Posted on 08/20/2012 12:58:40 PM PDT by Kaslin
CNN's Soledad O'Brien defended the stimulus bill on Monday's Early Start, calling it a "big thing" that President Obama accomplished and adding that police officers and firefighters kept their jobs because of it.
"[I]f the stimulus hadn't been passed, then what would have happened to the economy?" she threw a Democratic talking point at Rep. Mike Burgess (R-Tex.). "Didn't that to a large degree help the economy? You're not going to argue certainly that it didn't?" [Video coming soon.]
"And I think there are firefighters and teachers and police officers whose jobs were kept, would not have had jobs, whose jobs because of the stimulus," she argued. "I think you could – we could do an entire two-hour debate on the stimulus."
O'Brien's arguments stood out in her two interviews about Newsweek's new cover attacking Obama. She asked tough questions of both Burgess and her Democratic guest Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.), but her stimulus defense left no room for dissent.
And she's stood up for the stimulus before. Back in June O'Brien asked if there should be another stimulus. She cited a survey that was used by a Democratic-appointed CBO director to defend the stimulus, and asked the question of President Obama's deputy campaign manager.
"So, is the takeaway from this, the stimulus worked, so there should be another stimulus?" O'Brien asked after tossing Stephanie Cutter a Democratic talking point.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on August 20 on Starting Point, is as follows:
[7:05]SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Meantime, the cover of Newsweek is saying, "Hit the Road, Barack: Why we need a new President," and that's stirring up a few flames, isn't it? Joining us this morning to talk about all of that is Congressman Mike Burgess, he's a Republican from Texas, he's the chairman of the Congressional Health Care Caucus, he's a doctor as well. Nice to see you, sir. Thanks for being with us. We certainly appreciate it. Let's talk a little bit about –
Rep. MIKE BURGESS, (R-Tex.): Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, good morning to you. This Niall Ferguson story, it's the cover story in Newsweek, and I don't know if you had a chance to read it yet, but the headline's pretty straight forward. It's called "Hit the Road, Barack: Why we need a new President." So you can imagine where it goes from there. His basic gist is that President Obama has not kept his promises. Paul Krugman has a blog pointing out what he calls some of the factual errors in it.
But his gist is there were promises, they haven't been kept up. And he writes this: In his inaugural address, Obama promised to 'not only to create jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.' He promised to 'build roads and bridges, the electric grids, the digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together'. He promised to 'restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders raise health care's quality and lower its costs.' He promised to 'transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age'. Unfortunately, the President's score card on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful."
That's just a little chunk, but the gist of the entire article is kind of like that. Some people would say completely unfair assessment when you look some of the numbers, for example. Inherited a 7.8 unemployment rate, went down to 10 unemployment rate in October of 2009. Do you think that's a fair criticism of him, sir?
BURGESS: Well, you know, you go back to the first two years of this administration and you just as a member of the minority who really couldn't affect much. You just really had to wonder, where was the laser-like focus that, say, a Bill Clinton would have put on the economy? We had an administration that was doing everything under the sun but being concerned about jobs, after making those promises in the inaugural address. We watched in the Joint Economic Committee, members of the President's team come in, Christina Romer, Lawrence Summers, and honestly they seemed lost at sea.
(Crosstalk)
O'BRIEN: The stimulus passed immediately. Wasn't that one of the first things that happened? The stimulus was a big thing he got done.
BURGESS: The stimulus passed, and what have we found out in the years since then? Some of these projects like Solyndra where dollars were literally flowing out the door to people that had no business receiving the money. And then obviously when the company couldn't make it, the administration subordinated taxpayer loans to venture capitalists, which was in direct violation of the law.
O'BRIEN: And I think there are firefighters and teachers and police officers whose jobs were kept, would not have had jobs, whose jobs because of the stimulus. I think you could – we could do an entire two-hour debate on the stimulus. We certainly don't have time for that this morning.
