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Audacity of Truth
"Change" You Can Believe In:
"Nixon didn’t try to do that. They couldn't control (the media). They didn’t try. [...] What the hell do they think we are, puppets?"
- Liberal opinion writer Helen Thomas, describing the Obama admin's penchant for heavily scripting public appearances & press conferences - 7/1/09
What Barack Obama means when he talks about “change” and “bipartisanship”
Ever notice that during every presidential election cycle, at least one candidate is promising a "change" in Washington, DC? This year’s agent of "change" is Senator Barack Obama. The speech he made when he announced his candidacy back in February 2007 was titled "Change We Can Believe In." It’s been the centerpiece of his candidacy. He wants to end the gridlock in Washington, DC, reach across partisan lines, all in order to "get things done." When the average person hears that, they may think, "Wow, he really wants to extend a hand to the other side of the aisle and work together to come up with solutions both sides can be happy with."
But tell me something: Assuming for purposes of discussion that Barack Obama wins the nomination and then the presidency, what gridlock is he going to be presented with after he takes the oath of office? A Republican Congress? Nope. At best, we’ll keep the numbers we have in the House and Senate. The liberal lion of the Senate Ted Kennedy - and many other solidly liberal politicians and public figures – have endorsed his candidacy. His socialized healthcare agenda, his plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, amongst other ideas under his liberal agenda, will meet with very little opposition – and even at that it will be an opposition that will not be in any position to demand any substantial compromises. The only Republicans an Obama administration would have to reach out to would be a few moderate Republicans in the Senate whose votes they would need to ensure a bill comes up for a vote in the Senate.
So what "change" is Barack Obama talking about? Nothing that involves working across the aisle outside of getting few votes he’d need to pass his agenda. He’s praised Reagan for his ability to get things done in Washington, DC, but Reagan got things done as a Republican president working with a Democratic Congress, something that was unquestionably much tougher to do than what an Obama administration would have to face with a Democrat Congress hungry to implement their (and his) liberal ideas.
Let’s also not forget that whenever you hear a politician talking about "reaching across the aisle" in a "gesture of bipartisanship," what they’re talking about is conceding the bare minimum to the opposition in order to get their agenda accomplished. Rembember Pelosi and Reid’s promises of "change" and "bipartisanship" leading up to and and immediately after the 2006 election? We know how that turned out.
And a show of hands how many of you believe that many of Obama’s supporters who tout his eloquent manner of speaking and how he promises "unity" in DC actually want him to reach across the aisle in the "spirit of bipartisanship" in the manner the average voter would assume he meant? The left already flip out as it is when the Dems don’t deliver to the letter everything they want in a bill or resolution – there’s no way in hell this "pro-change" gang is actually in favor of the "unity" Obama is promising. The "change" they want is a change from conservative/moderate ideas to solid liberal ideas that borderline on the Socialistic.
Remember all this the next time someone starts preaching the benefits of the"change how things work in DC" candidate, whether it be Barack Obama or whoever - ask ‘em what they mean by it, and ask them if they understand what the candidate means by it, too.
Related: Obama’s eloquence and spirit has even impressed some Republicans, according to the Washington Post. Ericka Anderson at Redstate understands why, but also explains why, for all his impressive talk, Obama isn’t cut out to be the Commander in Chief.
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Wrong again, Mark. The 90% tax rates didn’t help us pay off the debt. Rather, they delayed the payment. Had the JFK tax cuts been done sooner, the fed’s revenue would have increased sooner, and the debt retired faster.
So if paying off the WWII debt – or the debt we have today, for that matter – were important to you, you’d be looking for the optimal point on the Laffer curve, not for the 90% marginal rate area which stifles investment, costs jobs, and reduces federal tax receipts.
But that’s not really what you’re interested in, is it? From what you’ve posted here, your main goal is to pare down the military and watch every nickel they spend – a diligence you utterly refuse to apply to any entitlement programs. Your secondary aim seems to be tossing around the standard leftist “punish the rich” meme. If someone has a dollar more than you, it must be confiscated in the name of some perverted sense of social justice. You really don’t care if those policies cause economic downturns and less money for your precious entitlements in the long run – as long as you feel good about sticking it to the evil rich and the corporations. It may not make any economic sense, but name me a leftist idea that does.
GW, you’re putting words in my mouth and assuming intent on my part, setting me up as a leftist strawman and striking out against the wind. The 90% rate is obviously as stupid as a 10% rate. You actually proved my point. I’m called a liar and leftist, made out to be a fool when my point was that over the last few decades the left and right have been beating on each other over a 12.5% rate change, the Bush rate vs.s the Clinton rate. Well done. You get a cookie for knowing what I care about and what I don’t. Can you guess what I think of your argument?
Baklava: Just so I know how much of a liar I am, how much of that Heritage Foundation graph is attributing debt service and military retirement pay as part of the mandatory spending? I take it you are agreeing that the majority of debt service stems from over and off budget military cost. And is that graph using real dollars or adjusting for inflation as a percentage of GDP (actual buying power). I can’t tell from the graph and I’d like to compare apples to apples if possible. Factoring spending as function of GDP reveals a much flatter chart.
I can link interesting graphs too. From the looks of it, the debt was dropping pretty steadily from Truman on, leveled off when Nixon got in power, skyrocketed during Reagan/Bush, went down again from the Ike-like percentage of GDP it reached under GHW Bush up until Clinton began paying it down again, and Bush (43) pushed it back to Ike levels.
