Less then two months after our new president was inaugurated, two things are evident:
#1: The spending he proposes exceeds a million dollars per day. Putting that in perspective, I don't mean it's a mere $million per day since he was inaugurated just 6-7 weeks ago. I mean it's a million-per-day since the birth of Jesus Christ, and going on for centuries from now.
#2: This same proposed spending amounts to more than all the same budgets of all the presidents since the founding fathers.
(I'll add a #3)
This country, like our fair city, is just plain flat broke....not just that, but we are hopelessly in debt. I struggle to understand what part of that you taxpayers fail to grasp. While all the next-door neighbors go to apply for Unemployment, we sit here, relatively okay, while the nation is disintegrating around us. You want another park? Fine, Reach into your bottomless pocket. You want more "art" (Got a degree in Fine Arts, but somehow missed how something which has no market can still make a profit), that's great, you go pay for it. Someone explain to me how this all works.
But this is how Obamanomics works. Back in the early 1980s, the British Prime Minister was one woman whose toenails I'd gladly bathe and clip for the rest of her life (I believe this is Biblical?) Her name is Margaret Thatcher, and I ache that she is in decline, as she is a heroine of mine.
Ms. Thatcher made the statement "Liberalism is fine, as long as you don't run out of someone else's money."
Can a single one of you liberals dispute the logic or truthfulness of this? I know the answer, but feel it's only fair to ask it? Gotta say, you Libs are a smart lot. so I have to ask this:
I need a new house, I need a new car, I need a new airplane, I need a new mortgage, I need a new boat, I need a new school for my children, are you going to give that to me? Of course not.
Ask Obama what he really wants to give you (all out of someone else's
pockets, like your children and grandchildren).
All I can say is he's somewhere between socialism and communism I have
no intention of waiting to see which side of two very negative perspectives he falls on. Obama is a socialist, on a good day, but I fear he's a communist.
Just look at his policies.
Keep your powder dry.
John R. Smickle
Chattanooga
jrbottomfeeder@juno.com
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First I will say that I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, so lets leave partisanship out of this. Also not a fan of big government.
This is supply side economics at its finest. Since our wayback machine is in the 1980s, take a look at Reagan. He used the same economic theory to spend us out of the dreary 70s-80s decline that was brought about by several factors, including the war, Going off the gold standard, regulation, etc.
Sure Reagan's strategy was centered around the Defense Dept and not on the private sector, but the same theory. He followed the plan that both Kennedy and Roosevelt used in doing so. It is one reason why our overall deficit is so high even today. During Reagan's time in office, the overall debt shot up 4x its previous level. Not all of that was his policy's fault, as the Japanese were kicking things into gear and causing some mighty large trade balances, but a large share does fall there.
What I have a problem with these days are the people throwing stones. It's OK not to like the plan, but propose an entire plan yourself and present it then. Don't just be a naysayer, but do something. One of the reason I took great umbrage this weekend watching the events at CPAC, because everyone was talking and no one was doing. Come up with a comprehensive plan of your own or please just go sit quietly in the corner guys.
The other way to look at this would be to shift the paradigm. (Remember the two faces hidden in the vases?). Just imagine for a second if we let Citibank, for instance, fail, like everyone is saying that we should. How many people would be affected directly by that? Literally several tens of thousands of innocent people wouldn't have any assets to buy necessities such as food, clothing, etc. Absolutely no money at all. Sure there is the FIDC. But how long do you think it would take for the government to start giving out the insured moneys? Several days, several weeks, months maybe? Think about how long the Katrina debacle was and get back to me. What would the people do in the meantime? Can you even begin to fathom how overwhelmed the local constabularies would be with crime? How much will the social services cost? We would have more gun violence akin to the days in the Wild Wild West.
From there then look at the collateral damage that would be caused. Everyone would start to worry if their bank would be next. Instead of direct deposit or checks, people would start asking for cash. Retailers would stop letting people use credit cards and checks for fear of other banks failing and not getting money for their goods. They would just demand cash.
