This deliberate sabotaging of President Obama's proposals to help put Americans back to work is, of course, part of the GOP's plan to make Mr. Obama a one-term president. A goal that puts politics first and country at the bottom of the GOP's concerns.
Jamelle Bouie of The American Prospect:
"Under a Republican president, the United States endured eight years of disastrous economic stewardship—arguably the worst of the post-war era—that nearly led to a second Great Depression. In response, voters elected a Democratic president and gave him huge majorities in both chambers of Congress. Rather than work with the new president, Republicans ran to the right and promised to defeat this president by any means necessary. They abused institutional rules to block nominees, and imposed a de-facto super-majority requirement on all legislation. Republicans rejected stimulus, the automobile rescue, a climate bill built from their ideas, a health care bill built from their ideas, and a reform bill designed to keep the Great Recession from happening again.
This was an amazingly successful strategy. It destroyed Democratic standing with the public, energized the right-wing fringe, and led to a historic victory in the House of Representatives. Once in command of the House, Republicans pushed hugely draconian budgets, risked a government shutdown, and nearly caused a second economic collapse by threatening to default on the nation’s debt. This reckless behavior depressed the economy, prolonged the recovery, and destroyed trust in the nation’s political institutions. The Speaker of the House has even promised to do this again, if Democrats don’t bow to his demands for greater spending cuts."
Slow job growth is the result of GOP obstructionism not pro-business President
"...based on President Obama’s actual record, this writer agrees with Timothy Egan who wrote in the New York Times: “For no matter your view of President Obama, he effectively saved Capitalism.” Timothy Egan is spot on. Jamie Dimon and Bernie Marcus should be thanking this President for saving this economy and Capitalism not attacking him. Moreover, this President is in fact one of the most pro-business Presidents in the country's history.
The facts speak for themselves. Does this sound like a President who is ant-business or anti-Capitalism? President Obama continued what George Bush started of bailing out and stabilizing the banking sector, and effectively saving Wall Street from a complete disaster that it created on its own. Then he went on to rescue the American automobile industry. In his $447 billion jobs plan, President Obama recommended slicing the payroll tax paid by businesses. The President signed the Small Business Jobs Act giving small business owners eight small business tax cuts, zero taxes on capital gains from key small business investments, extension and expansion of small businesses’ ability to expense capital investments, extension of 50% bonus depreciation, an increase in the deduction for entrepreneurs’ start-up expenses and many more pro-small business incentives. Do any of these measures sound 'anti-business?' "
Steve Benen, Washington Monthly:
"Republicans have an incentive, not only to hold the country back on purpose, but also to block every good idea, even the ones they agree with, because they assume voters will end up blaming the president in the end.
And when the political system breaks down, and congressional Republicans kill ideas that are worthwhile and popular, there’s an assumption that the president is somehow to blame, even if that doesn’t make any sense at all. Indeed, here we have a quote from a voter who is inclined to reward Republicans, giving them more power, even though the voter agrees with Obama — whose ideas (and presidency) Republicans are actively trying to destroy.
As Greg Sargent, who first flagged the quote in the AP article, explained: “Voters either don’t understand, or they don’t care, that the GOP has employed an unprecedented level of filibustering in order to block all of Obama’s policies, even ones that have majority public support from Dems, independents and Republicans alike."
REPUBLICANS IN 2012:
"KEEPING MILLIONS OUT OF WORK TO PUT ONE MAN OUT OF A JOB."
22 comments:
And this is the case the Democratic party needs to make in the next five months.
The Republicans have pulled off a bizarre inversion of Goebbels's "big lie" -- what they've done is so extreme, so "big", that it will be very hard to get people to believe the truth about it.
Is the GOP deliberately trying to sabotage the economy to hurt President Obama?
No Obama is doing enough sabotage on his own.
SF, glib answer, but still no real discussion on what the GOP is doing to impair job growth and help Americans get back to work.
As Infidel753 said, we will keep this in front of the American people so that they understand what the GOP has done to this country just to accomplish a political goal.
This has been a do-nothing Congress, and it has affected our recovery.
The president proposed the AJA; the GOP House and filibustering GOP senators killed it.
The blame rests with the GOP.
Glib comments don't change that reality.
And let's not forget Willard's lousy job creation while Massachusetts' governor, and his role in destroying jobs as a partner in Bain Capital.
That's the alternative the American people will be presented with.
Obama actually came up with a plan to create jobs.
