Just like one of my friends, HH, who even said that ‘I am not even a Republican, even Bush did what Obama is doing financially, I will certainly oppose, irresponsible policy, no individual, family, city, state or federal government can barrow they way out of bankruptcy, just don’t think so, $16 trillion of of which $7 trillion borrowed by Obama, more than all the presidents’ combined borrowing, do you know home much interest we have to pay everyday, even at 1 percent, good thing you and I are very close to finishing line of our live, I only worry about the next generation, sorry for them.’
Being aware of what HH has tried to say, nevertheless, I do feel his thought has been uninformed.
My reasoning is quite straitforward as following:
Obama cannot be both too moderate, as many say, and too radical at the same time, as conservatives claim.
Obama’s appointees and advisors on financial matters are financial industry “insiders”.
He continued the TARP bailouts already put in place by Republican President GW Bush and, as Bill Clinton said during the recent convention, Obama has a habit of appointing Republicans to important posts also.
The new “Dodd-Frank” financial regulations were instituted with significant industry input, over the objections of true reformers (like Elizabeth Warren) whom Obama was prevented from appointing to lead the very Consumer Protection Agency that she, herself, conceived and promoted.
All of these facts point to his governing style as ‘centrist’, not radical in any way.
That is why many liberals, in my own opinion at least, like award-winning economist Paul Krugman, have criticized him for not obtaining a bigger stimulus, for continuing the Bush tax cuts, and for not doing enough in these critical areas where change is truly needed.
Currently, I have received from e-mails titled as ‘ Did Obama inherits a mess?’ which carry some statistical histograms and charts.
To me, most of these charts including hiatograms simply quantify the mess Obama inherited, and then “blame” him for everything that occurred from his first day in office, as if he was the original source of the problem.
For example, welfare and foodstamps and unemployment have all increased, while tax revenues have declined because we lost 8 million jobs due to the ‘great recession’ caused by the Bush economic policies while concurrently taking on the huge debt caused by his drug program and two (off budget!) wars and maintaining the huge Bush tax cuts in place to this day.
The only significant resolution of this structurally flawed economy that’s been permitted by Republicans in Congress (despite their record number of filibusters) was the stimulus bill which was also composed of 40 percent tax cuts at their insistance – this focus on tax cuts did little to improve employment and the public sector jobs that were initially ‘saved’ by the stimulus susidies to local govts were soon lost to state and local cutbacks as soon as the meager 60 percent of stimulus funding left (after tax reductions) ran out.
The Republicans have either stalled or thwarted (or diluted) every other measure Obama has attempted to fix the economy.
For another example, the opportunity to create millions of jobs building and repairing. basic infrastructure were lost when the Republicans filibustered the American Jobs Act he proposed last summer. Our ‘credit rating’ was downgraded by Republican refusal, for the first time in American history, to routinely raise the budget ‘ceiling’ – this was no fault of Obama’s.
Blaming him – Obama – for that, and the disaster caused by his predecessor (and continued by Republican intransegence), very much appears to be a case of ‘the pot calling the kettle black’.
Does not it?
Bingh Tang
Mineola
