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Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:For those who were actually paying attention (IE, not the majority of the population), he did in fact make promises. Pretty much all of which he promised he attempted to do, and it's not like he was hiding it. Anyone could have gotten on his website and looked it up.

He ran as a moderate, and was elected to work on the economy. What he tried to do was not that.

Apparently you weren't paying attention to his platform then, because-- for example-- he promised to work on healthcare and even outlined what eventually became the basis for his health care reform after his election.

And then proceeded to do just that, amongst other things.

QFT. He actually compromised and watered-down the major healthcare reform he promised us in the election. I, among many others of the majority of the country's voters who elected him, wanted a public option. He worked on healthcare reform for ~ a year because it's a critical issue for our nation's economy. My small-business-owning boss knew that as well as anyone, and supported Obama to the hilt.

The Repubs/early-tea party backed candidates largely refused to work on health care reform despite a mandate from the voters. The misinformation and hateful rhetoric (death panels) which came from the Right in that year were shameful and deeply saddening. When there's a widespread campaign to frighten and misinform voters to the extent that they show up at meetings with their Congresspeople screaming and ranting incoherently and in total ignorance of the legislative process, something has gone badly wrong.

Melchiour wrote:

sexiest_hero wrote:The SotU Outlines what the pres whants to do. I think it's cool. For Obama it's also a place to trick Republicans. His "Khorn and Slannesh can be friends, so can we! was hidden with low jabs. It worked. The guy is a political shark, if nothing else. People loved his speech.

I guess my thing is what one says they want to do, or will do, is seldom what they do actually do. It happens with all politicians, talk big, look good, and then don't deliver on a number of things. Then next time you talk just promise more. I just can't buy into it anymore, from either side.

The alternative would be to say "I'm not really going to accomplish much or affect your life in any meaningful way. So vote for me/support me!"

gorgon wrote:

The alternative would be to say "I'm not really going to accomplish much or affect your life in any meaningful way. So vote for me/support me!"

I would be happiest with, "this is my voting record and this is where I stand on issues A through Z."

This way people know what they believe, how they have voted in the past, and it gives them the ability to govern and compromise without looking like liars.

While I'm philosophically opposed to the Public Option, I actually support it in practice because insurance companies are straight up evil.

In a perfect world we wouldn't need it but, as we all know, this is hardly a perfect world.

FITZZ wrote:

Melchiour wrote:Lets say you get hired for a job and you say you can do X for them. If you fail to do X guess what, excuses will not fly. You failed. The President should be held to the same or higher standards than anyone else. I am not saying Obama did bad as a President. I like some of what he has done. I am saying that in today's America we give them a pass and look too much at what is promised and not what is delivered. Crying you could not pass what you wanted to because Congress is an excuse. I don't know about where everyone else works, but excuses are not permitted in my professional career.

Surely you must realize that making this sort of comparison is inaccurate.
I'd hazard to guess that you at your job do not have to contend with groups of individuals who make every attempt possible to prevent you from achieving the goals you hope to achieve.

Actually I could indeed say that where I work...


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Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:For those who were actually paying attention (IE, not the majority of the population), he did in fact make promises. Pretty much all of which he promised he attempted to do, and it's not like he was hiding it. Anyone could have gotten on his website and looked it up.

He ran as a moderate, and was elected to work on the economy. What he tried to do was not that.

Apparently you weren't paying attention to his platform then, because-- for example-- he promised to work on healthcare and even outlined what eventually became the basis for his health care reform after his election.

And then proceeded to do just that, amongst other things.

The horror that was passed was not healtchare reform. He ran on extended coverage and cheaper healthcare. What we got is kafkaesque.


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Melchiour wrote:

gorgon wrote:

The alternative would be to say "I'm not really going to accomplish much or affect your life in any meaningful way. So vote for me/support me!"

I would be happiest with, "this is my voting record and this is where I stand on issues A through Z."

This way people know what they believe, how they have voted in the past, and it gives them the ability to govern and compromise without looking like liars.

He didn't have a voting record. He was a blank slate touted as the Second Coming by the MSM against any and all comers.



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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110126/ap_on_go_co/us_budget_deficit

WASHINGTON – A continuing weak economy and last month's bipartisan tax cut legislation will drive the government's deficit to a record $1.5 trillion this year, a new government estimates predicts. The eye-popping numbers mean the government will continue to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.

The new Congressional Budget Office estimates will add fuel to a raging debate over cutting spending and looming legislation that's required to allow the government to borrow more money as the national debt nears the $14.3 trillion cap set by law. Republicans controlling the House say there's no way they'll raise the limit without significant cuts in spending, starting with a government funding bill that will advance next month.

The CBO analysis predicts the economy will grow by 3.1 percent this year, but that joblessness will remain above 9 percent this year. Dauntingly for President Obama, the nonpartisan agency estimates a nationwide unemployment rate of 8.2 percent on Election Day in 2012.