You think bad is just business credit being shot, wait til there is no consumer credit available for everyday purchases. It would be a total catastrophe and a panic, akin to what caused a run on the banks in the 30s and extremely difficult atmosphere to have any kind of productivity occurring in any job sector. An all cash society has a very imperiled future and bleak opportunity at growth.
Additionally you would have other aligned interests of a major bank going down that would fail, taking even more depositers, lenders, shareholders and bondholders moneys. Not too mention the thousands of well paying jobs that a major bank has and supports and all of those jobless claims going against unemployment. All of this in today's media would be like watching the end of times.
One last note- no one seems to be mentioning the fact that the new budget cuts subsidies to farmers over 500k and to the oil companies. That is a step that needs to occur and will actually lessen government to an extent, but no one conservative wants to give credit to Obama for that and no liberal wants to give that up.
So maybe you don't agree with Obamanomics and would like to propose something else. But until someone does, its the only game in town to stop the really unpleasant side from happening.
Kenneth Nelson
Chattanooga, TN
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I’ll go ahead and add #3 for you Mr. Smickle -
#3 – Thank you George W. Bush for putting our great country in this awful predicament in the first place.
John Parry
Ringgold
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According to a newspaper article proposed budgets looked like this:
1993 $1.4 Trillion
1995 $1.5 Trillion
1997 $1.6 Trillion
1999 $1.8 Trillion
2001 $2.0 Trillion
2003 $2.3 Trillion
2005 $2.6 Trillion
2007 $2.9 Trillion
2009 $3.1 Trillion
Remember that 2007-2009 increased due to expanded spending on Iraq-Afghanistan war efforts and 2009 was President Bush's final budget.
Currently President Obama has a proposed $3.4 trillion budget.
So, I question how you came up with "#2: This same proposed spending amounts to more than all the same budgets of all the presidents since the founding fathers."
Perhaps simply totaling the aforementioned budgets is using the incorrect equation. However I fail to see how we can blame a President who has been in office for only two months with our past extravagant budgets. I'm sure someone will be ready to enlighten me, but you're going to have a hard time convincing me.
Gary Watkins
Chattanooga
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Former British Prime Minister James Callaghan once said of Margaret Thatcher "the further one is from the UK, the more she is admired."
Personally, I'm always mystified by the fawning adulation some people have for this woman. I speak from experience too, having moved from Chattanooga to London in the 1980s, where I lived under Thatcher’s rule for nine years. They were grim times except for those at the very top of the societal pyramid.
Mrs. Thatcher destroyed social cohesion in Britain and replaced it with a "me, me, me" philosophy that still hasn’t entirely faded away. In Margaret Thatcher's Britain, life was all about selfishness and greed and we're now seeing the problems that come from only caring about oneself rather than society and community as a whole.
She destroyed the printing and mining industries, among others, got the country into a war to get herself re-elected, and did her level best to destroy the British working class while creating a burgeoning underclass. Schools were underfunded, jobs were scarce, wages were low and interest rates were high. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Sure, Maggie was tough-talking, but the same can be said of some other leaders around the world and we don't like it when they do it. In fact, Margaret Thatcher counted Augusto Pinochet as a “dear friend,” which says it all, really.
I remember seeing her shed a tear when she left No. 10 Downing Street for the last time. It wasn't the British people she was crying for.
Mr. Smickle, you’re welcome to Margaret Thatcher’s toes, and any other parts of her that you’d care to bathe.
Debra Comer
Oxfordshire
United Kingdom
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I'd like to respectfully disagree with my friend Mr. Smickle, whom I know is a good man. I simply disagree with him and here are some reasons why.
