[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On

Mon Sep 3 18:01:55 UTC 2012

Amen, Stan!

Sent from my iPhone
Germaine 

On Sep 3, 2012, at 9:55 AM, Stan Waggoner <swag901 at ymail.com> wrote:

> When misrepresenting the problems of getting our country back on track, a couple things need be remembered.
>  
> 1.    The Obama administration has been hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority.  The Senate requires 60 votes to get anything passed that would help middle class America.  Mitch McConnell has said his number one job is to make Obama a one term president.  John Boehner has said that if some of their policies cost jobs, "so be it".
>  
> 2.    The Democrats had 135 days when they had a 60 vote super majority in the Senate after Al Frankin was sworn as Senator from MN.
>  
> 3.    During that 135 days.  Tedd Kennedy was in hospice, and only made it down to Washington to vote twice.  Once was the ACA.
>  
> 4.    If we get mad at Obama, and do not vote for him, that only weakens his chances of getting help for the middle class.
>  
> Do not get me wrong, President Obama has done many things I wish he had done differently.  However, a vote for anyone other than Obama is a vote for the failed, extreme right wing policies that caused the condition our country is in today.
>  
> Stan Waggoner
> AKA Reasonable Man Stan
> WEFT
> 
> From: C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net>
> To: Michael Weissman <mbwmbwmbw at gmail.com> 
> Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com>; ocCUpy <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>; Peace <peace at anti-war.net>; C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net> 
> Sent: Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] [Peace-discuss] Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On
> Come on, Mike.  The statement may be slightly hyperbolic, but it's an accurate description of what the Obama administration is (not) doing. 
> 
> (1) The first sentence is true if in need of specification, such as 
> 
> (a) "Chronic unemployment highest since Great Depression" <http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-20069136.html>; and(b) "Longest Period of High Unemployment Since Great Depression" <http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/02/16/cbo-longest-period-of-high-unemployment-since-great-depression>.
> 
> (2) The last sentence expresses the conscious decision of the Obama administration not to create WPA-like government jobs as an alternative to jobs controlled by private business:
> 
> Jared Bernstein, former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden, wrote on May 30, 2011, "There will be no WPA-type programs in our near future. There was no appetite for them in the Obama admin in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression and there's a lot less now. The reasons for that are interesting and I'll speak to them another day. But it ain't happening" <http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/shoulds-versus-coulds/>.
> 
> "...on a WPA program, Bernstein explicitly says it was the White House, not Republicans, who had no appetite for direct, public job creation during the first term. Bernstein says he made the arguments about public works jobs inside the White House, but he was clearly outvoted. He doesn't give the arguments made in response, tantalizingly alluding to 'interesting' reasons that he will 'speak to another day.' But he says very clearly that the reason we did all of this hoops-jumping and nudging in the stimulus package rather than just paying people to work at jobs that needed to be done was a philosophical decision inside the White House. In a sense we already knew this, but it's important that a former White House insider re-emphasized it" <http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/30/jared-bernstein-lets-slip-interesting-info-about-wh-economic-views/>.
> 
> --CGE
> 
> On Sep 2, 2012, at 10:00 PM, Michael Weissman <mbwmbwmbw at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Damian- things are bad enough if you describe them accurately. Making stuff up doesn't help. This list is half truths. Let's start with the first item.
>> 
>>  
>> 15
>> Although unemployment is the highest it's been since the Great Depression, the federal government should NOT enact any sort of WPA-style program to put millions of people back to work. Under Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, Depression-era unemployment was tackled head on by direct federal hiring to dig subways, build roads, schools, parks, sewers, recreational facilities and public buildings. Oblivious of this history, Democrat Barack Obama maintains that only the private sector can or should create jobs.
>> Neither the first sentence nor the last sentence there is true. First, check any standard plot of unemployment vs. time. Second, Obama pushed through the major stimulus which included lots of funding for direct public jobs (teachers,...), public-created private jobs (hiring contractors to build bridges...) and, generally bad tax breaks, needed to get the bill through the Senate, due to almost unanimous R opposition. The D's are pushing fairly big (still way too small) new stimulus bills, again a mixture of direct funding of state jobs and building things by hiring contractors. Can't get anything through the R House.
>> A discussion about what is to be done is really hard at best, but worthless if it's not based on real data.
>> One could go through the other points, but after this start why bother.
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