Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Open thread: how about a political discussion?

Public Policy Polling (PPP) asked Ohio voters who they'd rather have in the White House right now: the current president, or the prior president. And the results: Bush 50, Obama 42. Comments?

16 comments:

  1. People can blame Bush all they want to...after all thats what the shepard told the sheep to do.Look at when everything started snowballing down and who was majority in the house and senate....you know the guys that actually wrote and voted on the bills to go into affect...only thing Bush did was sign them.

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  2. It's always sunny in....Greenville.August 31, 2010 at 11:24 PM

    What a sad and disappointing moment in American history when these two are the "best" we can come up with to choose from - even in a hypothethical situation. Dumb or dumber - and I'm not sure which one is which.

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  3. Just imagine how much worse things would be if Bush was still in office.

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  4. False dichotomy.

    http://www.skepdic.com/falsedilemma.html

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  5. If everyone takes the party politics out of it, surely everyone has to agree that this Government is spending way too much money. Keep in mind, the President can’t spend anything without Congress’s ok…

    We as American Citizens have to put a stop to the spending. It won’t be long that even the taxes they collect will not cover the cost of the interest being paid on the debt. When they finally drive our great USA to insolvency, we are in a serious hurt. Please for the sake of our United States, take party politics out of it, and let’s get control of our Congress.

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  6. I can say that I do not agree with current politics, but the current state of affairs did not happen over night. Starting at the local level, all of our government representatives have been budgeting with a credit card mentality, spend now and hope there will be funds available to pay when the bill comes due. Until we can persuade them to take off the rose coloured glasses and take some responsiblity for the state of the economy, we will continue to suffer.

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  7. Interesting poll--anyone vs. the current president will poll ahead because of tough economic times.

    DJ, I WOULD like to talk politics. I am amazed at how negative people are about Obama and here's why:

    Iraq: Remember how everybody wanted to stop sacrificing all our blood and treasure in Iraq? Our combat troops just left.

    Afghanistan: Remember this forgotten war? Obama has placed the focus where it needs to be and ramped up our efforts against the people who actually attacked us on 9/11. Gen. Petraeus recently said that we now have a viable plan and that the previous administration did not.

    The war against terror: Apparently, Bush/Cheney aren't the only ones who can keep us safe from terrorists. In fact, during most DJ readers' lifetimes, they were the only ones who couldn't.

    The deficits: Sure, the federal govt is spending a lot of money but keep in mind that TARP aka "the bailout" was necessary (and passed by Bush). It's easy to criticize TARP but many of those financial institutions have paid the money back with interest. GM/Chrysler have taken their $$ and are back on their feet. And, remember how the right decried the federal government take over the private sector? From where I sit it looks like that didn't happen. In fact, it looks like the government saved the private sector from its own failures and has now taken enormous steps back out of the private sector--something nobody is talking about any more.

    The stimulus? It's not easy to make the argument politically but, if you look at the numbers, I don't see how people can see it as such a failure. Without it, we were losing 500K jobs per month, the stock market was at 6000 and GDP was -5%. That was an historical, nearly unprecedented collapse of our country's economy. The fact that we are in a flat economy is, in relative terms, a victory. It's like a coach taking an 0-10 team to 5-5 in two years. People want 10-0, sure, but that's just not realistic.

    Healthcare. It's easy to throw spears at it because no matter what the plan was, it was going to be painful. But, people shouldn't forget the alternative was the status quo with runaway, unsustainable costs. And, unlike the GOP, at least the President had the courage to do something about it.

    Jobs: In addition to the numbers referenced above about the reversal of the jobs numbers, it is also worth recognizing that the profits of the Fortune 500 are up nearly 100% over the last several years. Companies are making a ton of money they just aren't employing anyone-at least nobody in the US. They argue that they won't hire because of uncertainty about taxes and regulation but, at some point, shouldn't they just start using some of those profits to hire somebody? It's a catch 22 but if they start employing people with all that cash they're sitting on maybe those people will take their paychecks and start turning our consumer-driven economy around.

    Anyway, the GOP has played the politics right. Say "no" to everything and hope the economy doesn't get any better before the mid-terms. Good for the them. Bad for the Country.

    One last thought (and, DJ, you know this is true), the two words that the committee to re-elect the president want to hear most are "Speaker Boehner."

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  8. Nearly four years of democrat control have almost totally wrecked our economy. I am glad the adults will soon be back in charge.

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  9. 5:25: Care to back that up with some details? That's what grown ups do.

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  10. The epic $862 billion "stimulus," which has led to record long-term joblessness while bailing out Obama's union supporters and the most irresponsible states while punishing taxpayers and their heirs for decades to come.

    The $700 billion TARP program, which we were told would be used to give securities markets a boost but instead was used, essentially, to take over the auto industry, bail out friends of Obama and continue meddling in the markets. Yes Bush proposed it but Obama and the dems implemented it.

    The massive medical care overhaul known as Obama- Care, which will eventually supplant the best medical system in the world with a government-run system modeled after the substandard contraptions found in Canada and Britain.
    You mention Iraq. Obama did NOTHING that was not already scheduled under the Bush plan. In closing I will remind people of this. From the time George Washington took office until the last day of George Bush the country borrowed approximayely 9 trillion dollars. In his first eighteen months Barack Hussein has already borrowed over 3 trillion. Someone has to stop this man. Remember in November!

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  11. Yes, we spent a trillion on the Union and Government workers Stimulus. We spent billions more bailing out banks for friends in Washington. We have had ...four (?) separate "jobs" bills, which amount to little more than union buddy payoffs for vote buying. We have had billions in public sector employee bailouts (the 23 billion dollar teachers jobs bill, which went to teachers unions so dems could get a little more money for their campaigns).

    How about this: We stop spending and AUDIT THE LIVING @#$% OUT OF ANY AND ALL ORGANIZATIONS THAT TOOK A DIME OF ANY PUBLIC MONEY IN THE LAST 18 MONTHS? Oh my God I can't wait for November. The adults will be back in charge and fiscal sanity can be restored.

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  12. Good point. We need the adults that were in charge of the money that went to line the pockets of their buddies at Blackwater, Haliburton and Jack Abramoff's office. They managed those Katrina funds pretty well too.

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  13. I WANT BUSH BACK... at least he didn't throw our money away... Obama keeps signings bills to let people have more of unemp. enough... get us jobs like you said you would, that why many idiots voted you in!!!... quit sending our money to other countrys to help them, you know they will never help us out... Our COUNTRY COMES FIRST!!!!.. enough with letting others come live here..and giving them OUR rights, that even many Americans can't get!!!!... Just grow up and tells ya weren't even born in American.. you are trader that is tryin to tear OUR great AMerican Country from the inside..out.
    Obama has spent more in office his first year then Bush did in 4!!!
    well you idiot Americans, you wanted change, ya sure are getting it, now my kids, kids are going to have one heck of time living in America when they get older.

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  14. Wow. Angery, please tell me your post is not a joke. If not, this post is going right on my hard drive to be brought out at later dates.

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