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10762. arkymalarky - 3/7/2013 12:58:14 AM Refer sarcastically to Obama as a messiah and people will naturally assume you're a member, Jen. 10763. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:28:25 AM Wombat,
Chavez was no Lula, but far removed from the caricature you make of him. In his tenure, the number and percentage of Venezuelans living in poverty was halved. That's an immense achievement, which must of course be weighed up against many other failures.
Further, his resolute anti-American attitudes and stance must be judged as one of his strongest attributes. By holding the line the way he did, a potentially robust new set of alliances came into being that have and will benefit his country and the region. Not least is that Latin America as a whole resisted participating in the otherwise widespread (54 countries?) US-backed programme of extraordinary renditions and torture that spread unheeded after 9/11.
There's plenty to commend about Chavez's regime and legacy, just as long as you take into account the copious evidence in the other column! 10764. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:29:21 AM Jenerator's comments are offered as if by rote. To be expected. "Fiscal conservative" here directly equals "white guy." 10765. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:44:23 AM Chavez wasted his money on healthcare when he could have built gigantic skyscrapers. 10766. Wombat - 3/7/2013 4:12:19 PM Bhelpuri,
You are seriously comparing Chavez with Lula?
Chavez has left Venezuela with soaring inflation (which negates the income gained by the poor), lawlessness, a crumbling infrastructure, and failed social programs (70% of his cooperatives set up to help the poor and illiterate have already failed). And instead of skyscrapers, he sank huge sums of money into a new tomb for Simon Bolivar.
Unlike Lula, who actually had an ideological grounding in socialism--and a background as a labor leader and as an elected administrator, Chavez was an ideological dilettante. I do not doubt that that had Venezuela's government been left-of-center, Chavez would have overthrown it and ruled as a nationalist corporatist, with many of the same trappings.
Lula was also a pragmatist, and had the political skill to convince his party members to go along.
I am surprised that you have a such a soft spot for populist leaders in Latin America. They are no more democratic than the regimes they replaced, and because they have personalized their leadership, they do not leave viable political institutions in their place, once they depart.
The anti-American alliance that you praise will not survive them, and frankly, much of it is little more than rhetoric and empty gestures anyway. It's not like Chavez banned petroleum exports to the US. 10767. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 4:53:03 PM Arky,
The guy (Obama) is worshipped by the Left and can do no wrong. At least I can admit that Bush had problems and that he was far from perfect.
All of his demagoguing with regard to the sequester further proves my point.
It's ridiculous.
10768. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 4:53:22 PM Hi Bhelpuri,
Only white men can be fiscal conservatives? 10769. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 5:42:09 PM Wombat.
This is sincere, but how do you wade through the rhetoric on any given issue, like the budget or state of the economy? There is so much contradictory information out there.
Take
this article by Forbes as an example.
"The Bush tax cuts also included a doubling of the child tax credit from $500 per child to $1,000 per child. Because of that, and the 33% cut in the bottom tax rate, nearly 8 million more people dropped off the federal income tax rolls entirely, paying zero federal income taxes. Indeed, under the Bush tax cuts, the bottom 40% of all income earners not only paid no federal income taxes, as a group on net. By 2009, they were being paid cash by the IRS equal to 10% of all federal income taxes.
These Bush tax cuts did not explode the deficit, as Obama and his echo chamber have alleged. By 2007, the deficit was down to $160 billion, less than 15% of Obama’s deficits today. Total federal revenues soared from $793.7 billion in 2003, when the last of the Bush tax cuts were enacted, to $1.16 trillion in 2007, a 47% increase. Capital gains revenues had doubled by 2005, despite the 25% capital gains rate cut adopted in 2003. Federal revenues rose to 18.5% of GDP by 2007, above the long term, postwar, historical average over the prior 60 years. CBO was projecting surpluses to return indefinitely in 2012 through the end of its projection period in 2018."
That's pretty impressive and the complete opposite of what the Obama camp alleges.
So how do you take this into persepctive? Do you just summarily dismiss it? Do you disagree with it because it doesn't match with your personal experiences?
What about this paragraph?
"Bush did increase federal spending as a percent of GDP by one-seventh, erasing the federal spending cuts enacted by the Republican Congressional majorities in the 1990s. But even with that, deficits during the Bush years averaged just 2% of GDP, one-third less than the average over the prior 50 years. President Obama’s deficits have averaged 5 times as much, at 9.1% of GDP"
10770. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 5:42:36 PM That article was written by This was Peter Carrera, and his professional blurb lists the following as his qualifications (again, more impressive than Maddow's - ha!:
"I am Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, Senior Advisor for Entitlement Reform and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation, General Counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. I served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush. I am a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb (New York: Harper Collins, 2011). I write about new, cutting edge ideas regarding public policy, particularly concerning economics."
