Your opinion on the job that President Obama is doing so far (1 Viewer)

[Parrothead]

Anybody that would voluntarily have a discussion with you for a whole day has a screw loose.

Have you been talking to my wife?

how do you have time for a wife? or is that what you call your keyboard?

 

[Statorama]

Over 1,000 assault weapons unaccounted for in Obama Administration's "Fast and Furious" debacle

Suspected smugglers bought 1,418 firearms after coming to the attention of ATF agents running the probe, according to the congressional report, detailing the most complete accounting to date of weapons in the operation. Of those, 1,048 haven’t been recovered or traced, the report said.

ATF agents in Mexico kept in the dark on the operation

In a congressional report being released in conjunction with the hearing the findings note, “ATF and DOJ leadership kept their own personnel in Mexico and Mexican government officials totally in the dark about all aspects of Fast and Furious. Meanwhile, ATF officials in Mexico grew increasingly worried about the number of weapons recovered in Mexico that traced back to an ongoing investigation out of ATF’s Phoenix Field Division.”

The congressional report notes that ATF intelligence analysts notified the ATF’s attaché in Mexico, Darren Gil, and Carlos Canino, Deputy Attaché, about a large number of guns showing up in Mexico from the Phoenix field office investigation.

“Hundreds of weapons were suddenly appearing in Mexico – traced to Phoenix – without explanation. Gil and his agents struggled to get answers from their own agency. Although ATF officials in Phoenix and Washington, D.C. acknowledged that an investigation was underway, they refused to share the details of the strategy and operation with the agents in Mexico … ATF officials in Mexico finally realized the truth: ATF was allowing guns to walk. By withholding this critical information from its own personnel in Mexico, ATF jeopardized relations between the U.S. and Mexico.” The report noted.

 

[Statorama]

Gunwalker operation termed the "perfect storm of idiocy"

Update, 2:40 p.m.: The special agent in charge of the Phoenix ATF office during gunwalking scandal, Bill Newell, testified early this afternoon that he discussed the program with a White House staffer.

Newell said he talked to his friend, Kevin O'Reilly, who is listed the White House's Director for North America at the National Security Council.

In advance of a hearing later today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report containing new testimony and allegations in the ATF gunwalker case. According to the report, Carlos Canino, Acting ATF Attache in Mexico, calls the strategy his agency employed: "The perfect storm of idiocy."

"We armed the [sinaloa] cartel," Canino told investigators. "It is disgusting." Canino will be a key witness at the hearing.

Joint Committee report: Operation Fast and Furious: Fueling Cartel Violence (pdf)

But it's not just the Sinaloa cartel. Documents obtained by Congressional investigators show weapons - sold under ATF's watch in Operation Fast and Furious out of the Phoenix office - have been used by at least three Mexican drug cartels: Sinaloa, El Teo and La Familia.

In other words, Congressional investigators say the very agency charged with preventing weapons from falling into the hands of violent cartels south of the border ... instead facilitated it.

The Oversight Committee has used internal documents and information to showing where Fast and Furious weapons have shown up and been used in Mexico. It reveals more recoveries than Department of Justice has disclosed to the Committee in official answers ... and yet it's still only a partial picture.

The Department of Justice had no comment on that aspect of the report.

The first large recovery of weapons sold to suspected drug cartel traffickers under ATF's watch was on Nov. 20, 2009 in Naco, Sonora, Mexico. All 42 weapons (41 AK-47s and a giant .50 caliber rifle) traced back to Fast and Furious suspects. Some had been bought, turned around and delivered to the cartel practically overnight.

Yet ATF allowed the acquisitions and dealings to continue for more than a year, until December of last year, when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. Two Fast and Furious assault rifles were recovered at the murder scene.

On a recent visit to Mexico, the Oversight Committee was allowed to view bullet holes in one of two Mexican government helicopters recently shot at by cartel members ... including a .50-caliber round that penetrated the bulletproof-glass windshield. Officials recovered Fast and Furious weapons among the suspects' cache.

Also, for the first time, Congressional investigators disclose names of some Justice Department officials whom witnesses, ATF agents, say knew about the controversial gunwalking operation.

Nobody at the Justice Department has publicly acknowledged approval of or a role in the case. President Obama has said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the operation, and Holder asked the Inspector General to investigate.

But according to ATF witnesses, on March 5, 2010 ATF intelligence analysts told ATF and Justice Department leadership (including Main Justice Trial Attorney Joe Cooley) that straw firearms purchases in Fast and Furious had exceeded 1,000 and the weapons were ending up in Mexico. When concerns were raised, one witness present quoted Cooley as saying the movement of so many guns to Mexico was "an acceptable practice." The Justice Department had no comment on that.

In other testimony, former ATF Attache to Mexico Darren Gil repeated information he gave in an exclusive CBS News interview several months ago. He told investigators that the Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, was well aware of Fast and Furious, and referred to the case supportively when visiting Mexico.

ATF gunwalking: Who knew, and how high up?

The Justice Department neither confirmed nor denied what Breuer may have known, but when contacted yesterday afternoon, a spokesman called the allegation an "old charge." The spokesman added that wiretaps approved by the Justice Department are "narrow assessments" generally approved by Assistant Attorneys General, but "not Lanny."

Today's hearing will also focus on other allegations by Canino and Gil. They say their concerns about letting weapons fall into the hands of drug cartels were repeatedly brushed aside by higher-ups in ATF management. They also say ATF personnel denied them access to crucial information about the case, even though it directly involved their job duties and affected their host country, Mexico.

 

[Statorama]

That sound you hear is a thousand White House shredders being powered up...

Witness to name names in 'Fast and Furious' scandal

The controversy is over a program set up by the federal government that reportedly allowed banned individuals to buy hundreds, maybe thousands, of guns with the knowledge they probably would be taken to Mexico and used in that nation's drug-related violence.

Investigative journalist and Second Amendment analyst Mike Vanderboegh says the witnesses probably will name names.

"There are names within Justice, not just in the ATF, that come up time and again in this. One of them is Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. I rather suspect that his name will be mentioned this time," Vanderboegh said. Breuer was one of President Clinton's lawyers during Clinton's impeachment.

Vanderboegh said it looks like the government itself, from the highest level, was trying to undermine the Constitution.

"They're gradually building a case for a much wider, national conspiracy. By the end of this process, they'll be able to prove that orders came from the very top," Vanderboegh said.

"They're also building a case showing that Fast and Furious was only one component of a much larger plan. I believe that's what's going to happen," he said.

 

[Saints-Man]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/matt-stoller-elizabeth-warren-versus-barack-obama-on-leadership.html

Thanks for the link, urbanhack. That was a good read.