What did Willard do?
SF,
What has the GOP done to help the economy?
Shaw, Silver, like many conservatives avoids discussion of the GOP strategy because there is no response.
Silver, if the GOP captures the Senate, keeps the House, and wins the White House, a very real probability at this point, and the Dems adopt the same type of political strategy, which they surely will, will you be holding the GOP totally responsible as you are the Dems now?
We will wait and see, but I think we will be hearing very soon how the Dems are holding up the agenda that America voted for.
Please please please tell me honestly I am wrong.
Remember, this is the party that claimed the Dems had no right to obstruct after the mid terms because America had spoken and sided with the GOP...
Somehow there is no mention of the job bills that the republicans passed that are stuck in the Senate, democrat controlled.
Take a check of Obama's job creation moves. Stop the Trans Pipeline, stop Gulf drilling, create the boondoggle healthcare bill that stops corporations from hiring or they get an exemption, give Brazil 2 billion for oil exploration, sell Chrysler to Italy, give money to GM so they can expand their off shore plants.
SF is correct, Obama is doing enough to sabotage his own jobs creation.
So, skud, tell,us about those great GOP job bills and how many jobs they will create.
JC
No way to tell since they are being blocked in the Senate much the same as the democrats bills are blocked in the House.
Would be nice if both sides did something except blame the other.
JC, How many jobs will the democrat bills create?
skudrunner: "Take a check of Obama's job creation moves. Stop the Trans Pipeline, stop Gulf drilling..."
Not quite:
"President Obama has overseen the largest rise in drilling rigs in U.S. history, from less than 200 in April 2009 to over 1,200 today. U.S. oil production is the highest it's been in eight years. We now import 15 percent less oil than we did in 2005. For the first time since 1949, the United States is a net exporter of gasoline, diesel, and other fuels." SOURCE
President Obama suspended new drilling in the Gulf right after the BP oil spill, as any responsible person would have. And the increase in drilling rigs would add to job creation, wouldn't it.
Despite what you and SF write, Mr. Obama has increased job creation since the Republican disaster of job bleeding in 2008.
It is amusing what can be done with statistics. I am sure you know the majority of those leases were passed under the Bush term. I am also sure you know in the last two years of the Bush term there was a democrat controlled congress.
The democrats blame the republican controlled house for obstructing poor Obama's efforts to increase jobs. Then the democrats blame the republicans and Bush for the financial crisis created under the democrat controlled congress and aided in great part by Franks, Waters and Dodd.
I realize the age of personal responsibility is dead, but the democrats have to accept some, even if it is a tiny bit, of the blame since four out of the last 5 years they have controlled congress.
"...the Bureau of Land Management, the agency tasked with reporting oil drilling permits, etc. on federal lands has reported that in 2001, the Bush administration approved only 3,439 permits increasing slightly to 3,802 by 2003. It wasn’t until 2004 that Bush doubled the permits approved, but they dropped dramatically back down to 4,579 in 2005.
In 2009 under President Obama, there were 4,487 oil drilling permits approved to drill on federal land and in 2010 there were 4,090 permits issued and finally by 2011 there were 4,244.
In 2001,under President Bush, 3,448 wells were started dropping dramatically down to 2,871 in 2002, then only 2,957 new wells in 2003, and only 2,702 in 2004 and finally dropping to 1,742 in 2005. In comparison in 2009 under Obama there were 3,267 new wells started, in 2010 there were 3,166 and 2011 there were 3,260.
In 2001 Bush issued 3,289 new leases, only 2,384 in 2002, and 2,022, in 2003 and finally 2,699 in 2004. Now let’s compare Obama’s actions, in 2009 there were 2,072 new leases, in 2010 there were 1,308, and finally in 2011 there 2,188.
If you examine this
CHART on leases and compare leases under the the 2 presidents' first terms, you will see they are comparable, with Mr. Obama actually doing slightly better in his first term than did Bush in his.
So when we compare two Presidents and the first term, Obama is NOT halting any production any more than George W Bush. In fact in some areas he exceeded President Bush.
This chart, provided by Baker Hughes North America Rotary Rig Count, shows the increases during President Obama's term to date.
SOURCE
The high amount of debt is making for the slow recovery.
Interesting exchange Shaw and skudrunner, valid data you both provide.
Now it will be up to the great American electorate... you know them, the ones who stay home on election day to busy (with what I don't know) to understand, give a damn, and vote.
