tea Party” solution is no solution at all.
His speech on Monday already said, in effect, that he is giving up the effort to pass another stimulus. The Labor Day address called for $50bn of new spending on infrastructure, but over six years, and the plan “will be fully paid for”, presumably meaning no increase in the budget deficit. It is a non-starter in any case, of course. But the messaging was revealing. The word “stimulus” was never mentioned.
This is a great mistake, as I argued here. The economy needs another stimulus, and can afford it. But Obama has decided that politics rules it out. He is in campaign mode, praising unions and beating up Republicans, evidently calculating that getting out the base is what matters. Meanwhile, economic policy is on hold.
Is there an alternative? I believe so, and made the case for it in the article I just linked to. A stimulus based on temporary tax cuts–extend all the Bush changes for two more years, and combine it with generous payroll-tax relief–would be difficult for the Republicans to block. Including an extension of the Bush tax cuts for high-income households alongside those for the middle-class might make the package less cost-effective in fiscal terms, though this is not clear. What is clear is that extending all the cuts would deny the Republicans their favorite excuse for saying no: “It’s a tax increase.”
I remain in complete agreement with Krugman-the stimulus was not big enough nor was it targeted enough ont the right sectors. The idiots who keep posting on their Facebook pages about “making their Congressman pay for voting in favor of the stimulus”-really have a short memory it seems. Had their been no stimulus things would be even worse than they are. If throwing the thugs the bone of extending the Bush tax cuts for a couple of years is necessary to get them to play ball on a stimulus-well then so be it. That’s practical politics, something my Tea swilling compatriots conveniently forget.
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Truer words have never been written:
Some folks might tell you that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer isn’t emblematic of modern Republicanism. I would tell you that they’re wrong. Brewer is the perfect symbol of everything that is devious, ignorant and generally wrong about the modern GOP. She’s a more retarded version of Sarah Palin, without Palin’s benefit of being hot enough to distract from just how dumb and allergic to personal responsibility she is.
There was a time when the GOP would have had someone like the governor deported at the end of a fucking rocket. But that was before the party made ignorance a virtue, and stupidity and laziness became campaign tactics. In so far as they have made proud and willful imbecility something to aspire to as a career choice, Jan Brewer is symbolic of your modern Republican Party.
Taking a tactic from Saint Sarah’s handbook-Jan Brewer has taken her ball and gone home.
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And finally, Negishi had an open base event the other day. Open to every one-except the French. As an aside when I first got to Japan, besides working on my onna no hito’s in my walking club, I also went through my “chase an English teacher” phase and that was how I learned that people who are from South Africa are also on the same list.
I find myself perplexed(and yes, for an old codger that is not unusual) by the recent DEMOCRATIC pundits who have brought up Reagan in a positive manner, i.e: Obama needs to emulate Reagan in his optimism about what American CAN do and MUST do..that we are a great country etc etc.
And at least according to Chris, no democrat has yet to use the passage of the health care bill as a great accomplishment in their political ads.
And the other day, a die hard socialist, who feels the government should control ALL business, when i asked him which current pol he admires, said Christie of NJ.
Go figure.
By the way 78% of ALL Americans are unhappy with the federal government. We are all Tea Partiers eh?
Quoting Skippy-Stalin is great , but I think he might throw up in his mouth at the mention of another stimulus package. What this economy (and country) needs is a strengthening of the world’s faith in the dollar, and that starts by showing the world a little fiscal responsibility. Tax INCREASES are necessary, and large ones. A bitter pill…
I’m not happy with the government either-but the key issue is that the people are not always right either. We Americans have yet to grasp that the world has changed and not necessarily for the better-However if we continue to cling to this outdated idea of “exceptionalism”, we will find ourselves worse off.
The simple truth is that the Tea Partiers have no solutions-(nor a command of the facts either)just tired old re-runs of failed ideas.
Tax increases and a balanced budget are necessary-but to do that the US will have to have its own withdrawal from “east of Suez”. And that is not coming anytime soon.
Actually a lot has been accomplished -but because the douche-I mean Tea baggers are making all the noise , no one knows about it.
P.S. Krugman proves Skippy-stalin wrong.
Skippy san..
Who do YOU think speaks for the Tea Party?
i can’t defend America..the idea that we are “the greatest country in the world” is mindless jingoism.
And almost anyone who has lived, worked even travelled the “world” knows that American exceptionalism is a myth.
But it does make a nice sound bite. Oddly enough, Pew says that most people, in the countries surveyed, STILL want to emigrate to the US.
I know, i am perplexed too.
We have lost our way, our faith in our instuitutions, our leaders, even the church.
perhaps we need to take a Pogo look into that mirror….
Palin and Beck speak for the Tea Party. That alone is reason not to like them.
no no. There are millions speaking for the TEA party.
If you don’t think the government has enough of your money then why don’t you give it all you think it needs and deserves out of your money and leave my wallet alone? I happen to think that they have way too much of my money…and other than fund Pelosi’s husband with billions of $ from the fisc, what the hell do they do with it?
Because-the idea of shared sacrifice towards a common goal is something that is truly American. And the simple truth of it the government does not have too much of your money-our system does not allow that money to be used effectively to improve the quality of life of real, average Americans. And a great part of that is because the stupid idiots in the Tea Party has so poisoned the well, that anything meaningful -like health care reform-cannot be accomplished.
You say you stand for sound fiscal policy? Then you should be applauding the repeal of the Bush tax cuts coupled with immediate withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq, along with an across the board freeze all on spending including defense. Balance the budget-and it will go along way towards improving the economy.
But that is not what these retards want. They want the status quo while wanting lower taxes and a return to 1900. That can’t happen in today’s world. Get over it. They say what the evil people pulling the strings tell them to say-with no research or true understanding of the fact that none of it is possible-much less true. That’s why people who support the Tea Party need to be held in the contempt they richly deserve. Evil people like Palin, Armey and Beck are promoting their efforts-for their own personal gain. There is a word for that-its called demagogue.
Well not every one has to be both deluded and stupid-and that is why I will oppose the Teabaggers with my every conscious breath. They are destroying this country every bit as much as the other side is or was.
yeah skippy, you just got it in your first sentence. “shared sacrifice”. when 42% don’t sacrifice a single fucking thing, we’re out of the box on “shared sacrifice”.
I’m ok with any kind of flat tax you’d care to propose. WE ALL OF US SHARE. When 42% of the electorate get to vote for more slaves, loaves, fishes, circuses, etc..without PAYING for it, we’re not sharing anymore are we?
some people are stealing.
50% of the electorate doesn’t vote at all. More importantly-they vote for representatives who do pay taxes and vote those things you hate.
Well, oddly enough we have all those Congress critters in front of the ethics committee for years and years because, FOR ONE THING THEY FAILED TO PAY TAXES.
tell me again about representatives paying taxes why don’t you? oh, and the cabinet secretaries too? and slyly, I have not seen it anywhere but what do you want to bet the Obamas paid their income tax too?
seriously?