Republicans, Citing Past Democratic Promises, Question Democrats’ Credibility on Wall Street Reform

“Republicans are beginning to attack the financial regulatory reform bill by attacking the Democrats pitching it as simply not believable.” – ABC News
Well that makes sense.
It’s always good to fight your opponent using the truth.
The Demos are not trustworthy or believable.
Let’s see where they go from that good start.
Posted by: Noz | Apr 23, 2010 4:39:37 PM
____________________________________
The Republicans are hypocrites.
The Bush administration doubles the national debt and then oversees the almost complete free-fall collapse of the economy.
The Republicans know full well the effect of an economic collapse on deficits and budgets.
The Republicans know full well the Bush administration shuffle accounting around so neither of the wars was paid for, nor the seniors drug plan – nor the tax cuts for the rich. They financed the tax cuts for the rich on debt for our children.
The Republicans are far less credible than the Democrats.
Nice try boys.

The “ACTUAL CITATION” is from the Jan. 9, 2009 report called “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”. Look it up yourself, it implies or projects that unemployment won’t rise mush above 8% as a result of the “stimulus”.

Precisely.

this corrupt administration is infested with Government Sachs former employees…Obama, nothing more than a snakeoil salesman

“It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant
margins of error. There is the obvious uncertainty that comes from modeling a hypothetical
package rather than the final legislation passed by the Congress. But, there is the more fundamental
uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic
relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly
in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the
current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.”
Did you miss that part, Mike, Mike, CO? How about the footnote on the exact passage you picked out:
“Forecasts of the unemployment rate without the recovery plan vary substantially. Some private forecasters anticipate
unemployment rates as high as 11% in the absence of action.”
How about a little honesty?

“REPORT: ObamaCare will increase nation’s healthcare costs…
nothing but low life LIARS in this adminstration and the media
another crisis-another photo op | Apr 23, 2010 5:43:53 PM
Odd definition of “cost” being used there. US heathcare spending – total spending, not per person, not just government – is projected to increase 0.9% WHILE COVERING 34 MILLION MORE PEOPLE.
If I buy a six pack of beer for $10 today, and then get a free can with my sixpack next week (total of 7 beers) for $10.10, I usually don’t whine about my costs increasing.

Lets not forget who got us into this financial mess. It wasn’t the democrats. Republican’s really think they have a right to talk, when they are the main reason we are in this mess with all the past administration’s lies.
So please republicans, stop with your games and do something for the middle and lower class people – for once.
I am not saying Democrats are perfect, but they are trying to fix the loopholes that led us to this mess. – Republicans should man up, and fix their mistakes. Stop worrying about midterms, and do something.

“Doesn’t sound like a firm promise or prediction to me”
So you are apologizing for the projection and implication, that was very clear, that the package would keep unemployment lower than 8.8% (in fact no higher than 8%)?
Why the excuses? Isn’t Romer supposed to make predictions about the economy based on congress’ economic policy? I guess it was Bush’s fault that Romer wrote that report with those specific predictions?
Rhetorical, of course. You already made up your mind, even in the face of the inconvenient “evidence” you asked for…
But then you revised your comment to claim that unemployment was “promised”, which was not what Jake claimed. The administration merely projected at the time, and missed there projections by 2%. Maybe you need to clarify your language, not Jake?

So you are apologizing for the projection and implication, that was very clear, that the package would keep unemployment lower than 8.8% (in fact no higher than 8%)?
_______________________________________
No, I’m actually able to read English, and am well enough educated to understand what the following means . . .
From the report . ..
“It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to SIGNIFICANT margins of error.
“There is the obvious uncertainty that comes from modeling A HYPOTHETICAL PACKAGE rather than the final legislation passed by the Congress.
“But, there is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode.
“Furthermore, THE UNCERTAINTY IS HIGHER THAN NORMAL NOW because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.”

They’ve been milking that disclaimer for a year now.
Foghorn Leghorn | Apr 23, 2010 6:23:50 PM
You’ve been lying about it for a year now. I’m an engineer and I’d be fired if I dismissed a disclaimer that said “these performance values are subject to significant margins of error.”
It’s not very hard to understand at all that the numbers were estimates. It is VERY hard to comprehend the argument that the stimulus somehow didn’t create jobs however (since when does $200 billion+ in tax breaks alone not create jobs in Republicanland???).

When Obama gives back the 1 million dollars he received from Goldman Sach for his Presidential campaign, I will start believing that he is serious about reform.
The Democratic party has deep, deep connections with Wall Street. Sad that the Left is being played with this demagoguery.

Why the excuses? Isn’t Romer supposed to make predictions about the economy based on congress’ economic policy?
Mike, CO | Apr 23, 2010 6:23:22 PM
The excuses are statements of documented and cited reality. Just because they contradict your talking points doesn’t make these facts into ‘excuses.’ And, as the disclaimer foresaw, that projection wasn’t even for the actual bill that was passed, which was modified significantly after that projection.
“the Obama administration had said at one point that by now the stimulus would mean unemployment was below 8%.”
Jake can read – both the actual white paper and what he wrote – and decide for himself if he’s reporting honestly. He’s parroting a Little Lie and may not even realize it.

Lets not forget who got us into this financial mess. It wasn’t the democrats. Republican’s really think they have a right to talk, when they are the main reason we are in this mess with all the past administration’s lies.
This is the problem with democrats. It wasn’t republicans that got us into the mess. The gov’t forced banks etc to give loans out to people that could not afford them and the republicans in 2005 saw this coming and tried to stop it but the DEMOCRATS and barny frank stop’ed us from passing reform. Take a look at who benefit the most during those years it was the democrats.

The Republicans are far less credible than the Democrats….
Posted by: tierra | Apr 23, 2010 5:03:47 PM
Agreed. Steve Benen at Washington Monthly’s Political Animal has a post up called “THE CONSEQUENCES OF INTELLECTUAL BANKRUPTCY.” In talking about political discourse and debate, starting off with the health care reform debate, he makes some obvious but important points:
Posted by: progressive mama | Apr 23, 2010 6:05:03 PM
———————————————–
How utterly ridiculous.
Intellectual honesty is something that Democratic party politicians need to leave at the door in order to succeed in their party.
How honest is Obama when he goes after Goldman Sach, but he refuses to give back the 1 million dollars that this company gave him during the Presidential elections?
How honest is it for Democrat politicians claiming that the Republican party is kneed deep with Wall Street when the Democratic party and Obama received many more millions from Wall Street for their elections than did the Republicans in 2008?
Intellectual honesty from Democrats? You don’t buy your own B.S. do you?