 

[Sarnoff]

Did we go too far to get bin Laden?

No One Is Immune

The CIA's fake vaccination program in Pakistan reveals the moral bankruptcy of American spooks.

By Tom Scocca

Posted Monday, July 25, 2011, at 4:08 PM ET

This was one story from our open-ended war: Last year, in a remote area of Afghanistan, 10 medical aid workers were ambushed and killed by militants. The New York Times Magazine and Slate published moving remembrances of some of the victims: Karen Woo, a British doctor who wanted to make a documentary about the lives of people in remote areas of Afghanistan; Tom Little and Dan Terry, who had spent decades bringing health care and other aid to the country. President Obama awarded Little the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a posthumous ceremony earlier this year. After the killings, the Taliban reportedly added a final insult. The victims, they claimed, were not really medical personnel. They were spies "on a clandestine mission against mujahideen in the area."

Only: How do we know this was a vicious insult? The question should be obscene and unthinkable. Yet this month, the Obama administration admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency had staged a fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan as American intelligence closed in on Osama Bin Laden. Health care workers were used on a clandestine mission—not in the paranoid imagination of America-hating fanatics but as part of the deliberate policy of the United States government.

As atrocities go, delivering inadequate vaccines under false pretenses isn't obviously worse than, say, systematically kidnapping people and torturing them. But like the decision by Rupert Murdoch's reporters, in the course of illegally eavesdropping on everyone, to hack into one particular vanished child's voice mail, the single act is a metonym for the total moral collapse of the people and the system responsible for it. The CIA has now signed off on the murder of Tom Little and Dan Terry and on any future killings of doctors in overt or covert war zones. Now, there is no such thing as a noncombatant.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of war is one of the last places in the world where polio is still endemic. The Washington Post reported that the Pakistani government considered canceling a polio immunization drive last week because of the CIA campaign, before deciding to proceed. "One health official in the border belt said the main concern is that militants in that region might harm members of vaccination teams, suspecting them of being CIA agents," the Post wrote.

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Even if health workers go unharmed, they risk being turned away by people who were already mistrustful of foreign interventions and especially of vaccination efforts. The CIA's logic—that health care teams could penetrate places other outsiders could not—is precisely the reason not to use the tactic.

Why were we willing to risk destroying the global campaign against polio? After the CIA vaccination story broke, the Post carried a response from a "senior U.S. official":

"People need to put this into some perspective," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The vaccination campaign was part of the hunt for the world's top terrorist, and nothing else. If the United States hadn't shown this kind of creativity, people would be scratching their heads asking why it hadn't used all tools at its disposal to find bin Laden."

Perspective, the official said. Well, in that case, why should the creativity have stopped with the fake vaccinations? We could have gone door-to-door in Abbottabad and shot everyone. Eventually, if we kept it up, we would have shot Bin Laden.

But the senior U.S. official was not, in fact, describing the ethical reasoning behind the effort to "find bin Laden." Bin Laden had already been found. The vaccination campaign was a matter of bureaucratic self-protection—to get DNA samples from people inside the compound, to confirm that the target that the CIA had identified in Abbottabad was correct, so that the agency wouldn't embarrass itself. The most that the vaccinations could have done, if the DNA tests had come back negative, would have been to allow the CIA to quietly add this particular house to the list of places in which, over the course of a decade, it had failed to find Bin Laden.

And that assumes the vaccination trick even worked. According to the Guardian, it was "not known whether the CIA managed to obtain any bin Laden DNA, although one source suggested the operation did not succeed." Yet we got Bin Laden anyway. The necessity that the senior official was pleading was fake necessity.

Here, for once, we have the chance to make a distinction about the secret use of American power. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the country was offered a failure-proof moral test: Is it worth doing an awful thing to catch Osama Bin Laden? Would we give our covert forces the power to do what was necessary, to be ruthless and effective against our enemies?

But with the vaccination campaign, we get a look behind the curtain—and there's the old "creative" spook world, the one of poisoned cigars and potted insurrections. The power we've given our covert forces includes the power to be evil and feckless, and to be unaccountable for either.

The anonymous official was not merely describing the thought processes behind one immoral, ineffective, and destructive stunt. The same people, thinking the same way, have been making decisions about life and death—mostly death—all over the world.

A decade ago, the American intelligence machinery failed to correctly assess the risk that a terrorist group that had already bombed multiple American targets and killed hundreds of people might attack America. In response, we turned that machinery loose to make countless more assessments of risk, pretending the resulting judgments would be clear, correct, and defensible.

That clarity is a sham. Maybe some of the people American intelligence forces have captured and tortured did give up some sort of information. Maybe some of the information was true. Maybe some of the true information was useful in the campaign against al-Qaida. Maybe some of that true, useful information could not have been obtained by any other method. The anonymous U.S. official might tell you so, if you could figure out who he or she was and ask.

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Torture is old news. We don't do it anymore. Fine. Nor have we prosecuted anyone for it. The people who did it are free to make and defend other decisions. How sure do we have to be about a target before we tell a drone to fire a missile at it? How many villagers is it worth incinerating to blow up someone who might be someone who has some position in some group potentially affiliated with al-Qaida? How many of your phone calls and e-mails should the NSA intercept and read? The people who supported the vaccination campaign are the people who are making these judgments, and other judgments we know nothing about, every day.

So now, we know what they believed was worth doing in one instance, in Abbottabad. In part. Perhaps there were great, secret feats of competence and heroism by our covert forces, too—difficult decisions, bravely made, that made the victorious raid on Osama's compound possible. We trust that there were.

But here is what was acceptable: According to the Guardian, we sent a Pakistani doctor and a medical team into the region, where they announced they were giving out hepatitis B vaccinations. After giving one round of doses—of what should have been a three-dose course—to children in a poor neighborhood, for cover, they skipped the remaining vaccinations and moved on to where Bin Laden was living.

(The anonymous official told the Washington Post that this single-dose fake public-health effort "should not be construed as a 'fake public health effort.' ")

When they got to the Bin Laden compound, according to the Guardian, the team sent a nurse inside to administer the hepatitis shots. The nurse, the newspaper wrote, "was unaware of the real purpose of the vaccination campaign." So if the mission had gone wrong—the nurse was reportedly equipped with a "handbag that was fitted with an electronic device"—the first person in harm's way would have been not a covert-ops cowboy but an actual health-care worker.

Nothing did happen to the nurse, however. Apparently she got in and out without raising suspicions. As the Guardian wrote, "Health visitors in the area were among the few people who had gained access to the Bin Laden compound in the past, administering polio drops to some of the children."