The latest figures are up from previous estimates because of bipartisan legislation passed in December that extended Bush-era tax cuts, unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and provided a 2 percent payroll tax cut this year.

That measure added almost $400 billion to this year's deficit, CBO says.

The deficit is on track to beat the record of $1.4 trillion set in 2009. That figure reflected huge outlays from the Wall St. bailout. The nonpartisan budget agency predicts the deficit will drop to $1.1 trillion next year.

"The fiscal challenge confronting us is enormous. To solve this problem, it will require real compromise and a great deal of political will," said Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "We need to have both sides, Democrats and Republicans, willing to move off their fixed positions and find common ground."

The chilling figures come the morning after Obama called for a five-year freeze on domestic agency budgets passed by Congress each year. But those nondefense programs make up just 18 percent of the $3.7 trillion budget, which means any upcoming deficit reduction package — at least one that begins to significantly slow the gush of red ink — will require politically dangerous curbs to popular benefit programs, which include Social Security, Medicare, the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, and food stamps.

Neither Obama nor his GOP rivals on Capitol Hill have yet come forward with specific proposals for cutting such benefit programs. Successful efforts to curb the deficit always require active, engaged presidential leadership but Obama's unwillingness to thus far take chances has deficit hawks discouraged. Obama will release his 2012 budget proposal next month.

"Somebody is going to have to bite the bullet and get this process going," said Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that advocates fiscal responsibility. "And that somebody has to be the president."

Obama has pointedly steered clear of the recommendations of his deficit commissions, which in December called for politically difficult moves such as increasing the Social Security retirement age and reducing future increases in benefits. It also proposed a 15 cents a gallon increase in the gas tax and eliminating or scaling back tax breaks — including the child tax credit, mortgage interest deduction and deduction claimed by employers who provide health insurance — in exchange for rate cuts on corporate and income taxes.

CBO predicts that the deficit will fall to $551 billion by 2015, down to a sustainable 3 percent of the size of the economy.

But under its rules, the CBO assumes that recently-extended cuts in taxes on income, investment and people inheriting large estates will expire in two years. If those tax cuts, and numerous others, are extended, the deficit for that year would be almost three times as large.

Tax revenues, which dropped significantly in 2009 because of the recession, have stabilized. But revenue growth will continue to be constrained because of the slow pace of economic growth and the extension of Bush era tax cuts passed by Congress in December. The CBO projects revenues to be 6 percent higher in 2011 than they were two years ago, which will not keep pace with the growth in spending.

As a share of the economy, tax revenues in 2011 are projected to reach their lowest levels since 1950. The CBO projects that tax revenues will be 14.8 percent of GDP in 2011, which would be 0.1 percentage point lower than in 2009.

"The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges. The economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, which was triggered by a large decline in house prices and a financial crisis — events unlike anything this country has seen since the Great Depression," the CBO report says.

People forget that the President is really little more than a hopped up cheerleader and his State of the Union is really just that big homecoming game routine he has to put together every year. It's big, it's flashy, and in the context of the football game it means exactly dick.

Tyyr wrote:People forget that the President is really little more than a hopped up cheerleader and his State of the Union is really just that big homecoming game routine he has to put together every year. It's big, it's flashy, and in the context of the football game it means exactly dick.

Thats woefully in error. The President, in addition to the power of the pulpit, controls the military and federal judiciary, has the power of appointment, and runs the organizations of government. There's a reason its been called "the Imperial Presidency" since WWII.

Melchiour wrote:

gorgon wrote:

The alternative would be to say "I'm not really going to accomplish much or affect your life in any meaningful way. So vote for me/support me!"

I would be happiest with, "this is my voting record and this is where I stand on issues A through Z."

This way people know what they believe, how they have voted in the past, and it gives them the ability to govern and compromise without looking like liars.

A) This is technically off-topic, as the SotU address is a forward-looking, aspirational policy outline for the coming year and not a campaign speech.

B) In a campaign, laundry lists of past voting records is hardly the kind of thing that motivates the base or inspires others to support you. People want to know "what will you do for me" moreso than "what have you done in the past." This stands whether you're marketing candidates or companies.

C) Politicians and candidates talk about their beliefs and records all the time. They may distort said records, but generally if you have no idea what a candidate/politician stands for, it's because of some combination of you not paying close enough attention and/or the media covering politics in all the wrong ways. Kathleen Hall Jamison at Penn has written some interesting books and gives some good lectures on this subject.

Frazzled wrote:The horror that was passed was not healtchare reform. He ran on extended coverage and cheaper healthcare. What we got is kafkaesque.

You mean, just like most legalese is?

Frankly, the tax credits to businesses for providing health insurance to employees is a godsend to the small business world. That alone makes me support it...

The part about forcing small businesses to give their employees healthcare (and regular people who already don't have enough income) is what made me not. That part got cast down pretty quickly though. If they legalize weed, I'll take anything else they want to tack on :p

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:The part about forcing small businesses to give their employees healthcare (and regular people who already don't have enough income) is what made me not. That part got cast down pretty quickly though. If they legalize weed, I'll take anything else they want to tack on :p

Nope, instead of forcing them to, they offer them a 35% subsidy for small businesses. Not sure if the "forcing" part was in the original bill but it isn't anymore, to be sure.