Interesting how Mr. Foster’s third party report has more weight with Republicans than others that showed the health care reform bill would help our deficit.
And how the heck does this have anything to do with financial regulation? Do Republicans really think the American public is dumb enough to fall for this failed comparison?
Republicans pushed for and got the Gramm bill passed in the 90′s to deregulate huge parts of the regulation put in place after the Depression. This led to the financial storm we just weathered. They need to man up,admit their ideas were awful and quickly work with Dems to craft a bill that will prevent this kind of disaster from happening again.

Mike and Jays answers are coherent and truthful. What’s with you Obama supporters? Fact check what they wrote or is the collapse of the US economy more important than your fragile egos?

Paula Poundstone used to do this funny routine where she said she’d spray her cat with a water bottle, and the cat didn’t know she was doing it and would run to her for protection.
In this country, the government is Paula Poundstone and the foolish liberals are the cat.

Republicans took such a big hit when Health Care finally passed,they are desperate to discredit the Dems any way they can. Any all all negative news they can find will be trumpetted from the highest hill. They go nothin else to fight with.They are bankrupt because everyone now knows thet are not only the “Party of NO” but also the “Party of No Ideas Whatsoever”.

I love the democrats revisionist history. Reagan inherited a worst economy than obama did and guided us into 20+ years of economic prosperity. When Clinton took over he almost took us down until the Republicans took control of congress in 1994 when we started to experience the greatest bull market of our time. However Greenspan took care of that by his y2k fix that created the dot.com bubble burst whic we haven’t recovered from. The democrats with their creation of the CRA, Fannie and Freddie are what caused the financial crises we just experienced. There are enough YouTube videos showing Barney and his fellow democrats supporting Fannie and Freddie. Now we have GM paying down the TARP debt with TARP Funds according to the IG during this past Tuesday’s Senate hearings and Biden claiming that it is a great accomplishment. If it wasn’t for Franklin R. and his SS we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today. Let’s stop this silly game by looking into the past to blame the lack of accomplishment today. The Dem’s have had control of the Economy for 4 years now and the only people getting rich is Wall Street.
” Invincible ignorance can never be enlighten”

Reform is code for take-over. It is like all thing Liberals want under their control. The citizen, his health, health care, inurance, banks, securities, real estate. In short, they want to control capital within the free market framework, to establish prices, and to establish wages. That is the definition of Marxism.
We saw that they bankrupt Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. They even bankrupt their cafeteria, and had to contract with the private sector who run it at cost.
We have seen the Stimulus plan that only stimulated the pocketbooks of Obama supporters and leftwing lobbyists.
Obama has implemented the failed economic policies of FDR.

they are desperate to discredit the Dems any way they can.
Posted by: mauibucky |
as always, the best way to discredit a political party is to give em control of Congress and the White House.

tierra, Reagan was cleaning up Carters mess and it resulted in the biggest boon in American economic history. Thanks so very much for calling me cute….it’s true.
Posted by: Kathy | Apr 23, 2010 6:55:25 PM
______________________________________
Interesting with Reagan – as with Bush – it ended with a collapse of the stock market and grossly increased national debt.
p.s.- Obama is cleaning up Bush’s mess – the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, and – unlike Reagan – we haven’t gone through 19 months with unemployment over 9%, nor 10 months with unemployment OVER 10%.
Obama has been doing an excellent job.

“You’ve been lying about it for a year now. I’m an engineer and I’d be fired if I dismissed a disclaimer that said “these performance values are subject to significant margins of error.”"
Hmm — would you be fired for failing in your predictions as well? Probably fired, if not reprimanded.
Why reward Romer and Obama, for their poor predicting abilities? What I hear are excuses for the current rate of unemployment. I don’t hear accountability.
By acknowledging that you are wrong, does that rectify the situation? Apparently some on this board naively believe that it does…

“You’ve been lying about it for a year now. I’m an engineer and I’d be fired if I dismissed a disclaimer that said “these performance values are subject to significant margins of error.”"
Posted by: Mike, CO | Apr 23, 2010 7:06:47 PM
______________________________________
Mike you seem to be having a difficult time understanding plain english. The authors of the report went to great pains to point out their figures were put together without the benefit of knowing the final stimulus bill – and should not be expected to be exact predictions of the future because of that.
Yet still, the Republicans and the right wing have been clinging to ‘you said 8%! You said 8%!’ for months now. Phony.

I believe that ABC news could use a fact checker. The claim:
“The debt has increased over $2 trillion since he took office.”
is only possible if you remove the two wars and the natural disasters that Bush didn’t include in the budget.
Most of the increase in the debt since Obama took office is a result of fixing the books that Bush cooked.

When the dollar collapses remember the democrats.

“tierra, Reagan was cleaning up Carters mess and it resulted in the biggest boon in American economic history”
Huh?
Reagan went thru of the worst recessions in the 20th century in 1982 with the economy not recovering until 1983.
The economy was doing quite well until the Black Monday stock market crash and soon slipped into another recession.
Reagan has a decent if mixed economic record, but hardly the biggest boom in American history.

ObaMarxism will give everyone free healthcare, will give everyone a paycheck, and will take care of the problem of the rich and the upper class in this country & will balnce the budget too!!!!!…….
Maybe one of the koolaid drinkers here can explain HOW adding a TRILLION $ to Bush’s old record deficit will help the economy recover from Bush’s old record deficits?
Apparently, liberals skipped school the day they taught that a trillion is a 1000 billion.
Buffoons!

“Funny how all the Democrats pushed for the Community Reinvestment Act which got us the sub-prime mess.”
So legislation enacted in 1978 to prevent banks from not lending money to people based on skin color, caused the economic meltdown in 2008.
Not the end of the housing boom.
Not the derivatives market which was selling worthless items for huge profits.

Within days after the passage of the Health Care Reform Bill, health care providers and insurance agents were flooded with calls from people wanting to sign up for free care only to find out that there was no free Obamacare available to them. A young acquaintance who voted for Obama called her parents’ insurance agency wanting to be put on their policy. She too was disappointed to find out that it was not yet available. She said that Obama, in his speeches, made it sound like those benefits were going to be available immediately and was surprised to find out that it was not so.
Why then would anybody believe that things will be different with Finance Reform? The people are probably going to be sold one thing and once again get something quite different. This bill must be put on full display for several weeks before it is voted on so that we can all see what it is about.

“Funny how the Democrats repealed Glass-Steagall which got us into the derivative and bank mess”
Bill Clinton said in the interview last Sunday that in effect the different types of banking had blended in other ways so much that by the time they repealed Glass-Steagall it wasn’t effective anymore anyway. But I’ll bet you-all think he’s a big-time koolaid dispenser too…so you’ll dismiss this explanation as well. With so many people who only remember explanations they like to hear it’s no wonder FOX has so many viewers.

