Posted on 08/05/2011 8:43:50 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
The mystery has always been why any Democrat would have wanted to follow the catastrophic presidency of George W. Bush. To understand why, it’s necessary to revisit ancient history, specifically 2001. Given today’s TV- and Internet-shortened time horizon, that’s almost like invoking the Napoleonic Wars, but bear with me.
Thanks partly to his skill at “triangulation” — seeking middle ground between left and right — President Clinton left a legacy of prosperity and balanced budgets. Republicans impeached him anyway.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Clinton’s spectacular folly gave GOP hardliners the excuse they’d spent his entire presidency looking for. That’s not the point. To the Limbaugh-led, Confederate-accented Republican right, all Democrats are illegitimate. President Barack Obama often acts as if he doesn’t understand that.
Anyway, let’s stick to what’s relevant today: taxes, spending and the U.S. economy. According to Congressional Budget Office projections, had the nation maintained the fiscal course the Clinton administration laid out, the national debt everybody rants about would have been retired by 2009.
See, that’s the real cost of George W. Bush’s magical thinking. By any rational accounting, Bush and the GOP Congress that gave him everything he wanted from 2001 to 2007 should be held responsible for the entire $10.6 trillion national debt — along with the $1.3 trillion yearly deficit they handed to Obama, as well as the Wall Street crisis and bank bailouts.
It’s that simple: With no Bush income tax cuts, no unfunded Medicare drug benefit, and no off-budget Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. balance sheet would have been in fine shape for his successor. Then government investment needed to rescue the economy from the doldrums wouldn’t have seemed so alarming.
See, that’s how Keynesian macroeconomics is supposed to work. Pay down the debt in good times, spend on job creation and tax cuts when people are hurting and the private economy’s sucking wind. This mysterious “confidence” everybody talks about? What it amounts to is money in people’s pockets. Economically speaking, there’s no other kind.
Instead, heeding Dick Cheney’s observation that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” the Bush administration topped-up Scrooge McDuck’s bullion pool. Now Scrooge funds think tanks paying store-bought “scholars” to argue that the massive debt they created is all the Democrats’ fault for seducing Grandma with socialist schemes like Medicare and Social Security.
Alas, history is notoriously unjust. Supremely confident, a shape-shifting opportunist like all truly gifted politicians, Obama came along at precisely the right time. Had the September 2008 Wall Street bubble burst even one year earlier, you couldn’t find one of these tea party jokers north of Richmond, Va., with a search party.
Instead, Republicans pinned the blame on him. At times, Obama’s acted the perfect pigeon, a high-minded poser who won’t take his own side in a fight. Democrats hoping he’d confront Republicans holding the nation’s economy hostage were kidding themselves.
When word of the president’s debt-limit capitulation came down, historian Rick Perlstein (“Nixonland”) posted a friend’s hostile appraisal on Facebook: “He’s a one-trick pony, always has been, and that trick is performing judiciousness, reasonableness ... being able to agree with those with whom he supposedly disagrees and to disagree with those with whom he supposedly agrees.”
“He’s the LeBron James of American politics,” I commented. “Comes up awesome in the second quarter of game two.” As a basketball fan, I’m sure the president would know exactly what I meant: When push comes to shove, he folds.
More substantively, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote about “an inverse miracle of intellectual failure.” Everything learned about macroeconomics since the Great Depression has gone for naught. Krugman predicts further economic stagnation as governments embrace austerity in the face of joblessness. Here in the United States, economic recovery ground to a halt after Obama’s inadequate stimulus money ran out.
But maybe we’re being too melodramatic. To continue my own metaphor, Obama might say that losing game two needn’t mean losing the series. The agreed-upon budget cuts are back-loaded, hardly taking effect until 2013 — after the next presidential election. They’ll have little near-term economic effect.
In the meantime, no election-year hostage dramas. What Obama gave Republicans, they pretty much already had. Enacting progressive policies was impossible, given GOP control of the House.
Politically speaking, now they own the deficit. Wild talk about Obama the socialist big-spender will be limited to the Michele Bachmann/Froot Loop wing of the GOP. Also, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, adding far more revenue than the White House’s agreed-upon cuts, is built into the deal’s baseline numbers. Obama holds a veto.
