Obama: Doubling Down on Incompetence

[rogue06]

No, credit Obama. He inherited a disaster, and he engineered a recovery despite bozos like you kicking and screaming all the way.

And I notice you completely ignored the changes since 2008. I wonder why?

I've lived through my share of recessions and bar none this has been the slowest, worst recovery I have ever experienced. It has resulted in just the sort of situation that liberals used to say that they were against. The rich have gotten richer while the middle class has been groin kicked.

[Sam]

You use the 2012 election for 2012 and the 2014 election for 2014. If people sat home that also tells you something about the present mood of the electorate.

Indeed. But it doesn't give us much of a clue as to the lack of motivation; certainly nothing we can draw a mandate from. Polling policy proposals still skews liberal. Those looking to draw a policy prescription from this 2014 Republican wave are facing strong headwinds.

[Sam]

I've lived through my share of recessions and bar none this has been the slowest, worst recovery I have ever experienced. It has resulted in just the sort of situation that liberals used to say that they were against. The rich have gotten richer while the middle class has been groin kicked.

It has. Given that the IMF concluded that government spending from 2009 to 2011 was 0.9x - 1.7x, which party wanted temporary spending increases and which party was demanding stringent cuts, if not a full-out balanced budget? Private-sector job growth has been better than Reagan's recession in the early 80s while public-sector job growth has dropped sharply.

We can look to some clear causes of slow recovery and then look to which party advocated the policies that led to those causes.

[rogue06]

Indeed. But it doesn't give us much of a clue as to the lack of motivation; certainly nothing we can draw a mandate from. Polling policy proposals still skews liberal. Those looking to draw a policy prescription from this 2014 Republican wave are facing strong headwinds.

I've always been wary of "mandates" as politicians tend to read too much into them. This is especially true when an election isn't a national one. However, it is safe to say that those elected are expected to do what they said they would do while seeking the voter's support (yeah, I know, what a wonderfully naïve view). And IIRC, every one of the Republican Senators elected ran on things like repealing Obamacare and stopping or slowing down Obama in other areas as well.

[rogue06]

It has. Given that the IMF concluded that government spending from 2009 to 2011 was 0.9x - 1.7x, which party wanted temporary spending increases and which party was demanding stringent cuts, if not a full-out balanced budget? Private-sector job growth has been better than Reagan's recession in the early 80s while public-sector job growth has dropped sharply.

We can look to some clear causes of slow recovery and then look to which party advocated the policies that led to those causes.

More people have just dropped out of the work force, a larger percentage need public assistance to make ends meet (family earnings are still below the 2008 level) largely because many of those who lost their jobs have been forced to settle for PT work that pays less (even if you manage to get 2 PT jobs in order to work as many hours) and offers fewer benefits. And by the time Reagan was able to turn the economy you had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment and interest rates over 20%. He had a lot more that needed turning around and six years into his presidency he succeeded whereas we are still deep in a malaise.

[Sam]

More people have just dropped out of the work force, a larger percentage need public assistance to make ends meet (family earnings are still below the 2008 level) largely because many of those who lost their jobs have been forced to settle for PT work that pays less (even if you manage to get 2 PT jobs in order to work as many hours) and offers fewer benefits. And by the time Reagan was able to turn the economy you had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment and interest rates over 20%. He had a lot more that needed turning around and six years into his presidency he succeeded whereas we are still deep in a malaise.

I don't think you can say this was the worst recession in memory and say that Reagan had more to turn around. In fact, Reagan's recession was more or less artificially created to break inflation — it was relatively easy to get the V-shaped recession. The Great Recession, in contrast, was demand-side and global. It was just structurally a -much- harder trough to climb out of. That said, the USA has done much better than many other countries, most notably in the Eurozone countries that swung towards austerity in 2010/2011.

Obama proposed an extensive jobs plan in 2010 that never saw the light of day. I'm still unsure what the GOP jobs plan is, apart from "get government out of the way." Large infrastructure spending would have gone a very long way to reducing unemployment and boosting full-time labor.