“they are desperate to discredit the Dems any way they can.”
Yeah, can’t let silly little details like “facts” and “logic” get in the way of our hope and change.
It doesn’t take much to discredit something that blatantly obviously isn’t going to work. You can’t throw $2 trillion at a screaming crowd and somehow expect to make money off of it. The Obamacare bill was a scam from the start, and it only ever worked out as they said it would if you ignore an awful lot of things that were going to go wrong from the start – that the “doctor fix” didn’t count somehow because it’s a seperate bill, that future congresses would maintain the medicare and medicaid cuts, that nobody would try to cheat the system and pay the fine instead of buying insurance (despite it being nearly 10x cheaper), that insurance companies, who are already running on 2% profit margins, would be able to stay in business without raising premiums, that no doctors or hospitals would go under as a result of having to pay more and earn less, that there will still be doctors who want to take medicare patients despite the fact that they will basically lose money by doing so, and so on and so on and so on.
Basically, this report is exactly what people have been saying for over a year now.
The only reply I could think of when I read it was… “well, duh”.

The idea that the elite Deemers will back off their agenda is something we will all have to wait to see, their arrogance exceeds their intelligence and to put it bluntly the have more balls than brains. Hairy Reed, loves to play king maker, Chi-town style, he does not believe in being a represenatative of the people in any way, his thug side is more than evident and he fits this administration like a glove….goodbye Hairy.

A rational person would understand that the more that government tries to influence and regulate private enterprise, the more that private enteprise will try to influence government. Senator Obama collected more lobbyist money than any previous presidential candidate. His financial “reforms” guarantee even larger sacks of dough will be delivere to his re-election campaign. The guy is a fraud.

I have good Government job and good health. You will be paying my salary while I am watching porn on Internet and then you will pay my pension while I will be watching porn at home.
Sorry, I have to go to rally. I am 5’8″ in SEIU jeans and ACORN jacket with sign “RAISE MY TAXES”. Give me 5!

“I want Palin + Chuck Norris – not necessarily a lot of experience, but highly popular and strongly conservative, ”
Wow a celebration of ignorance and stupidity.

“Yes the Democrats are so qualified to make the financial bill since they had a major hand in causing the crisis”
And trying to make people think that has become a full-time occupation for the GOP especially since polling shows most Americans blame Bush and the Republicans.

It’s not quite discrimination — it’s called “being able to pay back what you borrow.” And many of the Acorn/Illegal borrowers were thoroughly unable to back their sub-prime mortgages
___________________________________
Date: Monday, July 1 2002
President Bush announced an Administration effort to increase home ownership rates among African Americans and Hispanics by 5.5 million by 2010.
The plan would provide down payment assistance to 40,000 minority homebuyers each year . .
Bush’s plan would be closely tied to some $440 million in minority loan programs offered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Bush commended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s efforts . ..
——————————–

Re: “Discrimination in Lending”
We were talking about the CRA, not Freddie and Fannie or any of the other stuff. However your intentional or otherwise effort to conflate all these things is just another lame attempt to make the ding-bat fabricated theory that affordable housing caused the financial crisis repeatable for the right-wing choir.

“Radio shows with Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh are a continual education, unlike the public schools run by the teachers unions to keep children uneducated”
In studies people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch FOX are much less likely to be able to answer even simple questions correctly about recent history and current events than people who listen to NPR and watch other networks [and probably support public schools].

“The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago”
Well why didn’t they pass it then? The Republicans controlled both houses and had majorities on the relevant committees.

tierra and skip – you seem to have skipped over the part where the Dems including Dodd opposed increased regualtion of Fannie and Freddie. ANd Dodd as late July 2008 said “These two institutions are fundamentally, fundamentally strong,” Dodd said. “There’s no reason for the kind of reaction we’re getting.”
You know you’ll feel better if you just admit the Democrats were as much at fault as the Republicans. And those are the same Democrat leaders who are trying to make legislation now.

Posted by: jschmidt | Apr 23, 2010 10:44:45 PM
The Democrats didn’t hold the presidency and the congress back in 2003 – the Republicans did. Their failure to pass housing finance reform is no feather in their cap.

skip and tierra- so you will blindly follow those legislatots such as Dodd and Frank who worked against any legislation to limit Fannie and Freddie. By your support you are sanctioning their actions and supporting the decisions of people who are as much to blame for subprime as the Republicanss. So according to the minority party gets no blame. I’ll remember that when the Democrats current legislation is a dismal failure and you try to blame Republicans. You guys are really blind to the porblems with the Dems. And if you’ve read my comments the words of Frank, Dodd and Clinton already prove their culpability in subprime with their own words.

Give it a rest. The Republicans are just as much crooks, if not moreso than the Democrats.

skip July 2008-Democrats were in control of Congress. He and Franks stopped legislation of Fannie and Freddie- he could have limited subprime mess- he didn’t. Do not insult my intelligence.
Sen. Dodd calls Fannie, Freddie ‘fundamentally strong’
By Michael R. Crittenden
Last update: 3:11 p.m. EDT July 11, 2008
“This is not a time to be panicking about this. These are viable, strong institutions,” Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said at a Capitol Hill press conference.

“When the Democrats took control they did bring regulations on Freddie and Fannie to the floor for a vote and many Republicans voted AGAINST them. ” – Skippy
Maybe because Frank and Dodd were telling everyone just how strong and solvent those institutions were.

Interesting to watch both sides argue which is wrong. Fools! As Rothchild was quoted as saying “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”There is your culprit. This internal fighting just strengthens the grip. When the masses wake up it will be too late. This nation was born in 1776. It died in 2008.

You Democrat supporters here are just plain blind and you can;t be reasoned with.
_____________________________________
Oh don’t be silly – people with attention spans longer than that of a fruit fly remember exactly what it was like when the Republicans, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their ilk had control of things – nobody who remembers it wants it again – ever.

The majority of the country now admits Obama and the Dems are putting the country on the wrong track. They made a mistake electing this mob and in November we will rectify that mistake.
Posted by: jschmidt | Apr 23, 2010 11:50:08 PM
________________________________
President Obama is at 50% approval today in Gallup.
When Bush and Cheney and the Republicans left office, Bush was at about 20% approval, Cheney down at 11% and the rest of them not much better.
It’s pretty clear which ‘mob’ the people of America don’t trust.

Why does ABC have to title this as the GOP questioning the Dem’s? WHY DON”T THEY QUESTION IT? Answer…. they wont question the good times at OUR EXPENSE (that’s you and me tax payer, forget about the freeloaders), all those DC parties! Yeah Baby Big Money, Big Money, No Whammy! Yeah! Go ABC Go! Go Go Go Go !!!!