Not for nothing did Obama invoke President Dwight Eisenhower the other day. He’s basically governed as a moderate Republican all along — definitely not the kind of change his starry-eyed followers once believed in, but probably the best they can hope for come 2012.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President.”
revenue increased after the Bush tax cuts.
Gene Lyons was the Nina Burleigh of Arkansas.
If the reference seems obscure, Burleigh is the media minx who proposed to provide oral service to Bill Clinton because he stood for "abortion rights".
Gene Lyons had already volunteered his services while Clinton was governor of Arkansas. On general principles, I suppose...
It’s unfortunate that people like Krugman and Lyons don’t take the advice of the people who can provide jobs to those who want them. It’s unfortunate that people like this can’t see how improving the economy as a whole improves the company checkbook, too. And I don’t mean more handouts. The President’s PR guy is right, the White House can’t create jobs. But the WH can improve the business environment so that people will take a chance with some assurance they will win the day. But community organizers don’t understand that.
I would think if a president would be called catastrophic, it would be Barack Downgrade Obama...
“President Clinton left a legacy of prosperity and balanced budgets”
WHAT??? BS IS the call here,it was the Republican house holding the Bent ones feet to the fire,that got the budget balanced.
It's unfathomable how stupid you have to be to believe the problem is that Obama failed to borrow enough.
If we could have just given 2 trillion to his public employee base instead of a measly 800 billion, everything would be fine.
the Limbaugh-led, Confederate-accented Republican right
Hmmm, I always thought Confederates/Klan were RATs.
The Dickenson Press should be ashamed that they picked up this prick's column with all it's purely pussey thinking!!!
Dickenson is where the oil in America is currently being drilled and pumped and nobody in Dickenson is currently feeling any kind of recession/Obama depression!!!
I'll just bet there aren't 3 people in the Dickenson, ND region that will read much beyond the first sentence, or two.
By the way, I was born and raised near Chi-town, Chief and my Dad and Mom and Grandfather are all three burried in the Dickenson cementary so this gag and vomit piece hit kinda close to home for me!!!
Someone forgot the HURL ALERT, now I have to clean the monitor. (I hit the left lower corner with recycled dinner, missed the keyboard)
;)
This is an exchange I’ve been having with the author of this tripe, Gene Lyons, over the past several days.
-— On Wed, 7/20/11, Frank Duffy wrote: From: Frank Duffy Subject: last week’s column To: eugenelyons2@yahoo.com Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 5:55 PM Dear Mr. Lyons, Thought you might be interested in this take on the NOTW scandal. This article is done with remarkable clarity, humor, and accuracy; areas which you, in your dotage, seem to be slipping in. Oh, wait...I don’t recall you ever being capable of either...sorry! http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-07-20.html One other thing: I hope tomorrow’s column isn’t about Obama being the “adult” in the room. It’s been done to death already this week by many of your betters. Frank Duffy Rogers, AR
-— On Thu, 7/21/11, gene lyons wrote:
From: gene lyons Subject:
Re: last week’s column
To: “Frank Duffy” Date:
Thursday, July 21, 2011, 8:11 AM
I say let’s hack Ann’s phone and e-mail. I’m sure there would be plenty of entertainment for morons. GL
-— On Thu, 7/21/11, Frank Duffy wrote:
From: Frank Duffy Subject:
Re: last week’s column
To: “gene lyons”
Date: Thursday, July 21, 2011, 10:08 PM
Dear Mr. Lyons, By morons, you’re referring to Democratic voters, right? I mean, it wasn’t me who put Obomber in office. Geez, that guy’s CV would fit on a postage stamp! Even Sarah Palin is more accomplished than that buffoon. And, hacking Ann would be perfectly acceptable to you, right? Gotta go-duty calls and all that. My job, you see. Sorry I don’t have time to explain. Democratic voters just don’t seem to get the concept of work. When I have a little more time, I’ll explain to you why your column this week is so lame. For example, why wouldn’t SS checks go out? I mean, that’s a Trust Fund with HOW many trillions in it? And, a couple years ago, you said in a column that fund wouldn’t run out until WHEN? You really are losing it, Gene. As proof, your “hack Ann” reply was almost as lame as that Scrooge McDuck schtick. Just tryin’ to save you from yourself... Frank Duffy
-— On Fri, 7/22/11, gene lyons wrote:
From: gene lyons Subject:
Re: last week’s column
To: “Frank Duffy”
Date: Friday, July 22, 2011, 7:37 AM
The trust fund consists of bonds that have to be redeemed, dimwit. That’s what default means.
