this is one of those things that drives progressives crazy--it's one thing to govern like a right-of-center Republican, it's quite another to then brag about it.
In another example of the Bizarro world that is politics, the right will still label this President as a "tax and spend liberal" (which, obviously, is empirically not true), and Democrats will say that we have to ensure that we get him re-elected.
Why?
(via Glenn Greenwald)
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a must read (and view) also from Greenwald:
In another example of the Bizarro world that is politics, the right will still label this President as a "tax and spend liberal" (which, obviously, is empirically not true), and Democrats will say that we have to ensure that we get him re-elected.
Why?
(via Glenn Greenwald)
* * * * *
a must read (and view) also from Greenwald:
Left-wing Harvard Law Prof (taught Obama) Roberto Unger offers scathing critique of Obama presidency & Democratic Party http://is.gd/wSzR0Z
That graph is a joke! It gives completely useless information in and of itself. If you couple it with Revenues to the Federal Government, you’d have something. If a president increased spending by 10% but revenues were up 15%, that’s good; if he increased spending by only 2% but revenues dropped 20%, that’s horrible. A better graph would be how much each guy added to the national deficit. What this graph doesn’t show is that George W. Bush was an absolute disaster and Obama is 1.4% worse than that. It’s actually even worse because revenues went down under Obama. What the graph does show is that all ten presidents are tax and spend guys. Some had the courage to actually raise taxes, but most just stole from the future, a tax on their grandkids. Oh yeah, the banks got their ever increasing interest money on the debt every year. Have I ever mentioned I hate the bankers?
ReplyDeleteanother good comment, Brian--point being, of course, that Obama envisions himself more as a Reagan/Clinton "uniter," but it's like he seized on the rhetoric of Reagan and not what actually happened on their respective watches.
ReplyDeleteI've either read or you've mentioned (or both) that Wall Street was Obama's biggest contributor in '08--but now they got Mitt. He's going to have a hard time of it, and he's brought it on himself--back to the graph, he should have been spending--even hard right conservatives like Reagan followed that playbook: when the economy lags, you don't cut; the government (maybe counter-intuitively for some) has to spend the prime the pump.
Another big joke (besides the bankers and how they got off scot-free)? Austerity.