To all those who blame one party or the other listen to yourselves. This is a government problem and there is plenty of blame to go around. We as the “middle class” don’t see the backroom deals which lead to the decisions which are splitting the country. What is the purpose of fighting about whose fault it was/is. Do you feel better about yourself after spewing vitriol at the other “average American?” The question is how to fix it and where do we go rom here. More government or less? Every president is temporary and the next will follow. It seems the current president is trying to control all aspects of our lives and this is an abrupt turn from the 230+ years we have been a nation. The world changes but human nature doesn’t and we all want to be free and have our children to live in a better world than we have but being shackled with debt from the start is demoralizing and we should do evrything to keep this from happening. More spending or less? Each dollar our government spends is 40% borrowed and passed on to us and future generations. The spending has got to be reigned in and expectations that we WORK to make a living instead of being leeches is imperative if we are to continue to be a free country. It may already be too late but to continue our current course will make all of us poorer and more bitter. Blaming is not helping one bit especially since neither side can win alone. so quit the childish bickering and post some solutions along with rational thoughts to back your opinions and maybe you will see that we are in this together as Americans and we will all suffer or prosper together. History has a lot of examples of governments which control the people and none of them have been successful. The common thread with all of them has been a power hungry leader who feels that they are somehow god-like and if only the people would be good slaves that they would be better off. Human nature is that people want to be free and this will not change-ever. America will not tolerate anything less and will find a way to remain free.

“Maybe because Frank and Dodd were telling everyone just how strong and solvent those institutions were”
Barney Frank wanted to regulate Freddie and Fannie to protect against their collapse. Republicans wanted to regulate them to cut into their market share.

Skip:
Get in touch with reality. Have you ever heard of “Root Cause Analysis”? When you apply that to the housing bubble, you go right back to the CRA and Freddie and Fannie! Without them there never COULD have been a housing bubble, that’s a FACT!

“Without them there never COULD have been a housing bubble, that’s a FACT!”
It didn’t matter what the CRA said, it only legislated how banks evaluated whether potential borrowers met their standards or not, it didn’t change their standards. Freddie and Fannie didn’t make most of the subprime loans or repackage them. They did buy them like many other companies did.
The housing bubble would not have been possible if the Fed under Bush had maintained it’s oversight role and stopped or limited the huge influx of the really risky unconventional loans that where being made by the private sector. These were not for affordable housing. They were taken by people who in most cases would have qualified for a conventional loan but chose to take a riskier one. Freddie and Fannie intentionally avoided making these loans and the CRA has nothing to do with them.

If one looks back at history it was Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd who drew up and passed the laws and regulations that formed the groundwork for the subprime mortage securities.I sure they are keeping a low profile.It’s strange GS was warned about the civil case 9 months ago and the they just picked this point in time to be charged. He needs another crisis to pass the financial reform bill and get everyone to forget about the
health plan..He wants to be the hero that saves wall srreet riding on a white horse.In the reform bill a large part of the trading will go to the Chicago
CME exchange.This is a win-win for Chicago and a loss for New York
that is in financial trouble.These guys are pretty slick
!

The fact that the stimulus bill did not freeze unemployment in the seven percent range was as the regime says is that they didn’t know how bad it was. So the regime acted by just throwing money at the problem hoping to solve it. The stimulus did what for jobs–nothing. They did nothing for the private sector and to date have done nothing except propose new tax and medicare costs. The regime has never discussed with small business its new burden in tax and health care using numbers to define a range of possible costs. The regime only uses minus 3 sigma estimates for taxes and health care. The jobs bill only sets the hook for the small business fish. The bank bill only seems tough but puts the tax payer on the hook for bailouts that cost more the the paltry 50 billion contained in the bill. The VP says that the stimulus will provide 250000 new jobs next month, yet new unemployment remains constant at 450000 +/- 25000 jobs for the last month. Growth is running at levels created by improved process not at rates created by increased sales. The spin is impossible for most to decipher because it is plentiful and chaotic. Let’s hope the republicans keep a stiff upper lip and deny any more spending for banks,immigration reform and tax and cap until the democrats meet their Waterloo.

Posted by: Dell | Apr 24, 2010 1:02:55 AM
So yes, you do participate and have participated in many government services.

If Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd are for the bill history has proven that it will create terrible havoc for the working American family. These guys are very intelligent and know what they are doing, and the democrats back them.
America fell for change instead of a RINO. Change will happen again in November, unless we merge with Mexico (AKA Amnesty) and become a third world nation of one class of unhappy citizens.

Barry O should dust off his history book, and not a US history book, he should look very closely at what started the FRENCH revolution. Listen closely Barry, you are on the exact same road they were on a few hundred years ago. Read the history books and resign while you still can.

Yes, a noble idea RESIGN !!!!!!

Dodd and Frank caused the Fannie Freddie collapse. They architected it, along with Clinton, who is the one who did in Glass Steagal.
So these rat vermin progressives can only make it worse.
Dodd needs to be jailed for his high crimes asap.
Friends of Angelo, Chris, you criminal slime.

Dodd and Frank caused the Fannie Freddie collapse.
_____________________________________
Nonsense, Bush and the Republicans had the presidency and the congress for basically six years – they are the ones who failed to put in place any housing finance reform.
What were they . . . inept? They were in power in both the presidency and the congress.
_____________________________________
Nonsense. Bush and the Republicans may have had a majority in congress, but it was a slim one. Nowhere near the supermajority that Democrats currently have. Democrats like Dodd and Frank easily blocked any attempts at reform in committee, with Frank going so far as to claim that there were no problems at all with Fannie and Freddie, and other Democrats (like Waters) claiming that any attempts at reform were racist.
The Democrats built the house of cards. Not only did they stand idle while it fell, they also prevented anyone from stopping it from happening.

Bush and the Republicans may have had a majority in congress, but it was a slim one.
__________________________________
They didn’t get it done. They were inept.
The president . . . was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.
The Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. Super majorities are rare – you must be competent in order to govern.

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”
The result was a series of piecemeal policy prescriptions that lagged behind the escalating crisis.
“There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems,” said Al Hubbard, Mr. Bush’s former chief economics adviser, who left the White House in December 2007. “Had we, we would have attacked them.”