And BTW, read what I wrote again. I was talking about the rate of increase of the debt and military spending vs a much slower rate of increase for the social programs.
Let me try and explain it this way:
Here’s the Rate of increase in ‘07 budget over ‘06 budget:
Military or mostly military:
Debt service rose 13.4% over last year.
On-budget Military rose 9%
Vets 5.8%
Unfunded social programs:
Medicaid 2.9%
unemployment/welfare 2%
education 1.3%
Fully funding Social Programs:
Security 7%
Medicare 12.4%
Now, Medicare is as much a problem with a whole different argument, what to do about health care, but most of it is from rising cost industry wide. Either way, since it and Soc.Sec. are running in the black, they pay down the debt, the biggest item when charting the marginal rise in spending per item.
Oh, and don’t forget the wars which aren’t even budgeted and go straight to the cost of the debt.
I know it’s redundant, especially when you are so fond of repeatedly calling me a liar, but really, are you daft?
And it was by design. The White House itself stated that Bush has increased military spending by a third over his first term. Now if you factor in inflation, the much smaller rates of increase on the social programs (at least the unfunded ones) would be considered a reduction as a percent of GDP.
You realize the more you call me a liar over things I am not lying about only makes you look foolish. Misguided or uninformed would be better things to call me when a plain reading of what I wrote shows not a hint of mendacity on my part.
See Baklava, when you were referring to what I said about Soc.Sec. and Medicare, you were quite mistaken when you said:
They are not. Your blanket statement is not born out by the facts.
Now, not to burst your bubble that you are some kind of guru when it comes to reciting facts and figures better than everyone, you were wrong. I can’t put it any nicer and would hate to think you deliberately lied about this simple fact.
Opinions are one thing. They can change and should adapt in the face of changing facts. Facts don’t change, they don’t lie. If you insist on continuing this childish display, I take it that your offer to return here was to fulfill some foolish desire throw rhetorical stones and not engage in an adult discussion. That’s sad, because you seem to grasp the language well enough, you just don’t have the intellectual honesty to admit when you may have been in error. Too bad.
Got LOL at this thread.
Folks comparing the numbers using GDP when up to a few years ago numbers were based on GNP, as just one example.
Numbers recited that are optimally coerced to reflect one side of an argumenet. “Truth in politics”? Jebus H. Keee-rist.
Being an accountant, I’ve often heard the expression “The numbers don’t lie”. I know from personal exerience that they can be manipulated to “stretch” the truth though.
For example, increase military spending.
Duh.
When it is slashed to 19% due to a non-existant “peace dividend” of course it will be increased once we go to war. Without looking at exact numbern increase of “one-third” will still only make it les than 25% of the entire budget wghich is less than half of what it once was.
I would hope that the increase of spending on the military is rising at a faster rate than socila programs.
*Shrug*
No matter, most is fiscally irresponsible in both the social and military spending as the governemet is terrribly innefficient at ANYTHING the do.
Please, continue your discussion though. I will no longer interfere.
A military strong enough, well equipped enough, and with enough manpower to take whatever natural resources we need is my idea of an effective energy policy.
Military spending needs to be back at 50% of the budget again. Given the nature of the world we live in and the threats we face that might even be too little.
Well golly gee, Mark…you mean you didn’t laud the 90% taxation rate as the reason for paying off the WWII debt? In that case, you’d better find out who’s posting here in your name, because he has no grasp of basic economics and is making you look foolish.
As for whether you fit comfortably into the leftist ensemble, let’s consider:
You find nothing wrong with a Social Security ponzi scheme that even most liberal economists agree is in trouble – well, nothing that can’t be fixed with (what else) a hefty tax increase.
You concede Baklava’s numbers showing the reduction of military spending from 50% of budget to 19% – and conclude that somehow means the military’s share of the pie is increasing. On that, I’ll be charitable and assume were you standing on your head when you looked at the same graphs Baklava used.
And then there’s the blubbering about the vetos of the SCHIP expansion, which was a vote-buying gimmick to expand the program into the middle and even upper-middle class. The ironic thing is that the reason for the veto is that the expansion did NOT target those who should benefit from the plan, but whether a program is actually useful seems to be less important to you than how much it can be spent on it. Military excepted, of course.
Leftist? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
By the way, when you rail against the evil military industrial complex, you might try to get the company names right. It’s McDonnell Douglas, not McDonald-Douglas. They made aircraft, not hamburgers. And the company hasn’t existed as such for over 10 years since it was acquired by Boeing. You really need to stop using that yellowing copy of the Daily Worker as your reference.
I gave that about a nanosecond of consideration, which is more than it merits, and concluded that I don’t give a rip.
GWR wrote, “You concede Baklava’s numbers showing the reduction of military spending from 50% of budget to 19% – and conclude that somehow means the military’s share of the pie is increasing.”
Thus I gave up.
Pegged it pretty well GWR, just another leftist troll who is generous to a fault, only with other people’s money. Never met a social program, no matter how corrupt or ineffective, that he didn’t like and want increased. Never met a military expenditure he didn’t want to cut, regardless of the deleterious impact on the safety and security of the country.
Nothing new here, just another leftist cut out in the standard cookie cutter mold, identical to every other little budding communist.