Osama bin Laden, in other words, had trusted that people who administered polio vaccine were actually there to administer polio vaccine. So when the hepatitis nurse came around, even in his deepest defensive isolation, he did not suspect that public health workers would be agents of war. On this point, Bin Laden—the man who conceived of crashing airplanes full of passengers into occupied buildings—showed less imagination than the United States did.

 

[Statorama]

One in Eight small businesses have had to drop coverage due to Obamacare

So much for "you can keep your current coverage if you like it"

Among the most striking of NFIB’s findings was the number of employer health insurance plans that have been or will be eliminated since PPACA’s passage — 12 percent, or one in eight. Eliminating employer health care plans “is the first major consequence of PPACA that small-business owners likely feel,” the report said.

“We are not aware of any data suggesting we’ve had turnover anywhere near this level in the past,” said William J. Dennis, a senior research fellow at the National Federation for Independent Business.

The NFIB study also found 20 percent of small employers expect to significantly change their benefit packages the next time they renew their health insurance plans. Almost all of them expected to see diminished benefits, increased employee costs, or both.

...

The considerable changes expected are in part prodded by plans that have effectively been eliminated by insurers. One of the great promises of PPACA supporters was that insured people would be able to keep their current health insurance plan. As a practical matter that has not been true for a substantial number of small employers and their employees. Since enactment, one in eight (12%) small employers have either had their health insurance plans terminated or been told that their plan would not be available in the future (Q. 5).

 

[Sarnoff]

Harris polls. Obama would lose to Giuliani and Romney, and it'd be 50-50 tie vs. Ron Paul.

Against President Obama

Looking ahead to November, it seems there are three possible candidates who could give President Obama a difficult time. President Obama would lose his re-election if Rudy Giuliani (53% to 47%) or Mitt Romney (51% to 49%) was the Republican nominee. Each candidate would receive 50% of the vote if the President was running against Ron Paul. Right now, President Obama would win re-election against the 10 other candidates presented.

Reader comment:

The real bad news for Obama in the poll is that while 92% of the people aren’t familiar with Thaddeus McCotter (77% don’t even know who he is at all), 43% would still vote for him over Obama.

When you’re POTUS and having to struggle against basically a random name pulled out of the phone book, it’s not looking so good for you.

 

[StrikeS2k]

Did we go too far to get bin Laden?

How is this not getting more play? What a stupid, short sighted thing to do.

 

[jon_mx]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

 

[Statorama]

Peggy Noonan : Obama is a loser

Looks like the squishy middle has finally seen that the emperor has no clothes. Can RINO's like David Brooks be far behind?

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.

So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

 

[clampino]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

or more

 

[BoneYardDog]

obama's @BarackObama Twitter account has reportedly lost 10,000 followers after a barrage of 100+Tweets overwhelmed followers in a matter of hours.Friday Morning obama and his 2012 campaign staff decided it would be a good idea to put pressure on the GOP by Tweeting out the Twitter handles of Congressional Republicans, saying for example, "If you live in Missouri, ask@RoyBlunt to support a bipartisan compromise to the debt crisis."By late afternoon, you could tell it wasn't sitting well with followers. "You clogging up my Twitter feed is definitely not making me want to vote for you," one typed, while tons of others begged it all to stop.It even came to this: "PURE GENIUS! INSTRUCTIONS: Go to the @Barackobama twitter account. Click 'block and report for spam.' Then, RT this. "Epic FAIL.

President Obama's job approval rating has dropped to a new low of 40 percent, according to the Gallup daily tracking poll.The White House has worked double-time to get Americans to agree with their assertion that Republicans are to blame for the current debt ceiling impasse, but this new number shows the message doesn't seem to be resonating. Congress - and leaders John Boehner and Harry Reid - aren't getting good marks either.As recently as the beginning of June, President Obama's approval was at 50 percent. It has been consistently falling since mid-July.Perhaps a more telling number is Obama's falling favor amongst independents. Only 34 percent approve of the job he is doing. That's down 7 percent from three weeks ago.

 

[Statorama]

The 'A-B-C's of Obama's failed presidency

Snapshots from President Obama's efforts to improve America's standing in the world, 923 days into his administration:

A is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%.

B is for the federal budget deficit, which is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008.

C is for China's military budget. For 2012, Beijing plans to increase spending on defense by 12.7%. The Obama administration, by contrast, proposed Pentagon cuts in April averaging out to $40 billion per year over the next decade, and Congress may soon cut a lot more.

D is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.

E is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.

F is for free trade. Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which facilitates $1.6 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush midwifed more than a dozen FTAs, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of FTA's signed by the current president: zero.

G is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America's future if we don't reform our entitlement state.

H is for Hillary Clinton, who—I can't believe I'm writing this—would have made a better president than Mr. Obama.

I is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital.

J is for jobs. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs.

K is for Karzai, Hamid, Afghanistan's feckless leader. Still, the Obama administration probably did itself no favors by publicly dumping on the man, leading him to seek new best friends in Tehran.

L is for Laden, Osama bin. The president's greatest triumph, which will forever put him one notch—if only one notch—above Jimmy Carter.

M is for Mexico, a country that manages 5.4% unemployment and 4.2% annual growth even as it fights a war against the drug cartels.

N is for NATO, once a pillar of Western security, which Mr. Obama is in the process of destroying through his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and his refusal to give NATO the push it needs to win in Libya.

O is for ObamaCare, which goes far to explain B, D, J as well as the Greek part of G.

P is for Pyongyang, whose ruler the administration is once again attempting to engage in the six-party talks. This is after the Kim regime welcomed Mr. Obama's plea for a nuclear-free world by testing a nuclear bomb, torpedoing a South Korean ship, shelling a South Korean village, and unveiling a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment facility.

Q is for QE2, the most disastrous experiment in monetary policy since Fed Chairman William Miller's low-interest rate policy crashed the dollar in 1978.

R is for the reset with Russia, the principal result of which is an arms-control treaty that brings us to parity in strategic nuclear weapons, leaves us behind in the tactical category, and ill-equips us for the challenge of a proliferating world.

S is for shovel-ready. Enough said.

T is for taxes, which Mr. Obama would like to see raised for "millionaires and billionaires"—curiously defined as people making $200K and up.

U is for Iran's uranium enrichment. When Mr. Obama came to office promising to extend his hand to the mullahs, Iran had enriched 1,000 kilos of uranium. Today they have produced more than 4,000 kilos.

V is for Venezuela, a country whose extensive subterranean links to Iran the administration has consistently downplayed.

W is for the Dubya, whose presidency now looks like a model of spending restraint.