Carter started the deregulation of the financial industry. I had a 17+% mortgage then… Clinton dumped almost all the inventory of cruise missiles on Iraq, enough that DOD had to request a replacement program to be started years early.
So it is not limited to and certainly not exclusive to either party. And Clinton’s full on democratic administration started the FCC/FBI confab that resulted in the current ease to wiretap at a distance, and that resulted in an order of magnitude increase in privacy violations through wiretaps on citizens.
What we need is sensible policy. Healthcare is expensive because of the insurance burden in a large part, so effective tort reform is required. Then disallow under the interests of stopping conflicts of interest insurance companies from owning pharmaceutical stock or ownership in hospitals or medical practices. And similarly each group from ownership in the other … Off the street you may pay 2000 dollars for a procedure the insurance company pays 1000 for, and since they own part of the hospital, they effectively pay even less. So make all healthcare providers use one payment schedule for all …
There are common sense requirements that can be imposed and they will reduce taxes, and reduce costs while increasing effective revenue to the government. Effective revenue, not gross. So the budget can be reduced.
If we would have taken the money feed by the democratic congress and administration and instead of bailing out the banks and “too big to fail” businesses, and instead bailed out individuals and small companies, the cost would be less, employment would be higher, and we’d as a country be farther out of the hole.

Hey as long as we’re talking about Reagan, who won the 1984 election with a popular vote of 59% to Mondale’s (Democrat Presidential Nominee that nobody remembers) 41%? Not to mention his 525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 13? Totally unpopular I see.

Yes super majority’s are very rare and you need to be able to govern. The key word is govern not rule. These dems in office now are ruining this nation throught what they see is their rule or reign. But this is not a monarchy. Right now they have burned so many bridges the only votes they will get are the very farthest left wing. I read blogs and comments. You ca tell by what people post how far left they are. Too bad we wouldn’t have a presidential election tomorrow because we would surely get a new president if we did.

Financial “reform” without Freddie Mac and Fannie May is an absurd joke and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Obama and the democrats think Dodd, Barney and the dems can slide by on this like slimy fish but Americans can see what’s happening and November 2 is going to knock their socks off. Democrat decline starts in 6 months. Democrat? What’s a Democrat?

PT had the right quote. There is a fool born every minute and three to take him. About 25 million people in the world’s 30 richest countries will have lost their jobs. n February 2010, the U.S. unemployment rate was 9.7%,but the government’s broader U-6 unemployment rate was 16.8%.Men account for at least 7 of 10 workers who lost jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data The youth unemployment rate was 18.5% in July 2009, the highest July rate since 1948.34.5% of young African American men were unemployed in October 2009. Officially, Detroit’s unemployment rate is 27%, but Detroit News suggests that nearly half of this city’s working-age population may be unemployed. California just reached the alltime high for the State of over 12%
The averagage rate in the EU is 8% Since we are heading for a European style goverment Socialist in other words get used to to it.

Many compare the unemployment of today to the unemployment numbers of Reagan. Carter had damaged our energy industry. Remember the oil bust? Remember Carter telling us to set our thermostats to 68 and wear sweaters? Remember the 17% interest rates? I do! It took those early years of Reagan, fighting with the Dems in Congress to stop their march to Socialism. It took awhile for the American people to wake up then. Shame is that the MSM is made up of people, calling themselves journalist, that are either too young to even remember the hardships caused by Carter and compare them to what is happening now or they are old enough and too ignorant to realize how damaging this path is and how the negative effects are going to be around for a long time. This time it is 10 times as bad and it will take so much to fix it that generations not born yet will never know what prosperity is. Shame on the Democrats for their ignorance and cowardness to stand up for the people. Shame on them for laying down with those that do not believe in America.

” the Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007 sponsored by Barney Frank himself and intended to regulate Freddie and Fannie passed the House in May even though over a hundred Republicans voted against it.” – Skippy
[sarcasm]
WOW Skippy, that sure was some effective legislation.
Do you think we could get some more from where that came from?
[/sarcasm]
Oh, let me guess at the lib defense of this.
You conservatives are so mean. At least they tried what did the Repubs do?

Tjp: Go back and find the facts before writing. You are dead wrong on your Reagan stasticis. You cannot defend the man-child that resides in the WH now.

Noz, when the Congress has been a majority on the left since 2006, the Reps can ‘try’ to do things, but the Dems would have to cooperate to make soemthing happen.
Btw, using Barney Frank as an example of virtue in this is hilarious. The guy that stood up for Fannie and Freddie and said that there was nothing at all wrong with them, and the right was nothing but sour grapes to be concerned or to complain about it…And then the bottom drops out and who do they put in charge to try to fix what they screwed up when the bottm falls out? Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and all of the other players who were cheerleaders for them.
It’s a total farce. And it’s on videotape all over the net if you care to look.
Meanwhile, the Bush Adminstration repeatedly wrote letters asking Congress to address this and it was ignored. But yeah, Bush did it?
I’m no Bush fan, nor republican apologist but this opinion shows a great deal of ignorance and naivete.

What is the rush,crisis,the sky is falling? Why can’t they wait for the investigation that is going on, they are supposed to have a report out in December to show where the bodies are buried(what really caused our Sept 15,2008 crash). I think anyone that has been watching since about 2007 seen the manipulation going on,Goldman is just the tip of the Iceberg.
We rushed the Tarp, simulas,Healthcare and now financial REFORM Where did it get us?
I also don’t believe My state of Arizona did not act “Stupidly” all these out of stater’s need to take care of their own. Why would they bus people from California and other states to protest. Almost 70% wanted something done now. I am hoping it will deter any idea that we are going to tolerate continuing high crime rates.Highest kidnapping in the world duh!!!

I don’t think any of us disputes the fact that society has needs that we all need to contribute to to have. But, the way politicians go about it is despicable. A city might want light rail and the leaders say it will cost 400 million but it ends up at a billion.
Medicare was to have initially cost close to a billion the first year and went 10 times that. Officials that were to go after crooks on wallstreet were watching porn instead of doing their jobs, these were not slubs who had a 2 year tech degree-these were well paid Lawyers. And now we have health care-we know good and well that it will cost more, do less than promised and be an inefficient nightmare but again politicians with absolutely no practical experience at anything other than politicing will be in charge.
All of us have a right to point out the mistakes of our leaders but none of us should be fooled into thinking that one brand (dem or rep) is any better than the other.

Our problems with corporate (all types)corruption and manipulation of stock was brought about when the people left the stock market and went to funds. Investigation and charting is a past art for now large blocks control stock value.The government continued to trust the large blocks the same as it did the people investers and thus the manipulators took control. Here we are and years later we the stupid are now awakening.

