Posted on 07/10/2010 6:42:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
The increasing consensus that we are entering a "double dip" recession is seeping into the conventional wisdom, posing a further obstacle to Obama's attempts to keep control of Congress. Even when the conventional wisdom was that the economy was slowly emerging from recession, the president was having his problems keeping Congress. But now that all indicators -- from employment to housing to consumer confidence to the Dow ---are trending downward, the task is likely to become even harder.
The days are fading when George W. Bush could be blamed for the economic problems we are facing as a nation. The passage of time and, interestingly, the very perception that things had been getting better earlier in the year both make this second dip the Obama dip rather than just a continuation of the "Bush recession."
The facts are that we have likely never emerged from the recession at all. The Economic Conference Board has not yet declared the recession over, since so much (or even all) of the anemic but still somewhat positive growth recorded in the past three quarters stems directly from public sector cash transfer payments. These transfusions may mask the symptoms of recession, but they are no indication of emerging prosperity.
We are now coping with the damage not of the original recession that started in 2007, but with the cures administered by Obama when he took office in 2009. His big spending, big borrowing and his looming tax increases in 2011 are driving the economy down.
History will probably record the Obama administration of 2009-2013 (hopefully his only time in office) as one long recession-depression, just as we see the Hoover administration of 1929-1933.
We make no allowances for the "false dawn" of rising markets that engendered a great deal of hope in 1930-1931 before these expectations were crushed by the Hoover tax increases of late 1931 and the Federal Reserve Board's increase of interest rates that same year. In retrospect, we will see the slight uptick of the early months of 2010 as our own "false dawn" interrupting but not punctuating our four-year recession.
As the debt crisis that started in Greece spreads to Europe and across the ocean, the United States' high level of deficit spending makes us particularly vulnerable. It was recognition of that weakness that led Europeans to reduce their deficits and cut back their spending, oblivious to Obama's request that they increase their outlays. But Obama continues his big spending and big borrowing ways in the U.S.
To this we need to add the climate of uncertainty that the president's changes have engendered. The prospect of big tax hikes ahead in 2011 (beyond just the simple repeal of the upper income Bush tax cuts), the uncertainty in the credit markets due to the passage of the financial regulation bill and the questions raised by possible cap-and-trade legislation all militate against new investment or borrowing and are inducing corporations and banks to hoard cash that might, otherwise, have stimulated economic growth.
Politically, Obama was likely to lose Congress even before this disaster hit. Now, Rasmussen has four Democratic Senate seats definitely going Republican (Arkansas, North Dakota, Indiana and Delaware), with six more rated as tossups (Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado, Nevada, Washington state and Wisconsin). California is also a likely Republican pickup. Rasmussen rates four GOP Senate seats as tossup (Ohio, Missouri, Florida and New Hampshire), but the Democrats are unlikely to win any of them.
If the GOP picks up the seats it is likely to win, it will control the Senate by 52-48. And, in the House, the likelihood of a Republican victory is even more significant.
The Rev. Wright famously said that Sept. 11 represented America's "chickens coming home to roost." He was wrong. But the double dip recession, and its political consequence, is clearly an instance of Obama's spending policies making the same journey.
More than just economic numbers hurting the lamearse Jack Squat, bet....=.=
Although still somewhat of a long-shot, a Republican Senate takeover could help torpedo a potentially disastrous lame duck session. Although there would be some very vindictive Dim lame ducks, there would be more frightened incumbent Senators. Senators like Nelson of NE, Landreiu of LA, and other plain states cannot consider cavalierly passing cap and trade, union card check without antagonizing their constituents. Rino Senators in ME and MA will also think twice before siding with the Dims. The Senate obviously has a greater capacity to slow down hasty legislation.
Clearly, this Administration and the so-called "progressives" who have preceded them in gaining power in America are totally ignorant of the principles and ideas which caused a people occupying a wilderness to rise from obscurity and nothing to become the world's greatest producer, greatest place of liberty, and greatest power in the world in just a sliver of time in the history of the world.
It is those ideas which could, once again, free up the creativity and productivity of America. The problem is that a relatively few political flunkies, possessed by counterfeit ideas, have gained hold of the reins of what once was a different kind of government--a people's government, under a written Constitution intended to bind those elected or appointed to positions of power, and free the people from oppressors of all kinds.
Richard Frothingham, in 1872, published a history tracing those ideas, entitled "The Rise of the Republic of the United States." It can be read here.
