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Tag Archives: 1937

Time for a Leader, Not a Politician

07 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by Craig in budget, Congress, economy, Obama, Politics

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1937, anti-deficit, anti-spending, clean energy jobs, David Axelrod, Debt Commission, depression, fearmongering, Gulf oil spill, long-term unemployed, mid-term elections, middle-class, President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, recession, right-wing noise machine, Ross Perot, Social Security privatizers, Tim Ryan, unemployment

“The easiest thing in the world for a politician to do is tell you exactly what you want to hear.”—Senator Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign when the other candidates were calling for a gasoline tax holiday in the face of soaring oil prices.

It’s time for President Obama to take some advice from Senator Obama and not from his political advisers in the White House, like David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, who are telling him that the public mood is anti-spending and anti-deficit, and that it will be politically advantageous in the upcoming mid-term elections for him and the Democrats to play to the fear of a deficit boogeyman being ginned up by the right-wing noise machine and the president’s political opponents. Opponents who, let’s face it, don’t want to see unemployment go down or the economy improve between now and November. If the Republicans can get the president to focus on the deficit and cutting spending while unemployment hovers around 10%, they’ll be happy as pigs in slop, so to speak.

President Obama doesn’t help to counteract  the fearmongering when he does things like proposing spending freezes and initiating a debt commission stacked with deficit hawks and Social Security privatizers. In my opinion, this is a golden opportunity for a teaching moment.

If I were advising the president I would suggest a series of television appearances like Ross Perot did during his short-lived presidential campaign in 1992, (before he went all black helicopters, that is) complete with charts and graphs to illustrate his points. The American people, for the most part, aren’t stupid. We get a lot more than politicians and their political advisers give us credit for.

The president could start with a history lesson from 1937. About how FDR gave in to the deficit hawks of his day and started cutting spending before the country was out of the Great Depression which led to a “recession within the Depression” and delayed the recovery.

He could explain the stimulative effects of unemployment benefits. How that every dollar which goes out comes back as $1.64. How that almost half of the unemployed have been out of work for 6 months, something that hasn’t happened since the Labor Dept. started keeping that statistic in 1948. How the unemployed aren’t lazy bums looking for a handout—another popular meme of the noise machine—but that there are 6 applicants for every job opening, and that those over 50 who are disproportionately affected are Americans who have worked for the better part of their lives and have been caught up in an economic situation beyond their control. In their time of need they need our compassion, not our condemnation.

He could use the Gulf oil spill as a springboard to re-invigorate American manufacturing jobs in the field of clean energy, which leads to more people paying taxes and reduced deficits. We could be a country that makes things again, and in the process breathe new life into the rapidly disappearing American middle-class. As Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) said recently:

“We know what happens when the economy depends only on financial services and the creation of wealth through bookkeeping. Manufacturing jobs are good paying jobs that support families and communities, create spin-off jobs, and leads to innovation…We’ve spent the last 30 years pandering to those who have taken manufacturing off shore and in turn we lost the heart and soul of our country. We need to see ‘Made in the USA’ again.”

With signs of a slowing economy and the prospects of a double-dip recession looming, this is not the time for a politician with his finger in the wind gauging public opinion or re-acting to the misinformation and disinformation being put out by his opponents. This calls for someone to lead, educate to populace, and shape public opinion, not react to it.

Cowards, Hypocrites, and Fools

02 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by Craig in budget, Congress, Democrats, economy, Politics, Republicans

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1937, budget, Congress, cowards, credit tightening, deficit commission, double dip recession, fools, Howard Beale, hypocrites, jobless claims, new home sales, Pelosi, Republican, Social Security, states, stock market

Quickly approaching mad as hell stage:

We have a Congress packed with cowards, hypocrites, and fools—on both sides of the aisle. House Democrats have passed a budget that’s not really a budget, and projected a balanced budget that’s not really a balanced budget because it excludes interest payments on the debt. They left out the minor details of how to achieve that lofty goal, depending on recommendations from the debt commission to cover their collective asses and keep them from having to make what could be controversial votes in an election year. Profiles in courage.

That would be the deficit commission packed with Social Security privatizers, some of whom support investing as much as 20% of the SS trust fund in the stock market. Speaker Pelosi, in the interest of openness and transparency, last night sneaked in inserted language in the war funding bill that would allow the House to have an up-or-down vote on the deficit commission’s recommendations in a lame duck session after the November elections. Buck passing and CYA at its finest.

Republican deficit hypocrites, who never saw a spending program they didn’t like when they held power, have now become fiscal conservatives, allegedly. They, along with their lackey Ben Nelson, have blocked the extension of unemployment benefits despite the fact that new jobless claims have hit their highest levels since March, and the unemployment numbers due out today are expected to show an increase from the 9.7% we have now.

Both sides have their collective moistened fingers in the wind which tells them that voters are worried about increasing deficits, so these geniuses look for ways to cut spending, except for the untouchable Defense Department, that is. Wouldn’t want to be accused of being “soft on terror.”. Never mind that the stock market is headed back down, pending new home sales dropped 30% from April to May, credit is still tightening, and many states are facing budget crises that, without federal assistance, could result in the loss of 900,000 more jobs.

Add these to the anticipated rise in unemployment and the prospects of a double-dip recession are increasing by the day. Exactly the wrong time to even be considering spending cuts, unless you want a repeat of 1937. Fools.

We don’t need one Howard Beale, we need to become a nation of Howard Beales.

Reduce the Deficit in a Recession? Hello 1937

30 Saturday Jan 2010

Posted by Craig in economy, Obama

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1937, bi-partisan commission, Obama, reduce deficit, Roosevelt Recession, spending freeze, State of the Union address

From Bloomberg:

“President Barack Obama said reducing the federal budget deficit is “critical” to ensuring future growth as the U.S. economy recovers from the recession...Obama in his address today highlighted some of the measures he proposed in his Jan. 27 State of the Union address, including a three-year freeze on spending (see Deficit Peacocks) for some domestic programs (but certainly not the sacred cow MIC) and creation of bipartisan commission to draft deficit-reduction recommendations for Congress to consider.”

.

Ah yes, the old bi-partisan deficit-reduction commission. The place of refuge for the gutless politician who doesn’t want to go on the record with a controversial vote. D.C. CYA at it’s best.

Also President Obama, the old adage is that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. 1937 for example.

That was the year FDR listened to the fiscal hawks of his day and decided to cut spending and balance the federal budget, assuming that the worst of the Great Depression was over. The result? Unemployment rose again, the economic growth of the previous 3 years was reversed, and the country slid back into what became known as the “Roosevelt Recession.” The dreaded double-dip.

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