the Dems did not have a super majority in the Senate....ted kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer and was not at his job for most of the time he had until he died, then for just a couple of months he had a Dem replacement, then Scott Brown was elected as a Republican.january's 2009's unemployment rate was 7.8%, and February's 8.2%....and this did come from the Bush era, that can not be denied....so although you praise Bush for running a 5% unemployment rate it is NOT what his presidential term left this country with....
would you have preferred the Depression, without any stimulus?
I am not certain.... I was against the stimulus for the Banks and for us when they first were being proposed and stuck with that position for a while....
I understand how you feel about government jobs being protected with stimulus monies....but wasn't that up to the States? The States chose to use the money to save some of their citizen's jobs....they could have cut them and used more of the money for projects....no?
I can't imagine the state of the economy with even more people on unemployment with less money to spend in the market place....and more homes hitting foreclosure at once.
but at the same time, my husband's job in the private* sector was not protected with our tax monies...so it can be viewed as 'unfair'.
much of the stimulus was used to pay for unemployment, and for tax breaks....we don't know what that has brought to the economy, but I can only imagine with less monies in the hands of the people, it would have been worse....hard to imagine it being any worse...but it probably would have been.
Our problem is Congress never showing restraint on their spending on frivolous and pet project things, on wars, on defense spending in general, on adding new programs like Medicare part D pill bill without showing it could be paid for, the new upcoming health care bill too except it hasn't gone in to effect yet so this is added spending for the future....these other things are lingering things that continue to add to our deficits.....and these are ALL things that CONGRESS is in charge of....
congress has done a cruddy job the last 10 years.
It's easy to blame bush and blame obama.....but they can not and never have, single handedly 'saved the world' or saved our economy...
that tax break thing is sooo over played care, do you know that the money for green jobs as in subsidies is counted as a tax break? etc.ask howard fienstien.
the tax breaks we needed and that we will eventually have, are a re work of the tax code, for all of the new found hey lets do it from the dems they had 2 years to do it didn't they? obama? what was his plan? 97-0...thats what and then a plan that CBO could not score becasue he refused to put it on paper?....just spend.
what happened to the Erskine-Bowles commission? the dems have not done a budget in 900 days......hello. the battles over the last months have been an attempt ot try and stop the bleeding, debt ceiling? a plan by reid and obama to wait till the last minute so the reps would own it, in harrys words...hello? that took how much time and effort ?
look, they are in the end all to blame but everytime there comes time for a gut check, its never ever obamas fault, he floats above it as he designed his plan to do just that, whats the point then if we have a change next year? if the pres. is powerless and has zip responsibility then elect elect mickey mouse.
and stepping back for a moment every damn bird that fell from a tree in the 2000's was bush and the rep congresses fault, I know better BUT will not sit here and allow obama and his supra and reconciliation majority blunders pass as if hey its the reps or the house or the senate etc etc ..this hey its everyones fault took a powder in jan 07 becasue the media wanted it that way, it took a powder when obama was elected, it was only bushs fault, well the worm has turned and I am not gonna go along with this avoidance, whats good for the goose is good for the gander.......he owns this, period, full stop.
Near nothing got done on the Dem agenda because the Senate republicans blocked it with filibusters, or moves that took the Senate to only pass legislation with a super majority.
Dems were bitching about this at the time and "you all" basically said "tough poopie".....
Now the republican majority is not getting their legislation through the Senate and you no longer say "tough poopie" and you blame Reid.
It's kinda hypocritical, eh? for both sides of the aisle.
AND THIS is my point trajan.....YOU take issue with the senate and or obama not allowing the House's legislation to go through, I took issue with the Republicans in the senate for not letting the dem majority house passed legislation through the senate.
WE both take issue with ''the other side'' not passing or stopping legislation... going through and getting passed. You blame obama, i blamed bush....
but when all is said and done, it is Congress's fault....for not being able to WORK with each other for what is best for ALL of us, on the whole imo.
and yes, obama is weak and has no experience in working with people that hate him....reagan was an expert at it....clinton was an expert at it...even bush 2 was pretty good at getting what he wanted through congress for the most part.... but not obama.
If what you are saying were accurate, Care...then why didn't the Republicans block Obama Care? The reality of the situation was that it was Blue Dog Democrats that held up the more progressive parts of Barack Obama's agenda. He couldn't get THEM to go along with his proposals for things like the public option, card check and cap & trade.
The fact is, the Obama Administration began with control of the House and the Senate. The Democrats didn't work with the Republicans at all on legislation. Or have you forgotten the meeting Obama had with Republican leaders at the White House where he quite smugly told Eric Cantor "I won" as a response to Republican proposals? The reason that Obama is now working with "people that hate him" is in large part due to the way he treated those same people when he was totally calling the shots.