X is for Liu Xiaobo, an example of what a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize looks like. X is also for Xanax, likely to be remembered as the drug of choice of the Obama years.

Y is for Yes, We Can! Unfortunately, it's also for Yemen.

Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.

 

[Mello]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

Then you Republicans can get back to not caring about the budget.

 

[Statorama]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

Then you Republicans can get back to not caring about the budget.

I think you'll be surprised. If Romney spends like Obama, I'll be on him like a monkey humping a football.

 

[Mello]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

Then you Republicans can get back to not caring about the budget.

I think you'll be surprised. If Romney spends like Obama, I'll be on him like a monkey humping a football.

What if he just spends like Reagan (+$1.9T deficit), Bush I (+$1.5T), or Bush II (+$6.1T)?

 

[TobiasFunke]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

Then you Republicans can get back to not caring about the budget.

I think you'll be surprised. If Romney spends like Obama, I'll be on him like a monkey humping a football.

What if he just spends like Reagan (+$1.9T deficit), Bush I (+$1.5T), or Bush II (+$6.1T)?

GOP 2012: This Time We're Like Totally Serious, You Guys

 

[Mello]

GOP 2012: This Time We're Like Totally Serious, You Guys

 

[Statorama]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

Then you Republicans can get back to not caring about the budget.

I think you'll be surprised. If Romney spends like Obama, I'll be on him like a monkey humping a football.

What if he just spends like Reagan (+$1.9T deficit)

Reagan's spending actually stimulated the economy.Obama pouring trillions of dollars into the woodchipper isn't the same.

 

[Mello]

Obama is going to lose by 5 points to Romney. Mark it in stone.

Then you Republicans can get back to not caring about the budget.

I think you'll be surprised. If Romney spends like Obama, I'll be on him like a monkey humping a football.

What if he just spends like Reagan (+$1.9T deficit)

Reagan's spending actually stimulated the economy.Obama pouring trillions of dollars into the woodchipper isn't the same.

And you'll swear the next Republican President's spending is good.

 

[Statorama]

you'll swear the next Republican President's spending is good.

Trust me, a lot of people are lined up to point it out to me if I do.

 

[Statorama]

Today's questions for the President

Quit whining about the mess you inherited and quit comparing yourself to Reagan.

Throughout the debt ceiling debate (and prior thereto) you and members of your administration have repeatedly referred to the “mess [you] inherited” and the “economic headwinds” you faced upon taking office. You’ve also made frequent comparisons to Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of economic headwinds, Reagan “inherited” a GDP rate of -3.2 percent. You inherited a GDP rate of -4.9 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office, however, GDP was at 5.1 percent (and exploded to 9.3 percent the next quarter). Two and a half years after you took office GDP growth is at 1.3 percent (and as likely to implode as explode next quarter).

Reagan inherited an inflation rate of 11.8 percent. You inherited an inflation rate of 0.3 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office inflation shrank to 2.46 percent. Two and a half years after you took office inflation has risen to 3.56 percent.

Reagan inherited interest rates of 20.5 percent. You inherited interest rates of 3.25 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office interest rates dropped to 11 percent. Two and a half years after you took office interest rates remain unchanged.

Reagan inherited a national debt (adjusted for inflation) of $908 billion. You inherited a national debt of $10.1 trillion. Two and a half years after Reagan took office, $390 billion more had been added to the national debt. Two and a half years after you took office $4.4 trillion more has been added to the national debt.(Statorama note: Reagan's additional debt was 6.4% of GDP, Obama's extra debt is 33.1% of GDP.)

Reagan inherited an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent. You inherited an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent, but fell to 7.6 percent within a few months and declined steadily thereafter to 5.3 percent. Two and a half years after you took office the unemployment rate is 9.2 percent. To fall to 7.6 percent by the end of this year, however, more than 1,000,000 jobs per month would need to be created. Only 18,000 were created in June; 25,000 in May.

Reagan slashed tax rates, encouraged American entrepreneurship, and didn’t complain incessantly about the mess he inherited. Will you ever do the same?

Reagan beat Carter in 1980 by a 9.74 percent margin. You beat McCain in 2008 by a 7.27 percent margin. Reagan beat Mondale in 1984 by a 18.21 percent margin and the second largest popular vote differential in history. Do you think the margin will be similar in 2012? If so, in which direction?

 

[TobiasFunke]

Today's questions for the President

Quit whining about the mess you inherited and quit comparing yourself to Reagan.

Throughout the debt ceiling debate (and prior thereto) you and members of your administration have repeatedly referred to the “mess [you] inherited” and the “economic headwinds” you faced upon taking office. You’ve also made frequent comparisons to Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of economic headwinds, Reagan “inherited” a GDP rate of -3.2 percent. You inherited a GDP rate of -4.9 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office, however, GDP was at 5.1 percent (and exploded to 9.3 percent the next quarter). Two and a half years after you took office GDP growth is at 1.3 percent (and as likely to implode as explode next quarter).

Reagan inherited an inflation rate of 11.8 percent. You inherited an inflation rate of 0.3 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office inflation shrank to 2.46 percent. Two and a half years after you took office inflation has risen to 3.56 percent.

Reagan inherited interest rates of 20.5 percent. You inherited interest rates of 3.25 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office interest rates dropped to 11 percent. Two and a half years after you took office interest rates remain unchanged.

Reagan inherited a national debt (adjusted for inflation) of $908 billion. You inherited a national debt of $10.1 trillion. Two and a half years after Reagan took office, $390 billion more had been added to the national debt. Two and a half years after you took office $4.4 trillion more has been added to the national debt.(Statorama note: Reagan's additional debt was 6.4% of GDP, Obama's extra debt is 33.1% of GDP.)

Reagan inherited an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent. You inherited an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. Two and a half years after Reagan took office the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent, but fell to 7.6 percent within a few months and declined steadily thereafter to 5.3 percent. Two and a half years after you took office the unemployment rate is 9.2 percent. To fall to 7.6 percent by the end of this year, however, more than 1,000,000 jobs per month would need to be created. Only 18,000 were created in June; 25,000 in May.

Reagan slashed tax rates, encouraged American entrepreneurship, and didn’t complain incessantly about the mess he inherited. Will you ever do the same?

Reagan beat Carter in 1980 by a 9.74 percent margin. You beat McCain in 2008 by a 7.27 percent margin. Reagan beat Mondale in 1984 by a 18.21 percent margin and the second largest popular vote differential in history. Do you think the margin will be similar in 2012? If so, in which direction?

Reagan complained all the time about the mess he inherited from Carter.

Massage and hand-pick the numbers all you want. For example, by looking at pure dollar figures of deficit additions instead of the percent they changed the debt by (Reagan more than doubled the debt both in raw numbers and as a percentage of GDP, no chance the Obama administration comes close that that level of irresponsible spending).