Frothingham's final paragraph on P. 610 contains these words, which need to be circulated to citizens in 2010:
"In the language of one of these Presidents: 'It is not in a splendid government supported by aristocratic establishments that the people will find happiness or their liberties protection; but in a plain system, void of pomp, --protecting all and granting favors to none, -- dispensing its blessings like the dews of heaven unseen and unfelt, save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is such a government that the genius of our people requires, --such a one only under which our States may remain for ages to come, united, prosperous, and free.'"
Such a "people's" government must have been in the mind of Madison when he referred to "the benign influence of our republican institutions" in his First Inaugural.
Restore the Constitution's limits and bounds on government, allow the people their Creator-endowed rights to liberty, and, once again, opportunity and prosperity will be restored.
As far as I’m concerned, that faded away a long time ago. Obama’s responsible for what happens on his watch; not Bush.
And yet, the media will present a rosy picture of zeros handling of getting America back on track, until the Republicans take control, and then it will be doom every day.
I’m still leaning toward the “AC” thing. He sure has a lot of power over his party. They’re going to vote some serious hits against this nation during the “lame duck” period. Especially if they lose power to the republicans. They’ll fall on their swords for him any time he asks. Why are they so willing to help him destroy this country?
I don’t think we’ll ever see a candidate go any further than Reagan did in naming the enemy within Marxist.
But I don’t think the candidate has to do that.
She has to be willing stick it to the enablers in the lamestream media, fight them every step of the way, ridicule them whenever the opportunity arises, dismantle their arguments, diminish their standing, call them out for being the liars they are.
Get right in their face, don’t let up, find ways to deliberately irk them, and never never never never EVER back down.
We already know who this is. We already have our candidate.
Here's the results after I voted:
The Economy A: 4.77% B: 4.56% C: 5.27% D: 17.80% F: 67.60%
Foreign Policy A: 6.80% B: 4.19% C: 7.67% D: 21.66% F: 59.68%
Health Care A: 7.14% B: 3.01% C: 2.87% D: 8.31% F: 78.67%
Afghanistan A: 5.67% B: 13.60% C: 25.96% D: 22.84% F: 31.93%
Iraq A: 5.79% B: 10.08% C: 24.39% D: 23.77% F: 35.96%
Threat of Terrorism A: 6.63% B: 4.92% C: 9.74% D: 21.19% F: 57.52%
Energy and the Environment A: 5.66% B: 5.56% C: 12.70% D: 21.03% F: 55.04%
Social Issues A: 6.71% B: 4.69% C: 10.82% D: 18.95% F: 58.84%
Bipartisanship A: 6.60% B: 3.12% C: 4.00% D: 8.08% F: 78.20% 63.76%
What's most telling that he polls so low in all categories, though a couple like Afghanistan and Iraq are spread between C's to F's.
Not scientific by any means, but interesting. The media may try to paint a rosy picture, but people are no longer listening.
“Every Obama voter pat you self on the back all of this mess belongs to you and you only.”
Don’t forget those smart, intellectual, brilliant, really really smart, bright, all-knowing, classy independents who love those cuddly Democrats/Progressives/Communists.
IMHO
Item #4. Strength through Peace: Looking through some of the objectives in this category, it looks like something Ron Paul would find in agreement.
The failure Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the cause of the recession. The corruption behind the scenes by Clinton advisers at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the trigger. The gunpowder was the result of dismantling the Glass-Steagall Act, during the Clinton Administration, with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
Clinton Administration officials were Franklin Raines,James A. Johnson,Jamie Gorelick, Thomas E. Donilon, Louis J. Freeh, Harold Ickes, and Rahm Emanuel.
The roles of Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and Chuck Schumer also need to be investigated. The alarm bells about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were being struck four years earlier, when there could have been legislation to keep the disaster from happening. Someone must have wanted the disaster to happen.
agree
The economic numbers don’t mean shit to the people who voted for obama.They believe that President Bush caused it all, that econimically things were terrible under his Administration, and it the Republicans will just leave him alone, obama will fix everything.
Limbaugh said that while the Nation may survive obama, it will not survive the idiots that elected him.
“He is very pleased with his planned systematic destruction of the USA.”
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If a sledge hammer was a biological entity it would be pleased to have knocked down a wall but the important thing is whether the burly individual who is swinging the hammer is pleased with the hammer he is using. Obama’s handlers are pleased with the rapid destruction he is wreaking on America.
He, no doubt, is looking forward to the day when he can retire to a life filled with golf, drugs and Larry Sinclair clones.
“Remember how bad things were under him? Huh? Remember?”
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I certainly do remember! I was assured by many that we couldn’t possibly do any worse! Boy, were they ever right, we haven’t done worse, we have gone through a wormhole into another whole universe of pain, the word worse has no real meaning in this context. To call Obama “worse” than Bush would be like saying that being eaten alive by rats is “worse” than having a pimple.
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