Krauthammer: State of the union flop

Savannah Now ^ | 1/28/12 | CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

[Libloather]

Krauthammer: State of the union flop
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
January 28, 2012 - 12:24am

Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama’s game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address.

The visionary of 2008 — purveyor of hope and change, healer of the earth, tamer of the rising seas — offered an hour of little things: tax-code tweaks to encourage this or that kind of behavior (manufacturing being the flavor of the day), little watchdog agencies to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates, even a presidential demand “that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.”

Under penalty of what? Jail? The self-proclaimed transformer of America is now playing truant officer?

It sounded like the Clinton years with their presidentially proclaimed initiatives on midnight basketball and school uniforms. These are the marks of a shrunken presidency, thoroughly flummoxed by high unemployment, economic stagnation, crushing debt — and a glaring absence of ideas.

Of course, this being Obama, there was a reach for grandeur. Hope and change are long gone. It’s now equality and fairness.

[Libloather]

If the Republicans can’t beat that in November, they should try another line of work.

Yep.

[Liz]

O’s SOTU speech was deliberately contrived to gull the citizenry. Obama wants Americans to believe he “just happened to drop by” the WH for a spell....and doesn’t have anything to do with the dismal state of the US economy.
========================================= Candidate Barack Obama told us on the campaign trail: “ The problem is, that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents, # 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome so that now we have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back, $30,000 for every man woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”

REALITY CHECK Obama presided over the biggest political heist in US history. The Obamanations (insiders and politicians) sucked up trillions under the guise of inheriting the “Bush financial crisis.”

THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD Obama COS Rahm Emanuel “suddenly” discovered he wanted to be Chicago’s mayor-—the little turn went before the mics and announced his campaign “raised $10 million in just a few weeks.” Rahm also controlled the US Treasury as COS.

---

What the so-called “collapse” of the banking system wrought under Obama:

FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS Behind The Real Size of the Bailout; A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street
SOURCE motherjones.com
Mon Dec. 21, 2009 12:23 PM PST

The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is often put at $700 billion—the size of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets.

To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see our chart at web site. Below, a guide to the pieces of the puzzle:

Treasury Department bailout programs
(Remember that Obama’s Treasury Dept was controlled by his then-COS Rahm Emanuel-—a G/S lobbyist in the WH)

Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].

Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government’s potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].

TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury has made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid.

Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury has bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they “will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets.”

GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion -—SNIP-—.

LONG READ-—go to web site to read more and checkout the shocking financial charts.

SOURCE http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/behind-real-size-bailout

[Liz]

In a fair accounting, President Obama is responsible (along with the then-Democratic Congress) for the $1.3 trillion in deficit spending in 2010 and the estimated $1.6 trillion in deficit spending in 2011. He [Obama] should not get credit, moreover, for the $149 billion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) repayments made in 2010 and 2011 to cover most of the $154 billion in bank loans that remained unpaid at the end of the 2009 fiscal year—loans that count against President Bush’s 2009 deficit tally.

The Treasury Department says that all but $5 billion of the TARP bank loans has now been repaid. The portion of repayments that was for loans issued in 2009 should be deducted from Bush’s deficit tally, not credited to Obama as deficit savings. There is some astounding number crunching in this article, and a chart of modern day president’s “average annual deficit spending” ........a frightening conclusion of what happens if Obama has an 8 year term.

[AnTiw1]

2008 Town Hall Meeting.

ELDERLY WOMAN: Now, this Obama, I know that he's a terrorist...

MCCAIN: No, dear. Mister Obama is not a terrorist.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

If the Republicans can’t beat that in November, they should try another line of work.

Let's see; just who is Krautheimer pulling for?

[Liz]

Candidate McCain was nauseating....even said we should not fear an Obama presidency. Was as if McC was campaigning for his opponent. Berating a supporter on broadcast TV was the asolute end.

Except when McC stood idly by as Obama told Joe the Plumber he was going to redistribute the wealth——a classic Marxist phrase

McDork still doesn’t know why he lost....../snix.

[webstersII]

“If the Republicans can’t beat that in November, they should try another line of work.”

Ouch. Better put some ice on that, Republican weenies.

[moovova]

Let's see; just who is Krautheimer pulling for?

Krautheimer is a Romney suck-up...and a FOX news paid shill.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

If Republicans lose this November—the GOP should be pummeled and replaced by a new party—a Tea Party with real Americans calling the shots.

[Clinging Bitterly]

btrl

[apocalypto]

imho, he deliberately lost.

[apocalypto]

I will vote for whoever ends up running against B. Obama. Too early yet to say who it will be. There have been many surprises, such as H. Cain having to drop out.

[Liz]

Sabotaging his own campaign?

Musta has some kind of serial psychotic episode while on the campaign trail.

[chooseascreennamepat]

The 0 has lied about what he said he WOULD DO and failed at what he DID DO. He is a schmuck without a clue.

If his goals were honorable he would run from the race, BUT there isn’t an honorable cell in his body. He has the DNA of pond scum.

He is a racist, under the table terrorist.

[apocalypto]

I could be wrong, but J. McCain acted as if mentally off and feeble. He never realy challenged B. Obama. He did not campaign with the gusto he exhibited later when challenged in the Arizona primary. He had to know he had little or no chance to win and ran anyway in the primaries. And why the attacks on S. Palin by his people? It never occurred to me or to anybody I know that with all his baggage he might win.

[Twinkie]

. . and IF the 2012 Republican nominee (probably Romney’s been anointed by the establishment) does not BRING IT to Obama, explaining these facts in plain, simple language over and over and over; Obama will have people so confused and bumfuzzled with his rhetoric that he and Michelle will likely end up back at the controls, spending and spending and spending, going on more vacations, spending, spending . . . .

I couldn’t debate any better, I’m sure; but Romney’s gonna need to quit sputtering and stammering and looking like a deer in the headlights. With a former employee of Obama’s (Huntsman) likely in the VP spot, we got trouble I fear.