The carrot rather than the stick. And I must say that it's working, so grats to whoever put that part in.

It was in one of the drafts. If I remember correctly, any business that had greater than 10 or 15 employees had to have insurance on them or they would receive yearly fines. Glad to see it the other way around So yeah, if you don't drink where are going to have Dakka-con Texas?

Frazzled wrote:

Tyyr wrote:People forget that the President is really little more than a hopped up cheerleader and his State of the Union is really just that big homecoming game routine he has to put together every year. It's big, it's flashy, and in the context of the football game it means exactly dick.

Thats woefully in error. The President, in addition to the power of the pulpit, controls the military and federal judiciary, has the power of appointment, and runs the organizations of government. There's a reason its been called "the Imperial Presidency" since WWII.

Except that at the end of the day he still has to convince 535 jackasses on the hill to vote for what he wants done or it doesn't happy. Yes, he is Commander in Chief, Congress holds the purse strings. Yes he can appoint judges, but they don't make laws, usually, and most presidents appoint one or two SC Justices.

If the guy had enough power to qualify as being "Imperial," he wouldn't have spent the first two years of his presidency held hostage by a minority in Congress.

Tyyr wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Tyyr wrote:People forget that the President is really little more than a hopped up cheerleader and his State of the Union is really just that big homecoming game routine he has to put together every year. It's big, it's flashy, and in the context of the football game it means exactly dick.

Thats woefully in error. The President, in addition to the power of the pulpit, controls the military and federal judiciary, has the power of appointment, and runs the organizations of government. There's a reason its been called "the Imperial Presidency" since WWII.

Except that at the end of the day he still has to convince 535 jackasses on the hill to vote for what he wants done or it doesn't happy. Yes, he is Commander in Chief, Congress holds the purse strings. Yes he can appoint judges, but they don't make laws, usually, and most presidents appoint one or two SC Justices.

If the guy had enough power to qualify as being "Imperial," he wouldn't have spent the first two years of his presidency held hostage by a minority in Congress.

Wait you think judges don't make laws?

Judges don't make laws, though. They interpret laws that are already there. Any judge's decision can be overturned by the legislature, though if something is constitutional it generally won't be.

Melissia wrote:Judges don't make laws, though. They interpret laws that are already there. Any judge's decision can be overturned by the legislature, though if something is constitutional it generally won't be.

Interpretation is creation.

Melissia wrote:The thing is, even in the best of times the president has to fight congress tooth and nail.

Which is the system working as intended. The thing you're getting now, where half of congress fights tooth and nail with the other side of congress, over nothing but election politics, that's a very bad thing.

Obama should have been up there saying 'stop hating on each other, congress people. You're all supposed to be hating me.'


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Frazzled wrote:He ran as a moderate, and was elected to work on the economy. What he tried to do was not that.

Hahahahaha. I love this.

First up, he ran on 'I'm not Bush'. Which no-one can claim he hasn't delivered on because he is in fact a different person. So tick one there.

Then he ran on a collection of issues of priority to the left wing, namely healthcare reform, Iraq, Guantanamo and DADT. He's done what he said on two of these, while failing to deliver on the other two. This has resulted in the fringe of the left wing denouncing him as being exactly as evil as Bush, while the footsoldiers of the Republican party decry him as being some kind of fringe leftwinger. Which is crazy.


And this thing where the President is to be blamed for failing to fix the economy is stupid, and you know this. At least, you certainly knew it when you pointed out over and over again that Bush was not responsible for the poor economy while he was President.

FITZZ wrote: There is a big difference in saying you will "fight to make something happen" and promising that it "will happen".

Very few successful politicians actually make promises they can't keep when making big speeches. Usually they will say something like "I promise you that I will work for X!"

Its a sort of rhetorical trick that is designed to indicate confidence, without over committing oneself to actually getting something done.

The caveat, of course, is that people only remember the word "promise" not the uncertainty that follows it.


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Frazzled wrote:
Interpretation is creation.

No it isn't, and you know this. There is a profound difference between creating laws from whole cloth, and interpreting those laws in the context of one another.


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Frazzled wrote:
He ran as a moderate, and was elected to work on the economy. What he tried to do was not that.

The only relatively moderate positions that he took during the campaign were on Afghanistan, and the War on Terror as a whole. Just about everything else had been significant components of the Democrat agenda since Clinton. The economy came up as a result of the financial crisis, but it certainly wasn't at the heart of his campaign, and it wasn't why he was elected. Both candidates brought up the economy for the same reason, and said roughly the same things.

Moreover, even if he was elected to fix the economy, it wasn't something that he said he would do. You're basically criticizing someone for not doing what you want, despite the fact that he said he was going to do something else entirely.