10771. Wombat - 3/7/2013 6:33:56 PM Jen,
The short answer is that we tend to read stuff that we believe that we will agree with, and that most issues are complex enough that there can be multiple interpretations of them from all over the political spectrum.
The extracts you provide somehow fail to say anything about the two wars that the Bush administration got us into and mismanaged, neither of which were paid for out of existing revenues. Comparing Bush's deficits to Obama's while ignoring the fiscal circumstances of each is going into Concerned territory. It's pretty clear from the author's bio where he is coming from. I would have been surprised had he written anything different.
Intellectually, I find myself more attracted to--and interested in--publications and writers that go against the prevailing political biases of the audience they write for. I am a big fan of AEI's Norm Orenstein, as well as The American Conservative magazine. I also enjoyed reading Christopher Hitchens when he was still alive. I certainly didn't agree with everything (sometimes very little) they say, but what they have written is not always predictable.
For me, the problem is that the the center right does not exist in this country anymore. It has been superceded by a form of right-wing extremism that has all the negative hallmarks of leftwing extremism. The difference is that left-wing extremists are still marginalized. What we have is a political dialogue that consists of talking past each other. So we have one side that is interested in finding ways to govern, and is willing to compromise. The other side is dominated a group that considers anything short of what they want to be anathema. That is not what the American people want, as the last election demonstrated. 10772. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 7:22:10 PM I agree with you that we have become polarized - absolutely. I hate it that there is less common ground to discuss, and that the language becomes so inflammatory so quickly.
"So we have one side that is interested in finding ways to govern, and is willing to compromise. The other side is dominated a group that considers anything short of what they want to be anathema."
Are you suggesting that the Democrats are the former and Republicans the latter?
Ferrara says this about Bush (not expected)
"I have explained in previous columns that the financial crisis was caused by government, not Wall Street, which was just another victim of bad government policies. Those policies began in 1995 with President Clinton and his Executive Branch, regulatory, National Home Ownership Strategy, which was to sold as a program to expand home ownership without costing the taxpayers a dime. The regulations imposed under that strategy effectively looted the banks by trashing traditional lending standards, in the name of “fairness” of course (can’t exclude those not creditworthy from home ownership). That is how the subprime mortgage market exploded from 5% of all mortgages in 1994 to half of all mortgages by 2007.
President Bush exacerbated the problem, further pumping up the housing bubble with his cheap dollar monetary policy, under the illogical, outdated, Keynesian thinking that a cheap dollar expands the economy by promoting exports. These real causes of the financial crisis have now been well documented, in such books as The Great American Bank Robbery, by Paul Sperry, Reckless Endangerment, by New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson, Getting Off Track, by Stanford Economics Professor John Taylor, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism is the World Economy’s Only Hope, by Cato Institute President John Allison, and Bad History, Worse Policy: How A False Narrative About the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act, by Peter Wallison, Senior Fellow for Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute."
10773. judithathome - 3/7/2013 7:30:05 PM Well, it hardy matters what the majority of Americans want...we are being ruled by the minority...the rightest of the right.
If Obama had been given any cooperation whatsoever by the far right or even the moderately right, things might have been different.
Instead, they vowed never to pass anything or agree with him in any way, even if doing so would benefit the country and now you have the meme out there that they will be primaried if they co-operate at all with the opposite party and most especially with the Presidsent.
The brave souls of the right use the filabuster to knock down anything Obama suggests and smugly march home to tell their constituents they are doing good. And since they are in gerrymandered areas that make it a lead pipe cinch a Republican will be nominated no matter what, their sheep cheer what a great job the Republians are doing, blocking this socialistic Muslim president.
I'm disappointed...not in my President but in my country. And especially in my state...we've sent buffoons and grandstanders to DC and I cringe everytime I see them on the news...because they are usually getting attention for saying something ignorant.
10774. Wombat - 3/7/2013 8:06:59 PM Jen,
When you have Republican activists threatening primary challenges to the few Republican legislators who are considering compromising with the Obama administration, it is not difficult to figure out who is the former and who is the latter.
The author of your piece--unsurprisingly--omits the fact that the Clinton administration deregulated the financial sector with the pressure and encouragement of the financial sector itself. The results of free-er market capitalism, which the author plainly favors, were disastrous, as even you should admit. 10775. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 9:44:59 PM Wombat,
The commander in chief of our country is threatening us every week! The blatant lies coming from him regarding the sequester (to start) are more radical than Republican activists. Seriously, it's become the Demagoguing Party!