Hi All, After reading through some of the comments I glad to see how civil it is. IMO what is missing in the discussion is that a lot of folks are still falling for the dem/rep two parties. Folks there hasn’t been two parties in the US for a hundred years. Think about it for a minute. The party of big government, big spending, big intrusion in Americans life. Which party am I talking about?
William O’Rites

Smell the Change ™

We are being told the government needs to have the power to control the banks and wallstreet. This by a president that has never run a business, never been responsible for meeting payroll! Their is definately a hidden agenda. BTW, for those that want to criticize Arizona, the State requested federal help and troops on the border 5 times. This administration could not have cared less when a rancher was shot and killed by illegals crossing into our country. This administration doesn’t care about the killings by the Mexican drug cartels in Arizona. All this administration cares about is taking over more of our country’s GDP!

The next thing they have in mind is the
climate bill last called when it was the cap and trade when it was passed by the
house..It has been done over to resell again.This will cause the price of
gasoline and energy and everything to go up and massive job loss.It isn’t
about climate it is a big TAX and control of the people.Then they will try to
pass the VAT tax. The will start it off slow and ramp it up as they did in Europe.
For example if you buy a $20,000 car after the tax it is around $35,000
after the tax.This will be in addition to your income tax of both federal and state.
Good bye new car.This will produce an endless revenue stream to make more
government programs and reduce your standard of living.We will end up
like Greece and Europe as they have all these things.This is our
hope and change, that was the original plan

I am sick and tired of the government screwing up everything. It all about gaining control and power. Congress and Obama are greedy for power. They have become the looters of our business community and people’s personal wealth. They pass a law making the looting legal.

William O’Riles-good post- But it is not the Republicans that want to regulate the amount of salt in my diet. That is the brainchild of Rosa D’Lauro- of CT- Democrat House member. She want to pass a law limiting salt in products. The nanny state continues to get more intrusive. Pretty soon they’ll be telling us what time to go to bed and what to wear. Of course the rules probably won’t apply to the liberals as they seem to be entitled to be exempt from rules. Rangel seems to have tax issues. Franks, Dodd ethics issues. Pelosi/Reid playing by the rules issues. So welcome to the intrusive world of big govt.

Sorry I can’t provide a link but ABC seems to have a problem with it when I do. Democrats were a major cause of the subprime crisis and the same culprits are now supposed to making the rules.From marketwatch-
Sen. Dodd calls Fannie, Freddie ‘fundamentally strong’
July 11, 2008
“This is not a time to be panicking about this. These are viable, strong institutions,” Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
The comments came as the two government-sponsored enterprises continued to be the focus of growing fears they could be insolvent or could face a capital crunch. Shares of Freddie Mac were recently down 10% following strong declines earlier this week, while Fannie Mae shares were down 24%.
“The economics are fine in these institutions and people need to know that,” Dodd said. There’s no reason “to talk about failure,” he added.
Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said he had spoken earlier with representatives from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, the executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as their regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. He said he was reassured that the firms are “fundamentally sound,” have access to the capital markets, and have plenty of capital.
“These two institutions are fundamentally, fundamentally strong,” Dodd said. “There’s no reason for the kind of reaction we’re getting.”

According to the CBO out total debt is headed for 90% of GDP by 2020. Greece is at 110% of GDP now and needs a bailout to survive. Try to cut a budget in the streets and you get a riot. Because most citizens depend on a govt handout. If they lose their job, they get a long term unemployment that keeps them at 80% of what they were making. Of course if a plant threatens to shut down, they just kidnap the manager until the govt forces the company to give in as happened in France. Healthcare is provided by the govt but the only cost control is deny service or medicines. The EU countries guarantee 6 weeks vacation. So private industry can’t compete internationally. And of course taxes are sky high, 60% in Denmark and not just the rich. That is where we are headed.Already in some states, the highest tax rate with state and local included is approaching 60%. Obama will either need the VAT, raise taxes on everyone, or force IRAs and 401Ks to be invested in T Bills as is being discussed allowing him to have a ready set of investors to buy the debt.
You get the type of govt you vote in.

It’s high time the Republicans stand up and hold the statists feet to their own fire.
It’s high time they confiscate the enemy’s guns, turn them around and shoot back. Let the statists have a taste of their own weaponry.
David Horowitz wrote about these very tactics nearly a decade ago, puzzled as to why the Republicans don’t realize who & what they’re up against.
It’s high time.
“Socialism in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.” – Thomas Sowell.
“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” – Will Rogers.
Republicans are always surprised when they show up to the game with plastic bats and see hard balls hissing at them. – Anon.
“We don’t look to arsonists to put out fires that they’ve created; Neither should we look to Congress to solve the problems they’ve created.” – Thomas Sowell
“A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of politics which they dare not admit in public.” – Mark Twain.

Posted by: jschmidt | Apr 24, 2010 1:00:05 PM
It’s a travesty the Republicans took a surplus from the Clinton administration and turned it into the largest deficits we’d seen – and then presided over the almost complete free-fall collapse of the economy.
You ever study the effects of economic collapses on local, state and federal deficits and budgets?

First line I see” travesty that Clinton’s surplus…” If he had taken care of Osama properly ( instead of zipper & cigar issues) and been vigilant with the Global security chatter, there would not have been any reason to spend up to $1 trillion. Do you Libs have amnesia? Do you wish to change factual history? Barry has spent more in a yea. How disgusting Marxist/Socialist are! GOOOH!

“The section that says it will be exercised “with the strong presumption” that creditors and shareholders will bear the losses. But that’s not saying that the losses will unquestionably be borne by the shareholders and creditors, as opposed to taxpayers.”
I HAVE “THE STRONG PRESUMPTION” THAT THIS IS JUST ONE MORE O-BS-ama Grab-a-rama !!!
Get your thieving Alinsky-Soros Marxist
Socialist Communist Chigagothugist hands
out of our tax pot! NOW!!!

“Bush dealt with 9/11 and the tech collapse with a stimulus package and tax cuts which both worked.”
Worked?
Bush’s taxcuts for us were before 9/11.
The economy did not really start to do well until 2004.
The 2nd set of tax cuts went to capital gains, so the greedy traders ripping us off with their nonsense worthless derivatives could pay less in taxes.
This all led to the biggest economic collapse in this country since the great Depression.
Interestingly we seem to be climbing out of it much faster than even the recession when Reagan came into office.

