Posted on 12/10/2010 8:06:45 AM PST by Hojczyk
Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as much as 1 percent to GDP and lower the unemployment rate by about 1.5 percentage points. That could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president's deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Obama needs to be arrested, tried for treason and brought to justice for the harm he has done to America.
When gas 6 dollars and the dollar is worth nothing maybe the revolution will come..The GOP better get straight in January or there done..
Legalized theft of the national treasure. Tea Party patriots need to gear up to further drain the swamp in DC in 2 years. Many GOP incumbents need to go as well.
Charles:
Why must you keep harping that we have to borrow this money? Quit spending it and you do not have to borrow it. Simple.
I am not Charles, but,Can’t do that. We have to keep the sheep pacified and condition them to depend on The Great White Father in Washington to take care of them.
Instead of them taking care of themselves.
LLS
LLS
chuckie is a big gubmint liberal... cutting spending is not in him... only higher taxes and more gubmint.
LLS
Sorry. Not an actual Conservative. Just plays one on TV.
Krauthammer has been acting like a real jerk.
There is a huge difference between throwing porkulus funds into the gutter for your friends to fight over, and letting hard-working taxpayers keep their own money.
In reality, the first did not succeed in stimulating anything. In fact, it resulted in more job losses. The second won’t stimulate anything either—because we already HAVE the Bush tax cuts. But if we don’t keep them, then it will be like dropping a large rock on the remains of our economy. It will cost MORE millions of job losses.
Krauthammer does not understand that there is a difference between balancing the budget by raising taxes and by cutting spending. Raising taxes makes things worse. Cutting spending makes things better. Spending cuts are the only rational way to balance the budget in this disastrous economic collapse. It will hurt, but not permanently.
When did they ever cut spending except for the military?
No Charles, excessive and wasteful spending by Congress of money we don't have will result in unnecessary borrowings from China.
That’s why we need new guys in congress. The old ones are hopeless.
The Dems did the big damage: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, WJC, Obama. And then the Republicans came in and never, never, reversed that damage.
This time needs to be different, if we are to save our country.
Either the Republicans are transformed and renewed, or they are replaced by a new second party. And we have about two years to decide which it will be.
Putting that left-wing light bulb destroyer in charge of energy is a pretty good sign that the party still has not been changed as it needs to be. Intolerable. Unexcusable.
But we haven’t quit spending it. This is a continuation of the Bush years, more tax cuts and more spending. There are two choices that can prevent the financial ruin of this country. 1) Spend a lot less and tax a bit less. 2) Spend a bit more and tax a lot more.
This is only going to hasten the day America defaults on it’s debt.
No one has cut any spending. This agreement causes us to INCREASE spending.
And this agreement does not cut spending. It increases it. This is a continuation of the Bush years.
While I am still mulling the bulk of Krauthammer's analysis, I have to say the above was my first reaction to Obambi's reaction.
The problem, though, is that while Krauthammer may be absolutely correct on the facts, as Tony Blair says, "mood always trumps politics."
It's not clear yet how analyses such as Charles' play, or don't, with or against the prevailing mood, which is the foundation for the mood of the country during the presidential election cycle.
I also found his reasoning not very clear.
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