First of all, I didn't hear any conservatives complaining when President Bush dropped a trillion into the Iraq War - the goal of which was to find WMDs that weren't there. Mission not accomplished. A war that cost upwards of 100,000 innocent lives and more than 4,200 of our own brave soldiers. What do we have to show for all that money? On the bad side, scores and scores of dead people, abuses of executive power (Bush was by no means a "small government" president) and a huge drop in America's moral standing in the world. On the good side, possibly a shaky, but friendly democracy in the Middle East (although many of its people hate us for killing their loved ones), access to more oil and much, much richer defense corporations, who lined their pockets through wasteful no-bid contracts. Of course, I question the latter two "benefits." (I'd love to have one conservative tell me how no-bid contracts are consistent with the free market economy they love so much.) Until I hear a conservative complain about this massive, wasteful, deadly expenditure that completely failed to achieve its goal, I'll have a hard time listening to their complaints about this new spending.
Obama is spending a ton of money, yes, but unlike Bush's trillion for Iraq, this money is being invested in our own country and, from what I've read of it, is going into projects that are much-needed and will indeed create jobs. Although the price tag is much higher than anyone would like, I don't see how it can't help improve our country. Like Mr. Nelson correctly points out, President Reagan did the same thing to help bring us out of the economic hell of the late 1970s, and it worked.
But the fact that Obama is appointing people to oversee the projects so that money isn't wasted, and the fact that he's told powerful lobbyists that they will not win in a war over the interests of the American people is what makes me proud I voted for him. If he fails to deliver on this, I will join my conservative friends in criticism. (Again, like Mr. Nelson says, I am not a Democrat, I'm an Independent. I will turn on Obama if he fails.) Until then, I couldn't be happier.
Now, I'm no economist, but I think of the spending this way. I work in the advertising industry. My industry is especially being hammered by the economy because companies are slashing their ad budgets in droves. Media companies like Google, once a juggernaut in the advertising world, are laying people off by the thousands because revenue is in a nosedive. Some companies, like Subway, National Floors Direct and Cash4Gold (a few that come to mind) are bucking the trend and spending more on advertising, despite the recession, which is certainly counter-intuitive. However, they see that their competitors are spending less money, retreating from the marketplace, and they see a wide open opportunity. It's like stepping up to bat and seeing that there are no outfielders. So they are already starting to see increased sales despite the recession, and are helping the larger picture to some degree as well by putting their money into the economy. I know there's not a direct correlation, but I'm talking about the strategy. Even if Subway borrowed all the money on their "5 Dollar Footlong" campaign, they will be getting that money back exponentially, and will increase their market share in order to be in a better position when the recession ends. It was a risk for them (getting a larger number of people to spend $5 on a sandwich instead of a fewer number spending $3.79 in a down economy), but it was also brilliant.
I know conservatives are used to the "deer-in-the-headlights," do-nothing approach to domestic economic issues, but I like Obama's fast action. He got a lot of criticism during the campaign for his lofty speeches, but one thing no one can say now is that he's not putting his words into action. Maybe this will fail, but unlike our last president, at least he is tackling our problems at home with a vengeance.
Finally, I'm so tired of hearing the cries of Socialism and Communism. President Obama is no more either of these things than Dick Cheney is a Nazi. I can't stand Cheney, but I don't call him a Nazi because I'd be wrong. Obama's health care plan, for example, is not about free universal health care, it's about making affordable health care accessible to all Americans. "Affordable" is not the same as "free" and "accessible to all" is not the same as "universally realized by all."
Just because my tax dollars benefit others does not make it socialism. And even if it is, it's certainly not Obama's fault. That's the way taxes have always operated. If it really bothers conservatives, let them blame our tax system, but not Obama. If they really believe in stamping out socialist-type programs, then let them complain about free Police and Fire service available to all Americans. I pay the tax and the police come when you call. They even come when non-tax payers call. How communist. Let them complain about free universal health care available to everyone in the military. I pay the tax and Mr. Trooper goes to the doctor for free. Again, is this communist? Maybe, but I don't think so, and what's more, I don't care. I'm behind it.
John Stegall
Quincy, Ma. (formerly of Chattanooga)