Pelosi says without stimulus 500 million Americans will lose their jobs

This is more fear mongering. Obama has been doing it with his whole, "We will fall apart almost immediately if we do not pass this bill", act.

 

Maybe they could spend billions on Craigslist awareness: 350 jobs posted for DC yesterday and 550 posted for Los Angeles. Maybe they could give people jobs making green ribbons for job awareness and then he could make a Department of Awareness Awareness.

 

Maybe you don't care about them, but I won't consider the war "won" until our troops stop getting killed.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank wrote the bill.

I think that Obama is trying to push this through fast because he knows that the banking industry is going to need 2.5 trillion. Geithner is supposed to announce a plan on Monday.

It's amazing on how many jobs are posted in Craiglist. The national unemployment rate has only been at 7%+ for a few months and we are in 'crisis'

The unemployment rate was in May-1980 was 7.5% and in '82 and '83 was 10%. Not until 1986 did unemployment dip below 7%. People forget fast.

That's the kind of thinking that gives the terrorists hope. They believe that if they can kill Americans, we will give up.

Pelosi certainly didn't care about our troops when she did her 'Jane Fonda' and went to Damacus to meet with Assad II.

Obama Drops Charges Against USS Cole Bomber.

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/02/06/obama-drops-charges-against-uss-cole-bomber/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

 

So, by having our troops occupy another country, where we're not wanted, slowly getting picked off by snipers and roadbombs, with no real goals at the lower levels, we're going to "win"?

 

Bogart: With all the attacks on Pelosi, and her comments, it is unfortunate that there is hardly ever any meat in the attacks. Its age old GOP politics. Attack something with soundbites but don't put real meaning behind the attacks--and frankly I didn't see anything of substance or significant responses by the GOP with regard to stimulus.

It appears that as this push for stimulus arose, Obama gave the bill writing opportunities to the legislative branches....and his administration put little meat into it. Probably there was a lot of overlap between administration and Dem legislative perspective...but the House and Senate were allowed to develop these bills on their own. That is how the law works.

Certainly it appears that the House Dems put in a lot of their favored projects, as did the Senate. There are serious questions about both bills. Regardless, studies from Japan which spent trillions over more than a decade of stimulus show that investments in social programs had a higher payback than infrastructure. Holy crow. I wouldn't have thought that. But those are the hard numbers. Maybe some of these social programs can have excellent payback.

On the other hand, the GOP both debated the essence of any stimulus then proposed a package that included an additional 5% tax break across the board.

Hey everyone likes tax breaks. But as an economic theory....it obviously didn't work in the last 8 years, during which top fed tax rates dropped 13% from 39.6% to 35%. Here are the results over the last 8 years.

1. An enormous increase in the federal deficit. Hey guys....about $4 trillion was added during the Bush administration. That is a lot more than the "stimulus and bailout expenses to date".
2. We had an economic recovery from the recession of the late 90's and early 2000's but here is the rub. Recovery was FAR LESS, FAR SLOWER, than other recoveries from previous recessions. Job growth occurred. Again, job growth was slower than previous recoveries from previous recessions.
3. Costs for the middle class went up at rates that far exceeded the extra $2-3000/year that people roughly making $50,000/year saw through the Bush tax cuts.
4. The wealthy got far wealthier and the disparity between rich and poor hit incredible levels not seen since the 1920's.
5. The decade saw this incredible explosion of personal debt and financial institution debt. In fact you could blame dems for things and the GOP for things.....but one thing did occur.....the Administration had hard evidence of a serious problem occuring and didn't do much or just about anything to forestall it.
6. While more money flowed into wage earners pockets by virtue of the tax breaks...the ultimate investment and usage of it moved in an overwhelming amount toward the real estate markets...resulting in a budget. Putting money in people's pockets DOES NOT MEAN that the economy will surge. It means PUTTING MONEY IN PEOPLE's POCKETS. That is the truism of tax cuts. Where it flows and how it is used is a whole entirely different story.

Now I believe in the need for stimulus. I believe in it because each month is getting worse. Lots of things are collapsing, including the banking system, asset values in the stock market and real estate, all business is slowing at an incredible rate and people are losing jobs at remarkably high levels. Our economy is in the "sh!tcan" going downward.

Stimulus of any kind will obviously create still more government debt. That will be a problem.

Certain "softer" investments/expenditures could very well have a greater payback than infrastructure based on the Japanese experience. That was news to me. Infrastructure expenses should be made where there will be economic activity revival. "Bridges to nowhere" are worthless.

Across the board tax cuts don't seem to have a significant effect. That is what we experienced this year....and I believe that was a significant element of a stimulus proposal McCain put out. Targeted tax cuts may work well. You have to look at them closely.

It appears that the House Dems and the Senate Dems very strongly controlled the effort to create stimulus packages and in so doing kept the GOP out. Obama on the other hand has been reaching out to the GOP to get input.

Both sides of the legislative branches MUST work harder to work together. If not it just falls into this endless jabbering of political attacks that don't amount to anything of value.

Of course one could say....DON'T DO ANYTHING....and see how the markets react. I'm not of that persuasion.

 

The size of the government is too large. Spending is too high. Without the stimulus, there is already a $1 trillion deficit.

I don't agree with tax cuts without making an effort to reduce spending.

The markets are holding us hostage. There's got to be a better way that Americans and pension funds can invest their savings. What ever happened to States selling bonds to pension funds to improve infrastructure?

The stimulus bill in also full of spending for unemployment and welfare. I'm just wondering how workers can't find work but at the same time the US allows 1 million legal immigrants, 500,000-1 million illegal immigrants and 150,000 H1-B visas.

Every day you hear employers say that they can't find Americans to do the job?

 

The best form of stimulus would be tax cuts because it doesn't distort the markets and it does not subsidize the failing at the sake of the successful. I agree though, we need to cut spending as well- these bailouts are only going to lead to an even worse crisis in the future.

 

Without cutting waseful spending tax cuts allow us to have our cake and eat it to. Which is what got us into this mess.