But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term, followed by the adoration of the majority of the country in the years following the completion of the second term. The similarities are endless. Thanks for this timely reminder of their parallels, in the form of a weak attempt (even by National Review standards) to show otherwise!

 

[Statorama]

But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term

Pray to whatever God you believe in that this doesn't happen. Obama has come very close to destroying our economy during a period when he was seeking a second term. If Obama somehow manages an ACORN led second term, a lame duck Obama will bring an economic apocalypse never seen before by any nation.

 

[TobiasFunke]

But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term

Pray to whatever God you believe in that this doesn't happen. Obama has come very close to destroying our economy during a period when he was seeking a second term. If Obama somehow manages an ACORN led second term, a lame duck Obama will bring an economic apocalypse never seen before by any nation.

If this comes from the same line of reasoning that leads one to praise Reagan while also taking every opportunity to slam out of control deficit spending, I've never felt better about our nation's future.Also, you'll be delighted to know that ACORN filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy some time ago. Thank God that awful organization- the one that I and thousands of other volunteers worked with in New Orleans to help families displaced by Hurricane Katrina repair their homes and salvage their belongings- has been wiped out!

 

[ericttspikes]

But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term

Pray to whatever God you believe in that this doesn't happen. Obama has come very close to destroying our economy during a period when he was seeking a second term. If Obama somehow manages an ACORN led second term, a lame duck Obama will bring an economic apocalypse never seen before by any nation.

Since McConnell, Boehner and the Tea Party are trying their hardest to crater everything right now, maybe Obama will have to finish the job for them like he always does.

 

[Saints-Man]

...

Reagan complained all the time about the mess he inherited from Carter.

Massage and hand-pick the numbers all you want. For example, by looking at pure dollar figures of deficit additions instead of the percent they changed the debt by (Reagan more than doubled the debt both in raw numbers and as a percentage of GDP, no chance the Obama administration comes close that that level of irresponsible spending).



But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term, followed by the adoration of the majority of the country in the years following the completion of the second term. The similarities are endless. Thanks for this timely reminder of their parallels, in the form of a weak attempt (even by National Review standards) to show otherwise!

I agree. Unless there is some unforseen catastrophe, and I mean much more than a double-dip recession, President Obama will be reelected and mostly viewed favorably by historical perspective. The left will come to admire him, and his critics on the right will stay constant.Besides party differences, it is illogical to me that the left dislikes Reagan as intently as they do and that the right dislikes Obama as intently as they do.

The economic situation Reagan inherited was pretty bad. High unemployment(7.5 at election and climbing), high interest rates(14-15% at election), inflation(12.65 at election) and other poor economic factors . So, Reagan raised some taxes, lowered some taxes (lowered taxes at a 2-1 ratio) and deficit spent mainly, if not exclusively, on the military. Sounds Keynsian to me and just what the political left wanted Obama to do. Yet, the left depicts his policies as "irresponsible". Reagan used government spending to lift us out of the worst economic malaise at the time since the Great Depression. This is what the political wants done now(see Krugman)...so why does the left dislike this?

So now let us address the illogical thinking of the right. Reagan is one of their heros, so they want his script followed. Obama takes office during a bad economic time. His stats were different at election time, but the economic situation was pretty bad by any reasonable analysis. In Obama's stimulus bill, he lowers taxes and increases government spending(Obama doesn't limit spending to military but spreads it throughout government). So, this follows what Reagan did. When Obama had an EASY chance to end the Bush tax cuts, he decided instead to keep them(effectively implementing another tax decrease) and increased other government spending. This is what Reagan did...why does the right dislike this?

Unfortunately for Obama, the recovery has been weak. It took longer for Reagan's recovery to start(not until the fall of 1983 as I recall), but once it did, it was robust.

 

[TobiasFunke]

...

Reagan complained all the time about the mess he inherited from Carter.

Massage and hand-pick the numbers all you want. For example, by looking at pure dollar figures of deficit additions instead of the percent they changed the debt by (Reagan more than doubled the debt both in raw numbers and as a percentage of GDP, no chance the Obama administration comes close that that level of irresponsible spending).



But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term, followed by the adoration of the majority of the country in the years following the completion of the second term. The similarities are endless. Thanks for this timely reminder of their parallels, in the form of a weak attempt (even by National Review standards) to show otherwise!

I agree. Unless there is some unforseen catastrophe, and I mean much more than a double-dip recession, President Obama will be reelected and mostly viewed favorably by historical perspective. The left will come to admire him, and his critics on the right will stay constant.Besides party differences, it is illogical to me that the left dislikes Reagan as intently as they do and that the right dislikes Obama as intently as they do.

The economic situation Reagan inherited was pretty bad. High unemployment(7.5 at election and climbing), high interest rates(14-15% at election), inflation(12.65 at election) and other poor economic factors . So, Reagan raised some taxes, lowered some taxes (lowered taxes at a 2-1 ratio) and deficit spent mainly, if not exclusively, on the military. Sounds Keynsian to me and just what the political left wanted Obama to do. Yet, the left depicts his policies as "irresponsible". Reagan used government spending to lift us out of the worst economic malaise at the time since the Great Depression. This is what the political wants done now(see Krugman)...so why does the left dislike this?

So now let us address the illogical thinking of the right. Reagan is one of their heros, so they want his script followed. Obama takes office during a bad economic time. His stats were different at election time, but the economic situation was pretty bad by any reasonable analysis. In Obama's stimulus bill, he lowers taxes and increases government spending(Obama doesn't limit spending to military but spreads it throughout government). So, this follows what Reagan did. When Obama had an EASY chance to end the Bush tax cuts, he decided instead to keep them(effectively implementing another tax decrease) and increased other government spending. This is what Reagan did...why does the right dislike this?

Unfortunately for Obama, the recovery has been weak. It took longer for Reagan's recovery to start(not until the fall of 1983 as I recall), but once it did, it was robust.

I was mostly just messing with my friend Stat, as he was with me. I'm not completely convinced he'll be reelected, although if the GOP contenders keep doing stuff like this it will be hard for him to lose. But watching the Right go through the mental gymnastics required to continue the beatification of Reagan while slamming the deficit spending of the Obama presidency is just hilarious. I'd pay money to keep watching it. Comedy Central should add a half-hour show after Stewart and Colbert dedicated solely to this phenomenon.

 

[Road Warriors]

...

Reagan complained all the time about the mess he inherited from Carter.