David Horsey of the LATimes:
"The open secret of the Republicans in Congress is that they are not going to lift a finger to improve the country’s economic situation as long as it might benefit President Obama. For both ideological and purely partisan reasons, Republicans have downsized or completely squashed any economic plan emanating from the White House from the day Obama took office."
The GOP has only had the house for less than two years. Not much they can do with that when Reid blocks all the votes. The democrat senate hasn't passed a budget since Obama was elected. Obama and the Pelosicrats had it all for two whole years.
If the democrats knew what they were doing, they could have had things on track by now. They don't, so they don't.
"David Horsey of the LATimes"
A very credible source. Quoting Horsey on something he said is about republicans is as unbiased as quoting Rush on a statement about democrats.
There is fault on both sides and the current divisive president can accept a lot of the credit. Why lead when you can blame.
"The democrat senate hasn't passed a budget since Obama was elected."
Oh, come on SF. Of course they have passed budgets or the government would be shut down. Remember the threats? You can read about it yourself. I've even included one link from FOXNews so you know it must be true. They wouldn't lie to you.
The 2010 Budget
The 2011 Budget
The 2012 Budget
Thanks, Jerry. I'll add to that from PolitiFact:
How the budget happens
The federal budget doesn’t get enacted the way other laws do. The process starts with the president submitting his budget request to Congress early in the year. That voluminous document is partly a presidential wish list, but it also gives Congress a framework.
"The ‘PresBud,’ as it is called, forms the basis of the fiscal year budget that starts the following October," according to this post from the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.
In Congress, the House and Senate have budget committees tasked with creating concurrent budget resolutions, using the president’s budget as a guide. As Taxpayers for Common Sense wrote, "The legislation they draft is for Congressional use only: it doesn't go to the President, it isn't law, it just helps Congress keep its budgetary ducks in a row."
So there is the first problem with Romney’s statement [and SF's]. The president doesn’t "pass" a budget. That’s Congress’ job.
In Obama’s case, he has submitted his budget request each year he has been in office.'
Skudrunner: "A very credible source. Quoting Horsey on something he said is about republicans is as unbiased as quoting Rush on a statement about democrats."
You DO know, skudrunner, that the truth has a liberal bias, don't you?
On President Obama and budgets, cont. from PolitiFact:
"Voting on his requests
Romney said in his speech that "In February, (Obama) put forward a proposal that included the largest tax increase in history and still left our national debt spiraling out of control, and the House rejected it unanimously."
He’s right about the rejection. After Obama submitted his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal on Feb. 13, 2012, House Republicans put it up for a floor vote.
The result: 414-0 against.
The same thing happened a year earlier in the Senate. That vote: 97-0 against. Democrats didn’t support the plan because it has been supplanted by another deficit-reduction plan Obama had later outlined. Republican leaders demanded a vote on Obama’s budget to show that Democrats don’t support any detailed budget blueprint, according to The Hill.
Such votes are taken "just as a means of embarrassing the president and his party," said Patrick Louis Knudsen, a senior fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"Usually it’s brought up by the opposition party because they generally anticipate that a president’s budget won’t get very much support especially if it has controversial elements to it," he said.
Other experts agree. Said Steve Ellis, of Taxpayers for Common Sense: "That was pure political theater and was done to score rhetorical points."
And Norman Ornstein, a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said, "it doesn’t mean a damn thing. It’s only a symbolic gesture."
These votes are also what Romney’s campaign cited when we asked for documentation of his statement."
PolitiFact's ruling on the charge that Obama hasn't submitted a budget:
"Our ruling
In his speech, Romney faulted Obama for failing to pass a budget. He was correct that the two times Congress voted on the president’s budget requests, both times they were voted down. But the job of passing a budget resolution is not the president’s. That responsibility falls to Congress, and even then the president doesn’t sign it. As Ellis, our expert, put it: "The president has no role in passing a budget. The president can cajole Congress about passing a budget and advocate for positions and funding levels, but in the end, Congress approves the budget resolution for their own purposes." That’s the difference between this and other claims we’ve rated which blamed Congress for inaction on the budget.
Romney’s statement contains a grain of truth, in that two of Obama’s budget requests failed to pass. But citing those votes leaves a wrong impression -- namely that the votes were anything more than political theater. Romney omitted the more critical information that passing a federal budget is the job of Congress. Given all that, we rate his statement Mostly False."
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