With the election of Obama, the American electorate signaled its intention to retreat from greatness; and, to initiate a descent into the financial abyss of Socialism. However, it would be prudent to cushion our landing at the bottom of the pit by curtailing Obama’s redistribution technique of providing “a home in every pot”.
Our current fiscal crisis, purely and simply, was initially set-in-motion by the cheerleading of the Politically Correct Social Engineering that flourished under the Clinton Administration in the artificially inflated boom years of the 1990s.
In an effort to increase minority home ownership, the Clinton regime threw sound fiscal discipline under-the-bus; and, promulgated policies that forbid mortgage lenders from using common-sense criteria such as : income; ability to afford a reasonable down payment; and, credit history, as metrics in the evaluation of mortgage applications. Charges of racism in mortgage lending practices flourished during this era; and, the lending institutions of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, flamed by Congressional diatribe that had been massaged by enormous contributions and favorable loan rates to select politicians, were appointed to lead the charge to “create” and to “absorb” non-performing assets from such institutions as Country-Wide Financial. Assets which were, by sheer definition, fraudulent loans with no ability to repay; and, “via the Quasi’s” with the implied guarantee of Government backing, were proliferated throughout our financial sector as presumed safe mortgage backed securities. Aided and abetted by congressional left-wingers who, with their own insatiable appetite for social engineering, later vehemently rejected Bush Administration efforts in 2003 to re-implement sound regulatory practices, and to reign in the quasi-federal entities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In brief, mortgage lenders were compelled by our own government to abandon fiscal discipline and “RISK” as guiding principles in mortgage creation. Policies that were obscured so long as housing values continued to escalate; but, when the bubble burst similar to the dot-com fever; and, housing values began to implode, the crisis was set in motion.
Unless we own up to the historically documented cause factors of this self-constructed economic crisis that proliferated these toxic assets throughout our financial industry, we may well be doomed by current Obama policies which: seeks to forgive the principal on defaulting mortgages; continues to pressure lending institutions to continue issuing suspect loans to low-income recipients; and, blatantly excludes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from financial regulatory reform, to repeat this debacle. Obama and his Democrat colleagues such as Frank, Dodd, Schumer, etc., continue to militantly protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Republican efforts to tighten the Quasi’s grossly irresponsible lending practices in the acquisition and disposition of fraudulent/worthless mortgage assets.
Barack Obama, as the second leading Senatorial recipient of lending institution largess; and, as the ACORN guru who instructed ACORN operatives in the strong-arm techniques and procedures to pressure mortgage lenders to issue loans to individuals who clearly did not have the capacity to repay, is unequivocally a principal initiator of our financial crisis; and, a determined advocate of the continuation of dangerous redistribution practices which promise to usher in still further financial meltdown.
2010, followed by 2012, have become the most important elections in American history. If left unrestrained, Obama, rather thru sheer incompetence or willful intention, will do irreparable harm to America’s economic security. Greg N

Our current fiscal crisis, purely and simply, was initially set-in-motion by the cheerleading of the Politically Correct Social Engineering that flourished under the Clinton Administration in the artificially inflated boom years of the 1990s.
In an effort to increase minority home ownership, the Clinton regime . . .
Posted by: gneubeck | Apr 24, 2010 2:53:01 PM
__________________________________
Date: Monday, July 1 2002
President Bush announced an Administration effort to increase home ownership rates among African Americans and Hispanics by 5.5 million by 2010.
The plan would provide down payment assistance to 40,000 minority homebuyers each year . . .
Bush’s plan would be closely tied to some $440 million in minority loan programs offered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Bush commended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s efforts . . .

You libs are so simplistic that it is depressing. I suggest you try to research some of the “stuff” you are being fed by your masters in the media and the white house. There is a complete lack of critical analysis by any leftists on obamas policies or any leftist policies for that matter. You lefties are losing because it is now time to start having to defend your points and you cant do it based on logical reasoned arguments. All you can do is try to demean your opponents and slander them. This is the only play you have and the people are seeing right through it since your golden boy took office. As your golden boy he is the best at all the worst for this country, he lays the lies on so thick that nearly every American capable of independent reasoning has turned their back on your party. Try to make sense for once, if you expect to stop the conservative take over. Im confident that you are so out of practice that you will fail.

“David Horowitz wrote about these very tactics nearly a decade ago”
Horowitz loves the tactics he projects on to the left.
He uses them everyday for the right.
He’s an authoritarian scumbag.
Posted by: Ryan C | Apr 24, 2010 2:41:41 PM
True.
It appears Merlin likes throwing quotes out there. Fair enough. I do, too. As I peruse the thread, here’s one that comes to mind:
“Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.” — William F. Buckley

“I suggest you try to research some of the “stuff” you are being fed by your masters in the media and the white house. ”
Always gives me a laugh when a right wingers says do research which usually means read the latest from some right wing media source
They actually think their hyper partisan media tells them the truth.

The desperation is becoming pathetic. Republicans know most Americans blame them for the financial crisis and rightly so. Now the right-wing propaganda machine is working diligently through repetition to try and ingrain two preposterous fallacies:
Fallacy #1
Affordable housing caused the financial crisis, not Republican sanctioned corporate greed.
Fallacy #2
The Republicans will somehow find the necessary backbone to attempt to regulate their Wall St masters.
Posted by: Skip | Apr 24, 2010 2:57:07 PM
Good post. I agree.

“The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.”
Kind of ironic given his brother’s involvement but I digress.
Jschmidt, how did the Democrats prevent the GOP from enacting this when they had control of Congress ?
Were there moderate GOPers who sided with Democrats against it?
Was there a filibuster? A threat of filibuster?
Or did it never come to the floor because the GOP had other priorities like Terri Schiavo.

“Meanwhile, for those who think regulatory laxity a major cause of our current recession, Rubin and friends deserve more blame than George W. Bush, who sought congressional support to rein in excesses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and kept kicking up regulatory spending. Rubin helped engineer a major deregulation as treasury secretary, as Gergen agreed”
When right wingers can’t pin something they did on Obama, they go to the old standby Clinton.
This from the party that advocate personal responsibility which seems completely unable to accept ANY responsibility for their actions.

“Ronald Reagan’s policies 15 years earlier got things”
ROFLMAO!
Prediction: In 2 years as President Obama seeks re-election in a humming economy, the right wing will claim it was due to the policies of Bush.

Ryan C- I accept the Republicans messed up. The Democrats should accept they messed up. They’d feel better. It is the hypocrisy of the Democrats that most people hate. Clinton, Frank, Rangel, Dodd all had a major hand in the subprime mess.

“Ryan C- the worst thing the states can do is grow the size of state govt in a recession.”
Except that is was not to grow the size of state government.
It was just to keep from having massive layoffs that would have boosted the unemployment rate and deprived us of necessary services.
Public jobs are a drain on the economy because they are paid with taxes. Private jobs create wealth and income to be taxed.”
Stupid teachers, firefighters, and police taking our tax money.
Who needs them…

Ryan…Go check out what kind of trouble Greece is in and…MORE IMPORTANTLY…WHY.
You see…the economy…if one understands it…cannot keep “humming” if we cannot be competitive in the world due to over regulation and UNIONS. We cannot keep monitizing our debt by printing money because that causes hyper-inflation. This is why the Euro is in such big trouble. What do we do. Instead of sticking with what worked…we follow Europe off the cliff, knowing that we are following their example to the tee.
So…explain to me how the economy is going to keep humming with the Fed printing more money (hyper-inflation), there are no jobs because business is not encouraged to STAY IN AMERICA…due to Obama’s policies. So..a loaf of bread costs $10.00 no one has a job because they all left dodge. Do you think Obama has an unlimited supply of money? How is the economy going to “keep humming” UNDER THE PRESENT POLICIES? Please inform us stupid people how that works.