Massage and hand-pick the numbers all you want. For example, by looking at pure dollar figures of deficit additions instead of the percent they changed the debt by (Reagan more than doubled the debt both in raw numbers and as a percentage of GDP, no chance the Obama administration comes close that that level of irresponsible spending).



But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term, followed by the adoration of the majority of the country in the years following the completion of the second term. The similarities are endless. Thanks for this timely reminder of their parallels, in the form of a weak attempt (even by National Review standards) to show otherwise!

I agree. Unless there is some unforseen catastrophe, and I mean much more than a double-dip recession, President Obama will be reelected and mostly viewed favorably by historical perspective. The left will come to admire him, and his critics on the right will stay constant.Besides party differences, it is illogical to me that the left dislikes Reagan as intently as they do and that the right dislikes Obama as intently as they do.

The economic situation Reagan inherited was pretty bad. High unemployment(7.5 at election and climbing), high interest rates(14-15% at election), inflation(12.65 at election) and other poor economic factors . So, Reagan raised some taxes, lowered some taxes (lowered taxes at a 2-1 ratio) and deficit spent mainly, if not exclusively, on the military. Sounds Keynsian to me and just what the political left wanted Obama to do. Yet, the left depicts his policies as "irresponsible". Reagan used government spending to lift us out of the worst economic malaise at the time since the Great Depression. This is what the political wants done now(see Krugman)...so why does the left dislike this?

So now let us address the illogical thinking of the right. Reagan is one of their heros, so they want his script followed. Obama takes office during a bad economic time. His stats were different at election time, but the economic situation was pretty bad by any reasonable analysis. In Obama's stimulus bill, he lowers taxes and increases government spending(Obama doesn't limit spending to military but spreads it throughout government). So, this follows what Reagan did. When Obama had an EASY chance to end the Bush tax cuts, he decided instead to keep them(effectively implementing another tax decrease) and increased other government spending. This is what Reagan did...why does the right dislike this?

Unfortunately for Obama, the recovery has been weak. It took longer for Reagan's recovery to start(not until the fall of 1983 as I recall), but once it did, it was robust.

Side note: I don't hear that many from the left that have anywhere near the poor impression of Reagan that the current right has for Obama.I'd guess each side doesn't agree with what the other chooses to spend those deficit dollars on.

I look at the Reagan years and see that, among other things, ramped up govt spending in a market ( defense ) where govt is the principal buyer, generating real demand that created economic expansion. The fact that the technology developed in the defense industry could be leveraged to other applications works as an additive element to the expansion.

I look at the current administration and the stimulus packages that were intended to rev the economy, but I don't see the spending targeted in such a manner as to increase demand in any particular market.

 

[Saints-Man]

...

I was mostly just messing with my friend Stat, as he was with me. I'm not completely convinced he'll be reelected, although if the GOp contenders keep doing stuff like this it will be hard for him to lose.

But watching the Right go through the mental gymnastics required to continue the beatification of Reagan while slamming the deficit spending of the Obama presidency is just hilarious. I'd pay money to keep watching it.

TF, I am as sure as I can be at this point that he will be. Like I said, barring an unforseen catastrophe. The Republican party is unable to field a decent candidate to challenge President Obama.

 

[Slapdash]

...

Reagan complained all the time about the mess he inherited from Carter.

Massage and hand-pick the numbers all you want. For example, by looking at pure dollar figures of deficit additions instead of the percent they changed the debt by (Reagan more than doubled the debt both in raw numbers and as a percentage of GDP, no chance the Obama administration comes close that that level of irresponsible spending).



But deep down, you know that Obama is heading down the same path as Reagan: a second term, followed by the adoration of the majority of the country in the years following the completion of the second term. The similarities are endless. Thanks for this timely reminder of their parallels, in the form of a weak attempt (even by National Review standards) to show otherwise!

I agree. Unless there is some unforseen catastrophe, and I mean much more than a double-dip recession, President Obama will be reelected and mostly viewed favorably by historical perspective. The left will come to admire him, and his critics on the right will stay constant.Besides party differences, it is illogical to me that the left dislikes Reagan as intently as they do and that the right dislikes Obama as intently as they do.

The economic situation Reagan inherited was pretty bad. High unemployment(7.5 at election and climbing), high interest rates(14-15% at election), inflation(12.65 at election) and other poor economic factors . So, Reagan raised some taxes, lowered some taxes (lowered taxes at a 2-1 ratio) and deficit spent mainly, if not exclusively, on the military. Sounds Keynsian to me and just what the political left wanted Obama to do. Yet, the left depicts his policies as "irresponsible". Reagan used government spending to lift us out of the worst economic malaise at the time since the Great Depression. This is what the political wants done now(see Krugman)...so why does the left dislike this?

So now let us address the illogical thinking of the right. Reagan is one of their heros, so they want his script followed. Obama takes office during a bad economic time. His stats were different at election time, but the economic situation was pretty bad by any reasonable analysis. In Obama's stimulus bill, he lowers taxes and increases government spending(Obama doesn't limit spending to military but spreads it throughout government). So, this follows what Reagan did. When Obama had an EASY chance to end the Bush tax cuts, he decided instead to keep them(effectively implementing another tax decrease) and increased other government spending. This is what Reagan did...why does the right dislike this?

Unfortunately for Obama, the recovery has been weak. It took longer for Reagan's recovery to start(not until the fall of 1983 as I recall), but once it did, it was robust.

Just as a sidebar, Volcker and the Fed's policy deserves much more credit for the improved economy under Reagan than he did. Similarly, Bernanke deserves much of the blame for keeping money too tight now and harming the economy. It just goes to show that the fiscal policy does not matter nearly as much as money and the president has much less influence on the economy than people imagine.Also, not to speak for Krugman and “the left”, but there is a big difference in Keynesian theory between how to respond to supply shocks in an overheated economy and how to respond to demand shocks in a deflationary environment.

 

[jamny]

...

I was mostly just messing with my friend Stat, as he was with me. I'm not completely convinced he'll be reelected, although if the GOp contenders keep doing stuff like this it will be hard for him to lose.

But watching the Right go through the mental gymnastics required to continue the beatification of Reagan while slamming the deficit spending of the Obama presidency is just hilarious. I'd pay money to keep watching it.

TF, I am as sure as I can be at this point that he will be. Like I said, barring an unforseen catastrophe. The Republican party is unable to field a decent candidate to challenge President Obama.

Romney can beat Obama, especially if there isn't a clear trend upward in the economy by next summer.

 

[TobiasFunke]

...

I was mostly just messing with my friend Stat, as he was with me. I'm not completely convinced he'll be reelected, although if the GOp contenders keep doing stuff like this it will be hard for him to lose.