And as for the piece above, I can't argue that we're still in a recession.
Obama's spending is absolutely out of control, and that for me, MUST be acknowledged and dealt with.
The Republicans need get back to the party principles. Government spending needs to be controlled regardless of political affiliation. 10776. Wombat - 3/7/2013 10:24:35 PM Jen,
I don't see how you can fault the President for holding the Republican Congress to what they agreed to, and then explaining what the consequences will be. The sequester was supposed to be so awful that both sides would have to agree to a more constructive plan to reduce spending and raise revenue.
It was also in response to the Republicans refusing to meet the country's obligations by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, an unprecedented action that actually harmed the economy by reducing the US's bond rating.
You need to recognize that there are members of the Republican Party who are ideologically opposed to the social programs introduced by Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and augmented by their successors (of both parties). If the Republicans were truly interested in addressing these problems, they could be addressed. President Obama has repeatedly shown by his words and deeds that he will accept cuts to social programs, as long as they are accompanied by increased revenue.
Instead we are stuck with one side listening (and some no doubt actually agreeing with them) to idiots who want everyone's benefits cut but their own. "Keep the government out of my Medicare." Until that element is neutralized, there will not be a comprehensive agreement. They might take the Republican Party down with them, which may be a good thing at this point. Unfortunately, the country also has to suffer. 10777. Wombat - 3/7/2013 10:30:36 PM It's almost too bad the Republicans didn't follow through with their idea of giving the President the authority to implement the sequester as he saw fit. Obama wouldn't have done done it, but it would have been a useful exercise to have the weight of the sequester fall on the "red" states, who say that the Federal government is too large. Ironically, most of them receive more from the Federal government than they put in. 10778. judithathome - 3/7/2013 10:57:55 PM And we have no idea how the sequester will go...it's just a week in and these cuts have yet to register...get back to us after a couple of months.
And it might surprise you, Jen, to know that Obama has reduced the national debt...not run it up to dizzying heights.
A fact like that escapes notice in all the sound and fury coming from the right. 10779. thoughtful - 3/8/2013 12:12:30 AM Jen, re bush tax cuts and the deficits, there's a reason why the bush tax cuts had to expire...it was due to the Byrd rule. The Byrd rule allows the senate to block a piece of legislation that substantially increases the deficit beyond 10 years. So going into this, they knew that the deficit increases from the bush tax cuts would be substantial. And the only way they could get it to pass was to avoid the byrd rule and make it expire before the 10 years was up. It was not a mystery when it was passed that it was a budget buster, and it still isn't. And that was without the cost of the wars. And that was after bush passed the budget busting medicare rx entitlement.
If you want objective analysis on the budget, look to the congressional budget office. Their stuff is available on line. 10780. bhelpuri - 3/8/2013 2:53:44 PM Wombat,
1)It is undeniable that Lula and Chavez shared a set of aims and impulses, which the former was able to pursue with much greater success...have you read Lula's farewell to his 'compadre'?
2) I agree that Chavez failed much more than he succeeded, and tilted buffoonishly at countless windmills thus wasting time and energy and money (though the Bolivar memorial is only an inconsequentially tiny drop in this ocean). But he also led and embodied a potentially decisive historical shift away from business as usual in Venezuela - with many appreciable positive aspects embedded - and I find it hard to understand why Yanquis of all political stripes are denying this so very vociferously. Kindly address the points in this quite balanced piece, for example.
3) You're patently unfair - while resisting all available evidence - to damn Chavez as an opportunist beyond ideology. That's simply not true (as both pieces I've linked agree).
And it is similarly untrue that the current crop of "populist leaders in Latin America" - who I allegedly have a soft spot for - is indistinguishable from the caudillos of the past, who personalized rule and left no viable institutions in their wake. That seems more nervous Yanqui whistling in the dark, as history and the immediate neighborhood churns away from their control.
Of course time will tell on this one, but to the extent it already has - you're clearly and comprehensively wrong!
10781. bhelpuri - 3/8/2013 3:01:40 PM Obama may not be the Messiah that Jenerator has been looking for (but he probably resembles the historical Jesus much more than any of her preferred pics), but this dude has certainly played American politics amazingly well since re-election. From this distance, it seems his main opponents have basically self-destructed in plain sight, reduced to delay, sabotage and destruction at the fringes, while the main juggernaut rolls ahead quite effortlessly. Can anyone sane imagine any Republican taking over at the next election? I think we're looking at a full generation of Democrat dominance of the Presidency...
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