BURGESS: But you had things like "Cash for Clunkers" and putting caulk in people's windows that honestly had nothing to do with rebuilding the economy. And these things almost seemed to be payoffs to people who had supported the President during his 2008 campaign. There were much better ways to go about this doing this. Mr. Oberstar, the chairman of the Transportation Committee, begged for more funding to go into infrastructure and he got about seven percent of that trillion dollar stimulus bill. It actually – if you're going to borrow money like that, do it for capital improvements, not for operational expenses.
O'BRIEN: But if they hadn't – so let's do the reverse about it – if the stimulus hadn't been passed, then what would have happened to the economy? Didn't that to a large degree help the economy? You're not going to argue certainly that it didn't?
BURGESS: I don't think that it did. And you look at some of the projects that were started during that time, and they really did not seem to be designed to improve the economy. The other aspect that was unfortunate during those first two years is they spent so much time, the administration spent so much time trying to link health care to the economy, and in order to get the President's health care law passed. But honestly when you look back at it, this has been one of the things that has inhibited the recovery. It's been a wet blanket on job creation and honestly is still a problem today two and a half years later, billions of dollars spent on implementation –
O'BRIEN: So let me ask you a que – I'm sorry. I just want to understand what you're – you're saying the stimulus has been a wet blanket on job creation, you think the stimulus had slowed --
BURGESS: The Affordable Care Act was a wet blanket on job creation, and it was a parallel track with the stimulus, the cap and trade bill and the financial reg bill. All of those things were pushed by the President in the first year and a half of his administration.
Was Solidad in labor long when she had that cow?
If you’re friend honestly thinks that then he isn’t extremely bright; unless by extremely bright you mean slightly brighter than a very dim bulb.
The taking of capital from productive elements of an economy and injecting it into non-productive (or less productive) operations doesn't work in any economy.
In fact, the stimulus damaged our economy.
You might mention to your extremely bright friend that Europe and Japan spent more on Stimulus than the U.S., but that their economies are showing no chance of the recovery that the U.S. promises.
Fracking. That’s the difference. Japan and Europe can’t frack for oil and gas. The U.S. can.
...and that is what is saving the U.S. from Japan’s fate.
Simple answer - “prove it”
“Does she sound as stupid as these quotes, or is it even worse?”
Worse. I’d describe her delivery as defiantly indignant stupidity.
I don’t think 0bama would enjoy such treatment from a female.
bttt
However, cannibalizing companies that other countries funded with tax dollars can't help but help their economy.
Maybe she should read something besides DemocratUnderground for her information....
Like CNN Money, for instance...
Why the Fed’s stimulus ‘didn’t work’
Start with fiscal policy. After the recession began, Presidents Bush and Obama felt a need to “do something.” Their approaches differed, but both chose classic Keynesian stimulus policies.
It didn’t work. My own research showed Bush’s temporary tax rebate in 2008 had no discernible effect on the economy. Nor did Obama’s $800 billion stimulus plan in 2009, which included tax rebates, increased federal spending, and grants to states for infrastructure projects.
The stimulus increased the federal debt burden and created uncertainty about what was next for taxpayers.
Unpredictable economic policy — short-term stimulus packages, temporary tax rebates, and stop-and-go monetary policy — is the main cause of our abysmal recovery. Economic growth has averaged 2.4%, compared with 5.9% after the most recent severe recession, from 1981 to 1982.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/02/news/economy/fed-stimulus-john-taylor.moneymag/index.htm
Why The Monetary Stimulus Didn’t Work
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2011/08/25/why-the-monetary-stimulus-didnt-work/
Cuter than Wolf BlitzerMeaner than Piers Morgan
More catty than Anderson Cooper
Dumber than a sack of hammers
July 24, 2011
Why the Stimulus Didn’t Work
Paul Krugman leads the charge on the left. In a column on Friday, he declared, without irony: “Everything might still have been okay if other major economic players had stepped up their spending, filling the gap left by the housing plunge and the consumer pullback. But nobody did.”
Really?
