Originally Posted by
DrSmellThis
idesign, if what you're saying is that Obama is pushing too much political agenda
through the stimulus bill, I agree totally. That seems like a good objective criticism that is possible to respond
to. He already has a voter mandate to enact his campaign promises and change things from the last administration, so
there is no reason to do it through the back door. That is a missed opportunity for real change, and it somehow
cheapens the importance of a stimulus.
I also share your concerns about how much stimulus money will end up where
it is supposed to, and not just end up as bonuses or whatever. If it's only 10%, obviously, that would be
trouble. This problem is so obvious, that I hope Obama's team is concerned as well.
However, I certainly
wouldn't go so far as to say he doesn't care about the economic recovery in the slightest. I know the Rush
Limbaughs of the world love to say stuff like that about non-republicans. But he is enacting a stimulus package,
after all, and fixing the economy has been by far the dominant use of his time since he got in. The first thing he
did after the election was to put together a bipartisan economic team. (which was nothing if not an attempt at
separating ideology from economics, by the way. But if the fact that no republican voted for the stimulus package,
despite it being close to the republican version, means Obama is being the partisan ideologue, then OK.)
If you
just wanted to argue he is pushing it through too fast, then, again, I might agree with you, even though I can see
why a new president in this situation would want to hurry up with it. We are in an acute crisis.
Sounds like you
are very frustrated with him, and I can understand that, since neither of our guys won. But it seems that if, even
for a minute, he does anything other than enact extreme, permanent tax cuts in the highest brackets,
which is the preferred right wing "solution" for every economic problem (yet they recently called the lower and
middle class tax cuts "welfare"), that media ideologues are going to happily rain down every possible negative
judgement of character upon him. It's the same old rhetoric, like calling people who don't favor the war -- who
disagree -- "unpatriotic".
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