Political Irony

In the political marketplace, there’s now a run on Obama shares. The Left is disappointed with the president. Independents are abandoning him in droves. And the Right is already dancing on his political grave, salivating about November, when, his own press secretary admitted Sunday, Democrats might lose the House.

I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama…

Obama is down, but it’s very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he’s done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do, he knows, must await his next 500 days — those that come after reelection.

So 2012 is the real prize. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.

— Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post

It seems to me that the left’s main complaint against Obama has been that he hasn’t reversed the damage done by the Bush administration fast enough. Bush and Cheney had eight long years to fill the federal government with far-right ideologues, and they didn’t hesitate to pass out jobs out based on loyalty rather than competence. Government changes slowly, and for good reason. If Obama had the power to change it any faster, then the previous administration would have had the same power and could have done even more damage, and we would be in even worse shape than we are now.

Does that mean that progressives should ease up on Obama? Of course not! Something has to counter the wing-nut noise machine. But don’t give up on Obama. He is our best hope. And he has already accomplished more than some thought possible: Health care reform (which several other presidents tried to do and failed), reversing the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression, the recent financial reform including protections for consumers, repairing our image in the world, reorganizing the student loan program, stronger regulations on carbon emissions, and initiatives to lower our dependence on foreign oil. And there is so much more on his agenda: improving gay rights, fighting climate change, immigration reform, and of course ending two wars.

For those of us old enough to remember, even Reagan was being attacked bitterly by his own party at about this time into his first term. Am I totally happy with what Obama has accomplished? Of course not. Do I think he is the best president we have had in a very long time? Absolutely. Will I keep the pressure on him to accomplish even more? You Betcha!

© Ben Sargent

When asked repeatedly about specific things the Republicans will do to cut the deficit, Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) draw a blank. Finally, in desperation, Sessions says he wants to go back to the economic policies of the Bush Administration. Seriously. And Cornyn says he is waiting for Obama’s debt commission to report their findings at the end of the year. Yeah, the same commission that Republican politicians killed, forcing Obama to create it by presidential decree.

Nothing, indeed.

Sunday morning, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appeared on CNN and NRSC chair John Cornyn (R-TX) appeared on NBC. Let’s play “spot the talking point” in these two quotes from their respective appearances:

The last year of the Bush administration, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 3.2 percent, well within the range of what most economists think is manageable. A year and a half later, it’s almost 10 percent.

You know, in the last year that President Bush was in office, 2008, the deficit was 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product. Today it’s 10 percent.

So, if you heard either of them (and if you missed it, I’m sure you will get more chances), you probably thought “Gee that’s amazing, Republicans were doing a good job with the economy until the Democrats came along and tripled the deficit.”

There’s only one problem: the federal fiscal year starts on October first, not January first, so the “year” 2008 they are talking about ended in September 2008, almost four months before Obama took office. In fact, the only time the deficit was lower than 3.2 percent of GDP was during 2007!

So what happened in those four months? Oh, let’s see, how about Lehman Brothers going broke, the huge bank bailout (TARP), and — you know — just the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus) was passed February 17, a few weeks after Obama took office on January 20th, in order to fix that financial collapse.

Economist Paul Krugman has put together a handy graph:

Note that Obama took office partway into the first quarter of 2009 (which I have colored red in Krugman’s graph). Not only is it easy to see that “fiscal 2008” ended more than a quarter before Obama was even sworn in, but by the end of Bush’s term the deficit had jumped to 9 percent of GDP. You can also see that the deficit was skyrocketing during the end of Bush’s term and that within a few months not only was Obama able to stop it from rising, he was even able to start bringing it down (just a little).

So the truth is that at the end of the Bush administration, the deficit was 9% of GDP (not 3.2% as they claim) and that most of the deficit since then has been spent trying to repair the economic collapse, not to mention paying for Bush and “deficits don’t matter” Cheney’s two tax cuts for the rich, two freaking wars, the Medicare expansion, and No Child Left Behind, none of which the Republicans even tried to pay for.

As Krugman sums up: “They think we’re idiots — and they may be right.”

“We have some wonderful news. BP announced it successfully capped the oil leak. The oil leak has stopped. I am so glad they were able to nip this thing in the bud.” – Jay Leno

“BP just announced that the containment cap is working and no oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. Well, that was easy.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Before they capped it, BP had to test the integrity of the well, which I believe is the first time BP and integrity have ever been used in the same sentence.” – Jay Leno

“BP says it finally stopped the oil from leaking. And if we’ve learned anything in the last three months, it’s that whatever BP says, BP says.” – Jimmy Fallon

“BBC is reporting that Venezuela may have massive oil reserves, more than even Saudi Arabia. You know what that means? We could have invaded closer to home and saved gas.” – Jay Leno

“But to be fair to President Bush, at the time we invaded Iraq, he thought Venezuela was a planet.” – Jay Leno

“Of course, today, he corrected himself. He now realizes Venezuela is those horns they blow at the World Cup.” – Jay Leno

“A CBS News poll found that 57 percent of Americans support Arizona’s new immigration law, although if you change it from Americans to people living in America, the number drops to 2 percent.” – Jimmy Fallon

“You remember Bill Clinton? Bill and Hillary went out and bought a brand-new house in upstate New York. He’s still keeping the old place to use as a bachelor pad.” – David Letterman

“But the new place is beautiful. It’s one of those houses that has a name. I believe it’s called Rancho Impeacho.” – David Letterman

“Well, this week, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston revealed exclusively to Us Weekly, my bible, that they are getting married. Sarah Palin allegedly not happy about this, because she feels they barely know each other and they are making a big commitment. You know, kind of like when John McCain picked her for vice president.” – Jay Leno

“People are sweating more than Sarah Palin trying to hire a wedding planner. That’s how hot it was today.” – Jay Leno

“The White House announced today that the stimulus package saved three million jobs. But they said there’s still more jobs that need to be saved: President Obama’s, Joe Biden’s, Harry Reid’s, Nancy Pelosi’s…” – Jay Leno

I found this hilarious post by someone named Flopper on a message board:

No Government Spending Needed to Create Jobs but There is a Cost

There are two pieces of legislation needed to accomplish full employment in America, both supported by many conservatives.
1. Repeal the minimum wage law.
2. Remove financial support for those out of work including unemployment, welfare, food stamps, etc…

Removing the minimum wage allows employers to pick up good employees at very low labor rates. Once all financial support is removed, the unemployed will seek any kind of work offered. It’s either that or starve. Unemployment rates would drop rapidly. This will also solve the problem of jobs being sent abroad. With the lower labor rates, employers will have little reason to go abroad for cheap labor. The only real negative financial aspect is that working Americans will not have the income to purchase much more than necessities. This can be overcome by exporting more of the new cheap American made goods. Bleeding heart liberals will complain that America is becoming a third world country but you have to make a few sacrifices if you want to compete in today’s world markets. The above may sound a bit ridiculous but there are a lots of people that think this way.