But watching the Right go through the mental gymnastics required to continue the beatification of Reagan while slamming the deficit spending of the Obama presidency is just hilarious. I'd pay money to keep watching it.

TF, I am as sure as I can be at this point that he will be. Like I said, barring an unforseen catastrophe. The Republican party is unable to field a decent candidate to challenge President Obama.

Romney can beat Obama, especially if there isn't a clear trend upward in the economy by next summer.

I think so too. Although I wonder if the Romney that emerges from the GOP primaries will be a far less viable candidate than the current version. He might have to pay lip service to a lot of far right social policies. Slip ups on gay rights and religious freedoms and whatnot could cause big problems with independent voters.

 

[Fensalk]

The economic situation Reagan inherited was pretty bad. High unemployment(7.5 at election and climbing), high interest rates(14-15% at election), inflation(12.65 at election) and other poor economic factors . So, Reagan raised some taxes, lowered some taxes (lowered taxes at a 2-1 ratio) and deficit spent mainly, if not exclusively, on the military. Sounds Keynsian to me and just what the political left wanted Obama to do. Yet, the left depicts his policies as "irresponsible". Reagan used government spending to lift us out of the worst economic malaise at the time since the Great Depression. This is what the political wants done now(see Krugman)...so why does the left dislike this?

The debt-to-GDP ratio during the Reagan administration was dramatically lower than it is today. Reagan probably averaged a 50% debt-to-GDP ratio. Under Obama, we are over 100%. We're debt spending like its WW2.http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.htmlIf we don't get our debt under control, it will slow the US economy. While debt spending stimulates an economy, an increasing percentage of future federal dollars will be diverted from spending to paying down the debt. That diverted money stimulates nothing, it becomes a vortex of federal dollars just vanishing out of the system. That is why in order to stimulate the economy, we actually have to cut debt. We need to get that debt to GDP ratio way back down. If we don't start cutting out debt spending, we're gonna wind up paying $1 trillon per year or more just in interest expense on our debt by 2020. That's $1 trillon that does not stimulate. It just goes up in smoke every year.

 

[Statorama]

But watching the Right go through the mental gymnastics required to continue the beatification of Reagan while slamming the deficit spending of the Obama presidency is just hilarious. I'd pay money to keep watching it. Comedy Central should add a half-hour show after Stewart and Colbert dedicated solely to this phenomenon.

There's a ton of gold to mine there

 

[Statorama]

Happy 50th President Obama!

To celebrate his birthday, President Obama is in Chicago raising campaign cash at a birthday party in his honor.

The cost to party with President Obama...only...$35,800.

 

[Statorama]

Jake Tapper from ABC World News last night:

... Still the President says he's now focusing like a LASER on job creation - by our count the 7th such pivot since the beginning of his presidency.

Ouch

 

[Statorama]

Moody's to downgrade credit rating if Obama doesn't lower the debt/GDP ratio

US borrowing tops 100% of GDP: Treasury

US debt shot up $238 billion to reach 100 percent of gross domestic project after the government's debt ceiling was lifted, Treasury figures showed Wednesday.

Treasury borrowing jumped Tuesday, the data showed, immediately after President Barack Obama signed into law an increase in the debt ceiling as the country's spending commitments reached a breaking point and it threatened to default on its debt.

The new borrowing took total public debt to $14.58 trillion, over end-2010 GDP of $14.53 trillion, and putting it in a league with highly indebted countries like Italy and Belgium.

Public debt subject to the official debt limit -- a slightly tighter definition -- was $14.53 trillion as of the end of Tuesday, rising from the previous official cap of $14.29 trillion a day earlier.

Treasury had used extraordinary measures to hold under the $14.29 trillion cap since reaching it on May 16, while politicians battled over it and over addressing the country's bloating deficit.

The official limit was hiked $400 billion on Tuesday and will be increased in stages over the next 18 months.

The last time US debt topped the size of its annual economy was in 1947 just after World War II. By 1981 it had fallen to 32.5 percent.

Ratings agencies have warned the country to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio quickly or facing losing its coveted AAA debt rating.

Moody's said Tuesday that the government needed to stabilize the ratio at 73 percent by 2015 "to ensure that the long-run fiscal trajectory remains compatible with a AAA rating."

 

[TobiasFunke]

Moody's to downgrade credit rating if Obama doesn't lower the debt/GDP ratio

US borrowing tops 100% of GDP: Treasury

US debt shot up $238 billion to reach 100 percent of gross domestic project after the government's debt ceiling was lifted, Treasury figures showed Wednesday.

Treasury borrowing jumped Tuesday, the data showed, immediately after President Barack Obama signed into law an increase in the debt ceiling as the country's spending commitments reached a breaking point and it threatened to default on its debt.

The new borrowing took total public debt to $14.58 trillion, over end-2010 GDP of $14.53 trillion, and putting it in a league with highly indebted countries like Italy and Belgium.

Public debt subject to the official debt limit -- a slightly tighter definition -- was $14.53 trillion as of the end of Tuesday, rising from the previous official cap of $14.29 trillion a day earlier.

Treasury had used extraordinary measures to hold under the $14.29 trillion cap since reaching it on May 16, while politicians battled over it and over addressing the country's bloating deficit.

The official limit was hiked $400 billion on Tuesday and will be increased in stages over the next 18 months.

The last time US debt topped the size of its annual economy was in 1947 just after World War II. By 1981 it had fallen to 32.5 percent.

Ratings agencies have warned the country to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio quickly or facing losing its coveted AAA debt rating.

Moody's said Tuesday that the government needed to stabilize the ratio at 73 percent by 2015 "to ensure that the long-run fiscal trajectory remains compatible with a AAA rating."

I love that you think the president is in charge of the federal government's spending and borrowing. It fits perfectly my perception that Tea Part enthusiasts have no understanding whatsoever of the Constitution that they so enthusiastically cite.I do, however, appreciate the fact that you seem to be conceding that the Obama will be the president in 2015.

 

[Anthony Borbely]

Moody's to downgrade credit rating if Obama doesn't lower the debt/GDP ratio

US borrowing tops 100% of GDP: Treasury

US debt shot up $238 billion to reach 100 percent of gross domestic project after the government's debt ceiling was lifted, Treasury figures showed Wednesday.

Treasury borrowing jumped Tuesday, the data showed, immediately after President Barack Obama signed into law an increase in the debt ceiling as the country's spending commitments reached a breaking point and it threatened to default on its debt.

The new borrowing took total public debt to $14.58 trillion, over end-2010 GDP of $14.53 trillion, and putting it in a league with highly indebted countries like Italy and Belgium.