[Sam]

I've always been wary of "mandates" as politicians tend to read too much into them. This is especially true when an election isn't a national one. However, it is safe to say that those elected are expected to do what they said they would do while seeking the voter's support (yeah, I know, what a wonderfully naïve view). And IIRC, every one of the Republican Senators elected ran on things like repealing Obamacare and stopping or slowing down Obama in other areas as well.

That's entirely fair. For the record, the probable new majority leader ran on repealing Obamacare but keeping Kynect as-is. Hard to see how McConnell will manage to do that trick.

[seanD]

Unless you compare how things are today, with how things were when he took office. Unemployment? WAY down. Stock market? WAY up. Annual deficit: WAY down. GDP? WAY up. Yes, this is a nation on its knees, OK. Oh, and let's not forget what Obama inherited, against which current numbers are being compared. Who was responsible for that inheritance?

Nobody is going to argue that Obama has managed to repair ALL the damage he inherited. That would be asking too much.

We could definitely argue about the economy and the misrepresented numbers (especially the unemployment number), but with that aside; if the economy is as good as the MSM tells us and the numbers supposedly confirm, why did the Reps have such success? If not the economy, what was it?

[rogue06]

I don't think you can say this was the worst recession in memory and say that Reagan had more to turn around. In fact, Reagan's recession was more or less artificially created to break inflation — it was relatively easy to get the V-shaped recession. The Great Recession, in contrast, was demand-side and global. It was just structurally a -much- harder trough to climb out of. That said, the USA has done much better than many other countries, most notably in the Eurozone countries that swung towards austerity in 2010/2011.

Obama proposed an extensive jobs plan in 2010 that never saw the light of day. I'm still unsure what the GOP jobs plan is, apart from "get government out of the way." Large infrastructure spending would have gone a very long way to reducing unemployment and boosting full-time labor.

Reagan had a deeper one to fix. Obama has prolonged the one he was handed. He loved to complain about how Republicans drove the car in the ditch but instead of working to get it out, slashed the tires and firebombed it.

And why did Obama wait until 2010? Couldn't fit it in during his golf/vacation/fund-raising schedule until then? He had the House. He had a filibuster-proof Senate for his first two years so why did he wait? Could it be that his proposal was little more than a political ploy designed not to be passed but as campaign fodder?

[Sam]

Reagan had a deeper one to fix. Obama has prolonged the one he was handed. He loved to complain about how Republicans drove the car in the ditch but instead of working to get it out, slashed the tires and firebombed it.

Reagan's recession wasn't deeper:

092712gdp2.jpg

gdp-chart-jan-2012.jpg

And Obama did work to get it out: the Stimulus is widely acknowledged to have prevented a depression, the auto bailout is considered to have worked well, Obama repeatedly tried to get more spending during a time when the IMF now concludes would have returned $0.90 - $1.70 on every $1.00 spent and submitted a jobs plan to increase employment. Republicans opposed each initiative.

You can certainly point to bomb-throwers but that ain't Obama. That guy was desperate enough for economic growth that he agreed to a highly-lopsided 4:1 austerity measure to get some traction (a measure which was, of course, firebombed by Cantor and Ryan).

[Cow Poke]

Indeed. But it doesn't give us much of a clue as to the lack of motivation; certainly nothing we can draw a mandate from. Polling policy proposals still skews liberal. Those looking to draw a policy prescription from this 2014 Republican wave are facing strong headwinds.

Perhaps you can come up with another Wiki article based on a Who' Who Scam based on Obama's own self aggrandizement.

[Sam]

Perhaps you can come up with another Wiki article based on a Who' Who Scam based on Obama's own self aggrandizement.

You're a silly man, friend, for latching onto a footnote that had nothing to do with the proposition being made.

[Cow Poke]

You're a silly man, friend, for latching onto a footnote that had nothing to do with the proposition being made.

The footnote was telling from whence cometh the drivel thou wast touting.

[Sam]

The footnote was telling from whence cometh the drivel thou wast touting.

No, that was one of three footnotes dealing with a claim that wasn't contended. You didn't claim, let alone demonstrate, that the citations for the actual contended claim (what Obama did as a community organizer after college) were in error or poor sources.

Lazy criticism was the term I used and that charge still stands.

[Juvenal]

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