Here are the unvarnished numbers, courtesy of economist Lacy Hunt: “In the three years 2009, 2010, 2011, US federal spending was an astounding $2.2 trillion more than in the three years ending 2008.”
Why didn’t the massive federal stimulus work, and why is it the last thing we need more of in the summer of 2011? Hunt, long one of the best economic forecasters on the Street, puts it succinctly: “In the broadest sense, monetary and fiscal policies have failed because government financial transactions are not the key to prosperity. Instead, the economic well-being of a country is determined by the creativity, inventiveness and hard work of its households and individuals.”
LOL She wears a lot of makeup.
The recession was over before the first stimulus dollar hit the street.
Recession ended june 2009
Recovery begins Jan 2013
The "Stimulus" did create jobs. By definition, spending $800B creates jobs. The problem is that the Stimulus killed far more jobs than it created. Knowing that the government is going to spend massive amounts of future tax dollars, which means there will be future increases in tax rates, reduces the incentives to invest. Particularly in rough economic times, the resulting decision is to delay expansion. Stimulus is directly responsible for the agonizingly slow recovery since the recession officially ended.
As for ObamaCare, when the far left added that huge additional expense to new hires, they again made expansion far less desirable. In this case, it will be a permanent damper on jobs, making 9% or more unemployment the new normal unless that terrible law is repealed.
Soldherdad O’Brien? CNN?
How the $800B stimulus failed
From his new book, “Money Well Spent?” reporter Michael Grabell explains how bad planning and poor choices doomed the largest economic recovery program in history
By MICHAEL GRABELL
January 29, 2012
A relatively small pot of education grants goaded 32 states to enact major reforms, such as tying teacher pay to student performance or lifting caps on charter schools. When the last dime is spent, more than 41,000 miles of roads will be paved, widened and improved; 600,000 low-income homes weatherized; and more than 3,000 rural schools connected to high-speed Internet.
But despite these achievements, the stimulus ultimately failed to do what America expected it to do — bring about a strong, sustainable recovery. The drop kick was shanked.
The White House’s economists, like nearly every forecaster, misread the recession. The state assistance wasn’t enough to plug the budget holes and, in many cases, the school aid merely delayed rather than prevented teacher layoffs. Infrastructure projects took months longer to break ground than the public had been led to believe.
One of the biggest problems was that so much of the stimulus was invisible. More than half of the package was in tax cuts and safety net programs.
The largest single item was a $116 billion tax credit for the middle class. Yet rather than handing out checks, as other presidents had done, Obama dribbled it out in paychecks at about $10 a week. The economic team believed that people were more likely to spend it if it felt like an increase in income rather than a bonus.
Even as the stimulus was pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy in its first year, it appeared as if nothing was happening. The jobless rate skyrocketed, easily exceeding the poorly conceived chart Obama’s economic advisers had put together, showing that unemployment would never breach 8%.
Congress tried to make the stimulus a cure-all. There was money for every one of society’s ills, from cancer to cogongrass, from ailing infrastructure like bridges and rails to invasive species like Asian carp and Russian olive trees.
In Michigan, human services officials estimated that 90% of the homes in line for weatherization work would need a historic preservation review. But as of late fall 2009, the office responsible had only two employees.
Public transit advocates expected a windfall for bus companies like New Flyer in St. Cloud, Minn. But the transit money took longer to get out the door because every grant had to be reviewed by the Labor Department to ensure that it wouldn’t have a negative impact on transit unions. And when the Chicago Transit Authority postponed an order because it couldn’t secure state funding, New Flyer announced that it would lay off employees rather than hire more.
By the end of July 2009, only 20% of highway projects had started, according to DOT data. More and more, it appeared that what “shovel ready” really meant was ready for politicians to pose with a shovel for a photo op.
“An extremely bright friend of mind tries to tell me that Obama saved the economy.......it would have been the end of US without his mega spending.”
Your extremely bright friend should thank me for my Elephant Repellant Project. It’s saved America from being crushed by rampaging herds of elephants.
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