Ryan C- Just like a liberal to focus only firefighters and police. There are many other state employees and with thte waste that goes on you could cut a quarter from the state budgets and not see a drop in services. SEC employees were watching porn instead of watching the banks. Do you seriously think public servants are more efficient than the private sector? The public unionized workers have very liberal vacation policies, pay little of medical, and have pensions. While private sector workers were geting pay cuts or worse, the public sector was getting raises and bonuses. Pensions are a thing of the past in the public sector. So yes layoff would increse employment, but the result drop in taxes would stimulate the economy. I know you disagree with everything I say but that’s ok. The independents are coming around and they’ll put vote for the more moderate people next time and remove the control the Dems have on the Congress. And Obama will never get this economy humming.

Who is connected with Obama…George Soros. Who bet against the housing market and makes mega bucks? Answer…Ready Ryan…George Soros and John Paulson…the guy that sold GS derivatives. Inside info…maybe. Were they aware just how bad the GOVERNMENT…not private industry was responsible for this mess.
I knew…I worked in the industry…BOTH political parties wanted more HOME OWNERSHIP…EVEN IF IT BANKRUPTED THE COUNTRY…WHICH, RYAN IF YOU HAVEN’T CHECKED…GO LOOK AT THE DEBT CLOCK…$14 TRILLION AND COUNTING AND THAT DOES NOT EVEN INCLUDE UNFUNDED LIABILITIES….BOTH DEMOCRATIC DEBACLES.

Ryan- I presented you with a neutral newspaper article. Now you presented us with … nothing. You want to believe Clinton was great and Regean and Bush were evil? Go ahead if it makes you feel better. But we’re voting against the Dems in November and unless Obama comes up with a way of cancelling the elction, you can’t do anything about it.

Ryan C- the pubic employees have given up nothing. Their salaries are on average higher than public workers. In most companies if you get looking at porn you are fired. In the union world you’ll sit in the ‘rubber room’ for years until your case comes up at full pay. The public employees used to sacrifice for the stability but not anymore. They are living the good life now in comparison to the workers in the real world.

Ryan- the way it works is the company sets a PAC and then says to the employees ‘we want to influence legislation’ so give to the PAC and we will support moe, larry and curly. Or they tell the employees directly to support moe, larry and curly. Both parties are in the pockets of lobbyists. So you trying to tell me the Obama’s lobbyists are better then Republican lobbyists? I include the SEIU and UAW and every other union as a special interest trying to control legislation. Guess who they give big to? Democrats.

“I include the SEIU and UAW and every other union as a special interest trying to control legislation. Guess who they give big to? Democrats.”
Yeah shocking that the unions would support Democrats who support workers versus the Republicans which support the corporate board.

Hey Ryan- Was the UAW forced to sell their country club or was that only for those evil auto executives. The Unions are only interested in power. They don’t care at all for the workers or else they’d never sacrifice jobs for pay increases. Give the union a choice to sacrifice jobs or get the pay increase, they’ll take the pay increase every time. The unions are totally out of touch with the real world. Real world has no pensions and it is pay for performance. That is what has given US companies the competitive edge up until now. Obama’s tax increases will make business less competitive and will cost jobss. Switzerland has no trouble keeping businesses because the tax rate is very low and the actually controlh healthcare costs.

“”It is the hypocrisy of the Democrats that most people hate.”
So the hypocrisy of the Republicans is ok?
Cognitive disconnect.”
Hypocrisy is bad from either side. The problem is, so many people think “the other guys do it too” is a valid excuse, and VERY frequently use it as a “gotcha” statement.
Just ask Obama. Afterall, half of his excuses for things that people call him out on have been, basically, “Bush did it too”. Ironic, since his whole campaign was basically rooted in the statement “I offer a CHANGE from Bush, and HOPE that we won’t have 4 more years of Bush policies”.

“Ryan- lobbyists seek one thing control. No matter who they work for. If you think Democrat lobbyists are into for the good of the worker you are really naive.”
I don’t like lobbyists which is why support efforts to limit their influence, usually coming from the Progressive wing of the Democrats.
Can you tell me who in the GOP seeks to limit lobbyists?

Hey Ryan, you appear to be another dem who believes that your leaders support union workers…they support union leadership to be sure, you know, the mob bosses who write them checks to influence their votes. But be careful what you wish for Ryan, a reasonable man would ask why on 7/10/02 during the Sarbanes/Oxley debate your dem friends rejected extending the S/O Act to union pension funds. After hearing about half a billion dollars of pension fraud and abuse in just the first six months of 2002, each and everyone of them voted not to give rank and file union member’s funds the same protections and accountability standards they demanded for all other Americans…Sarbanes closed with the following statement…’we already have in place what we believe is adequate deterrents, a ten thousand dollar fine, and up to a year in jail…it’s all in the US Congressional Record Ryan…you don’t need to stay unenlightened…
Ryan suggested:
Yeah shocking that the unions would support Democrats who support workers versus the Republicans which support the corporate board.
Posted by: Ryan C | Apr 24, 2010 4:56:04 PM

FYI: The economy is already humming and Obama has kept many of his promises already. He will get to immigration and will put sanctions on the banks which the republicans removed and are not happy to be putting them back in as their lobbyists are complaining. He will eventually remove don’t ask don’t tell, he has addressed everything he has said he would so what is your problem? He has given us health care for children and a health care bill where no one can be thrown off again for pre-conditions, equal pay for women, stem cell research,had a successful summit on nuclear problems, saved us from a recession, saved the auto industry in America and thousands of jobs and is being paid back with interest. He will sanction the banks and will address green energy. The immigration problem has been going on for a long time and he will now address it. No one else has and I am sure he didn’t want to do it now as he is working on the banking problems but he will adjust. To those who say he wants everything his way is so wrong. Anyone who has dealt with him from Gates, to other senators, economists, etc, all say he is good to work with because he asks for the other side of the problem as he wants to make decisions based on all the facts. It has been said over and over ….he really wants the other side. Too bad many cannot see this as a positive thing for this president who has experienced more hostility than any other president to date.