-— On Fri, 7/22/11, Frank Duffy wrote:
From: Frank Duffy Subject:
Re: last week’s column To: “gene lyons”
Date: Friday, July 22, 2011, 7:48 PM
I know what the trust fund consists of, and I am not a name-caller. If I were, I’d call you a condescending ass. You’re not the only intelligent person in Arkansas, you know. AND, you’re not dealing with a Democrat voter here. You libs are hilarious when you’re pissed; like every time someone confronts you with the truth. Worthless bonds at that, bu-bu-but you ASSURED us the fund was good until, when, 2044 or the like?...typical of your columns. Maybe you should start reading up on the talking points your handlers send you. And, OMG, did you see that pic of Hillary today? The only thing missing was a shopping cart and some garbage bags! Can you believe she’s been selling arms to the Zetas? I can...speaking of suck, I bet you’re hanging your head in shame over O’s presser today...Geez what a brat. 2012 can’t come soon enough... Frank Duffy
-— On Sat, 7/23/11, gene lyons wrote:
From: gene lyons Subject:
Re: last week’s column
To: “Frank Duffy”
Date: Saturday, July 23, 2011, 8:05 AM
If the “full faith and credit of the United States” becomes a meaningless phrase, all bets are off. It takes a lot more than insulting e-mails to make me angry. I live for them.
-— On Sun, 7/24/11, Frank Duffy wrote:
From: Frank Duffy Subject:
Re: last week’s column
To: “gene lyons”
Date: Sunday, July 24, 2011, 10:42 AM
Dear Mr. Lyons, Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere! You’ve backed off from “bonds that have to be redeemed” to “full faith and credit of the United States.” You’ve just admitted that those “bonds” are nothing more than unmarketable IOU’s. Potemkin paper, no more or less. So, this proves that you were incorrect. Now, either you knew this, and deliberately lied, OR you truly didn’t know that, and YOU’RE the dimwit. Neither is a good thing. Frank Duffy Rogers, AR p.s. It pains me deeply to find that you live to be corrected by a power plant machinist. That’s just...well,...pathetic. Now, you can give me a snippy, immature reply, or you can tell me which it is: liar or dimwit...? F.
-— On Mon, 7/25/11, gene lyons wrote:
From: gene lyons Subject:
Re: last week’s column
To: “Frank Duffy”
Date: Monday, July 25, 2011, 7:47 AM
No, they’re bonds, you fool. Apparently, you don’t know what a bond is or what default means.
———————NO EMAIL INFO INCLUDED ——————
Dear Mr. Lyons, OK, sorry for calling you a liar. You’re obviously a dimwit. They are (nota bene) UNMARKETABLE IOU’s with NO cash value, NOT bonds! Potemkin paper, purely ceremonial in nature. They are WORTHLESS! The government has to “borrow” money from future revenues to “redeem” them! Look it up! Now that that’s out of the way, I want to inform you that I won’t bother you anymore. This will be my last correspondence with you. I find it very disturbing that you live to get hate mail. I don’t know what trauma you suffered to turn you into such a desiccated husk of a man, but it shows in your writing, and it always has. Me, I live for my family, my grandkids, my job, friends, travel, good food and drink, God, and just this wonderful life in general. And with the Democratic party the object of more scorn and derision by the day, I can’t imagine we’re going to see any improvement in your condition. Liberalism is dying (thankfully) a rapid death, and it’s going to really suck to be you for a very long time. So, I will hereby wish you a VERY long life, and bid you a fond farewell. I’ll pray for you. F. D.
Fine, then tell Obama to Cut all Spending to Clinton Era Levels.
Hey expert what was Clintons Budget? How Much Is Obamas?
So Lets CUT the Spending back to those Levels and Everything will be Fine. I cant Believe I agree with a Left wing Loon
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