Public debt subject to the official debt limit -- a slightly tighter definition -- was $14.53 trillion as of the end of Tuesday, rising from the previous official cap of $14.29 trillion a day earlier.

Treasury had used extraordinary measures to hold under the $14.29 trillion cap since reaching it on May 16, while politicians battled over it and over addressing the country's bloating deficit.

The official limit was hiked $400 billion on Tuesday and will be increased in stages over the next 18 months.

The last time US debt topped the size of its annual economy was in 1947 just after World War II. By 1981 it had fallen to 32.5 percent.

Ratings agencies have warned the country to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio quickly or facing losing its coveted AAA debt rating.

Moody's said Tuesday that the government needed to stabilize the ratio at 73 percent by 2015 "to ensure that the long-run fiscal trajectory remains compatible with a AAA rating."

I must have missed the part where Moody's mentioned Obama.

 

[Statorama]

I love that you think the president is in charge of the federal government's spending and borrowing.

His policies dictate where the blank check is spent Edit to add: Like his campaign bus tour he just announced

 

[urbanhack]

I love that you think the president is in charge of the federal government's spending and borrowing.

He's in charge of where the blank check is spent Edit to add: Like his campaign bus tour he just announced

Really? All by himself??

 

[Statorama]

I love that you think the president is in charge of the federal government's spending and borrowing.

His policies dictate where the blank check is spent Edit to add: Like his campaign bus tour he just announced

Really? All by himself??

I cleaned it up a little

 

[urbanhack]

I love that you think the president is in charge of the federal government's spending and borrowing.

His policies dictate where the blank check is spent Edit to add: Like his campaign bus tour he just announced

Really? All by himself??

I cleaned it up a little

You still have a lot of work to do.

 

[Statorama]

Money would get spent a lot more effectively if the Tea Party were in charge of everything. Just sayin.

 

[Statorama]

You still have a lot of work to do.

Don't you dare try to take Obama off the hook for the economic damage he's done to this country.

 

[Statorama]

Obama and his cronies are out of ammo to stimulate the economy

(Reuters) - The United States has a jobs problem and there's not a lot President Barack Obama or Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke can do about it.

In the face of rising risks of a recession that could imperil his re-election chances next year, Democrat Obama wants Congress to extend a payroll tax cut and emergency unemployment benefits that are due to expire in December.

But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is emboldened by budget concessions it made Obama swallow to lift the country's debt limit this week and he has little political leverage to win significant fresh spending to aid growth.

"Obama does not have much presidential persuasion left. He is running out of capital," said James Thurber, of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.

Obama's political opponents have been openly scornful of the impact of two previous stimulus packages, which were accompanied by extraordinary measures by the Federal Reserve to kick-start the U.S. economy.

"It seems we've thrown everything at it. We've had QE1 and QE2, Stimulus 1 and Stimulus 2, and the unemployment rate is still 9.2 percent," said John Makin, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "Maybe there are just not many options here at this point," he said.

World stock markets shuddered after disappointing U.S. growth and manufacturing numbers and investors rushed to buy long-dated U.S. Treasury bonds in a move that suggests deep concerns about the economic outlook.

Data on Friday is expected to confirm the U.S. unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.2 percent in July.

Lawrence Summers, a top Obama adviser until last year, wrote in a Reuters column on Tuesday the odds of another U.S. recession were 1 in 3. Goldman Sachs has said a slight tick up in the unemployment rate could provide a strong recession signal.

HARD-WON COMPROMISE

Obama signed a hard-won compromise on Tuesday to raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt limit in return for measures that will reduce deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over 10 years.

Joel Prakken of the forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers estimates an extension of the payroll tax cut could add about 0.25 percentage points to U.S. growth next year.

Republicans fought hard to cut spending but are open to tax cuts, and the White House expects bipartisan support when Obama advances the idea in the coming months.

But analysts are skeptical it will make much difference for an economy that is having trouble gaining traction.

"A major option is extending the payroll tax cut. We did that in December, and the economy grew at a 0.6 percent annual rate over the first half of the year," said Makin.

But the economic benefit of extending the payroll tax cut will be curbed by the government spending cuts agreed to Obama, and a weak economy will make hitting deficit-reduction targets that much more difficult.

JPMorgan's Michael Feroli estimates fiscal policy will subtract about 1-3/4 percentage points from growth next year as spending cuts kick in, if the earlier payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extensions expire on schedule.

"Given that GDP growth has been 1.6 percent over the past four quarters when fiscal policy has been much less of a drag, this doesn't bode well for next year," he said.

JPMorgan has cut its first half 2012 growth forecast to 2 percent from 2.5 pct due to fiscal drag.

Bernanke also seems to have few options at his disposal.

The Fed is not expected to announce an extension of its so-called quantitative easing, or QE, measures to stimulate economic activity at a policy meeting on Tuesday, despite the sense of gloom descending on the economy.

If push comes to shove, the Fed would likely look to cement its promise of keeping in place a loose monetary policy for a long period. It might even consider shifting the composition of its Treasury note holdings toward longer maturities, an option Bernanke has raised as a way to give the economy some relief.

"Someone should do something. Given that the Congress has declared itself unwilling to provide support for the economy, the Fed will feel pressure to try to do what it can," said Barry Eichengreen, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

NO GAME-CHANGER

However, the Fed's options hardly add up to a game-changing play to dramatically improve the U.S. outlook.

"Everyone is really looking to the Fed to support the economy, and I think (Bernanke) would realize that you could only do so much with monetary policy," said Mike Knebel at Portland, Oregon-based Ferguson Wellman Capital Management.

The Fed's scope for more easing of monetary policy has been narrowed by a rise in core inflation, which bottomed at 0.9 percent in December but has since hit 1.3 percent.

As Obama signed the debt deal, which averted a devastating default and reduced the risk to the country's AAA credit rating, he promised more ideas to boost hiring soon.

The White House declined to say what he had in mind or when he would lay out suggestions. But Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post that Congress could make space to fund a payroll tax cut extension by "locking in" long-term budget savings.

With lawmakers out of town for a summer recess, no major initiative is likely before September, although Obama does plan a Midwestern bus tour from August 15 to August 17 to talk up jobs.

When it comes, the odds favor small steps that allow Obama to show he is taking action, without disturbing investors.

"There is a good case to be made for additional stimulus, but given our fiscal situation it has to be targeted to create more jobs," said Karen Dynan, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

 

[Anthony Borbely]

Money would get spent a lot more effectively if the Tea Party were in charge of everything. Just sayin.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

You still have a lot of work to do.

Don't you dare try to take Obama off the hook for the economic damage he's done to this country.

You mean by adopting all of the GOP polices - especially the debt deal.