Republicans study says stimulus worked

[oldernwiser]

So your scapegoat are those damn evil companies and corporations. Yes, a horrible economy is exactly what businessmen want. The rhetoric of the left when it comes to their hatred of the private sector is astounding. The government holds no culpability in the housing crisis, it was all some Gordon Geko type asshole. Obama's policies have not worked because those damn bastards are sabotaging him.

What you are saying is absurd, and is a flimsy attempt to excuse the policies that have directly caused and contributed to the stagnant unemployment (which in reality is way above 8% had the numbers not been manipulated) and glacial economic growth.

In fact, when Romney/Ryan win the in November, I believe that alone will greatly increase businesses confidence in what the regulatory and tax situation will be under his administration. I think overnight the economy will begin showing signs of actual growth and recovery.

You're saying that it was "lack of confidence" that lead to the stagnation of business? How much cash could the administration have thrown to those folks to "improve" their confidence? The facts are that the smallest ventures are doing quite nicely now due to the tax breaks they've been given - although Faux news would have you believe differently.

Now - let's look at the whole picture.
The current administration has dumped more cash into the economy than anyone ever has. It propped up 2 major corporations who - by all rights - should have tanked. It held up the banking infrastructure to forestall a full-scale depression - and continues to pay exorbitant amounts of cash now that the banks are solvent again.

Republicans have been using stalling and obstruction tactics more during this administration than in any other. They get most of their campaign financing from the "evil corporations", which fund the superPACs, who are using their own stalling and obstruction tactics to hold the economy at bay. While screaming over and over how it's all Obama's fault.

To my way of thinking, we paid business a huge amount of cash to push our economy and get us all back to work again. They took that cash and went on vacation. They defaulted. They reneged. The very tactic that worked in every administration facing a recession failed this time - and my opinion is that the failure was deliberate. And so what? No one can vote a CEO out of office. The corporate profits continue regardless. And, at least according to the Dow, investments are WAY up there.

I think it's time to wake up to the fact that it wouldn't matter which party holds office any more. "Business" now OWNS this country, and they've proved it very convincingly so far.

Comparitively few businesses received stimulus funds.

This tactic of handing out cash to selected business entities has rarely been used, and has never worked, anywhere that it has been tried.

It is not cash that ends a recession, it is a change in attitude of millions of consumers that does the trick. Government needs to promote a favorable environment for business to flourish. and that is what changes consumer attitudes. Very few people are going to buy new automobiles, or other durable items, when they worry whether they are going to have a job next week, or next month.

Tax cuts, and regulatory easing, induce business to invest, and that starts the ball rolling.

And so, this administration left tax cuts in place, and kept the pressure on the Federal Reserve to suppress interest rates. They have basically stopped just short of buying a place for businesses to open and busing in patrons. On top of the cash they've thrown into the economy, it still hasn't been enough to overcome the obstructionists who are holing up and waiting for... what?

The only thing left is for the individual states to open up all the regulatory legislation and for congress to repeal anti-trust laws. Or how about if we all promise to work for free for a few years?

Look, as much as we'd love to beat up the sorry excuse we now have for a government over this issue, the answer just isn't there. My gut tells me that the obstructionism that we're seeing in the house right now is just orders from the top - and the "top" isn't elected, it's hired.

 

[California Girl]

Only Liberals?

Now let's be fair and paint the whole issue with the same brush.

The same article which is being used to allege campaign fund misappropriation also goes on to state that several shows were considered for targeting the ads, NPR being rejected due to it's high prices. If this were truly a political statement, it would stand to reason that the targets wouldn't be a national audience but directed to areas where it would make a political difference. Again - the claim is that they were trying to stimulate job growth targeting greenies who would most likely be watching liberal TV. I know how you folks hate being reasonable, but...

Again, for the slow kids, if your targeting a specific audience - say small business owners - you target your ads with the greatest 'opportunity to see' (you might need to google that to understand the term).... you don't slot ads into two of the very left wing talking heads available... given that small business owners are not a rabid liberals. You do get the basic logic of that, right?

And... fyi.... I am not 'you folks'. I am an independent conservative.... I generally despise both GOP and Dems equally.... except Romney... because he's smart.

Are you deliberately avoiding the marketing tactics they used here?

For you who ride the short bus:
MSNBC is as to liberals as Fox News is to conservatives. Conservatives have traditionally held to coal, oil, and nuclear as the sole methods of producing energy (don't make me dig out a link to Romney's own rhetoric on this subject). Green energy is a LIBERAL topic, which is why NPR was on the short list. I can see the ads as being deliberately targeted toward liberal business owners.


I'll disagree with you on Rmoney's general intelligence in another topic.

You just made my point. If the ads were genuinely to target small business owners... why the fuck would they use two very left wing talk shows as placements? That is fucking ludicrous... I'm not 'avoiding' the marketing tactics. I'm looking at their marketing tactics and saying that's not how one targets small business owners. They lied. That is misuse of taxpayers money.

 

[GreatDay]

Liberals just go along with whatever they're told. They seem to have lost their ability to reason, question or investigate.

What happened girl you get lost on the short bus home? Here's that testimony you were looking for:


“The most recent projections from OMB and CBO indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach about $800 billion in fiscal year 2010, including an on-budget surplus of almost $500 billion. Moreover, the admittedly quite uncertain long-term budget exercises released by the CBO last October maintain an implicit on-budget surplus under baseline assumptions well past 2030 despite the budgetary pressures from the aging of the baby-boom generation, especially on the major health programs.
These most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach and, indeed, would occur well before the end of the decade under baseline assumptions. This is in marked contrast to the perception of a year ago, when the elimination of the debt did not appear likely until the next decade. But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically, nonfederal) assets.
At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses now projected under current law imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government. Such an accumulation would make the federal government a significant factor in our nation's capital markets and would risk significant distortion in the allocation of capital to its most productive uses. Such a distortion could be quite costly, as it is our extraordinarily effective allocation process that has enabled such impressive increases in productivity and standards of living despite a relatively low domestic saving rate.”

“Returning to the broader fiscal picture, I continue to believe, as I have testified previously, that all else being equal, a declining level of federal debt is desirable because it holds down long-term real interest rates, thereby lowering the cost of capital and elevating private investment. The rapid capital deepening that has occurred in the U.S. economy in recent years is a testament to these benefits. But the sequence of upward revisions to the budget surplus projections for several years now has reshaped the choices and opportunities before us.
Indeed, in almost any credible baseline scenario, short of a major and prolonged economic contraction, the full benefits of debt reduction are now achieved well before the end of this decade--a prospect that did not seem reasonable only a year or even six months ago. Thus, the emerging key fiscal policy need is now to address the implications of maintaining surpluses beyond the point at which publicly held debt is effectively eliminated.”


Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan
Current fiscal issues
Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives
March 2, 2001


Now I got a question. Why’d he get it so wrong? Do you think we should go back to those policies that were working so well?

 

[ScienceRocks]

 

[salem.hills]

no come on your not the only person saying the stimulus worked? Your desperate attempts to spin your beliefs is giving me sad feelings for you. I like your fortitude but its getting frustrating and desperate for you continuing to defend Marxism huh?