Obama on the GOP's strategy

RunInRed · April 15, 2011

Obama (paraphrasing): The GOP's strategy is to legislate their platform under the guise of cutting spending.

Nail meet hammer. Well said, Mr. President.

Auburn85 · April 15, 2011

The majority of Congress think we're stupid. Republicans campaigned on repealing healthcare knowing that the president is a Democrat and the Senate is majority Democrat.

Obama thinks we're stupid thinking he can stand at a podium and declare "the biggest annual spending cut in history." What a joke.

Maybe this is why Dems are really for a healthcare plan that gives Medicare for all. They think most of us are mentally disabled and most disabled people are on Medicare.

When Bush made Medicare cuts, the Dems were up in arms that they were trying to make cuts in a budget using the weakest and most vulnerable Americans. Then, when Democrats want to cut Medicare, some Republicans become upset.

Then, Ryan's plan, among other things, cuts Medicare. The Dems are upset, while calling hypocrisy on Republicans saying Obamacare was cutting Medicare. So what is the next step? The Dems will find more savings to further cut Medicare. lol

Grumps · April 15, 2011

Obama (paraphrasing): The GOP's strategy is to legislate their platform under the guise of cutting spending.

<embed src="http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf" scale="noscale" salign="lt" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" background="#333333" width="425" height="279" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" FlashVars="si=254&uvpc=http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/uvp_cbsnews.xml&contentType=videoId&contentValue=50103339&ccEnabled=false&hdEnabled=false&fsEnabled=true&shareEnabled=false&dlEnabled=false&subEnabled=false&playlistDisplay=none&playlistType=none&playerWidth=425&playerHeight=239&vidWidth=425&vidHeight=239&autoplay=false&bbuttonDisplay=none&playOverlayText=PLAY%20CBS%20NEWS%20VIDEO&refreshMpuEnabled=true&shareUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7362843n&adEngine=dart&adCallTemplate=http://www.cbs.com/thunder/ad.doubleclick.net/adx/request.php?/can/news/undefined;site=news;show=undefined;undefinedpartner=news;plyr=embed;lvid=50103339;outlet=CBS+Production;noAd=undefined;type=ros;format=FLV;pos=undefined;sz=320x240;ord=56944;playerVersion=UVP2.7;&adPreroll=true&adPrerollType=PreContent&adPrerollValue=1" />

Nail meet hammer. Well said, Mr. President.

Obama may be right and you may be right that the GOP is trying to legislate their platform under the guise of cutting spending. But did you listen to his examples?????? The GOP wants to stop Obamacare, cut EPA spending, and cut spending to stop "climate change". Those were the issues he used to make his point. What if the platform of the GOP is to cut useless spending? Obamacare = Useless spending (if you think that Obamacare will save 1 trillion $$$$ then you are FAR less intelligent than I perceive you to be) EPA spending = useless spending and spending to prevent climate change = useless spending.

The examples he used to make his point are excellent places to cut spending and therefore make HORRIBLE points to say the GOP is discussing to advance their platform. If the GOP would really try to cut spending then I would applaud them (but I doubt they will try).

RunInRed · April 15, 2011

Obamacare = Useless spending (if you think that Obamacare will save 1 trillion $$$$ then you are FAR less intelligent than I perceive you to be) EPA spending = useless spending and spending to prevent climate change = useless spending.

If you are going to make a claim that counters the CBO's estimates on projected healthcare costs/savings, you're going to have to present some facts.

As for the EPA, you don't want clean air, water? You don't want rules and enforcement to make sure companies aren't using our country as their own garbage or hazard material dump? Really?

Climate change - agree, not his best example. But remember, he was talking to his base at a fund raising event. They love this cause just like those on the right have their vices.

autigeremt · April 15, 2011

Obamacare = Useless spending (if you think that Obamacare will save 1 trillion $$$$ then you are FAR less intelligent than I perceive you to be) EPA spending = useless spending and spending to prevent climate change = useless spending.

If you are going to make a claim that counters the CBO's estimates on projected healthcare costs/savings, you're going to have to present some facts.

As for the EPA, you don't want clean air, water? You don't want rules and enforcement to make sure companies aren't using our country as their own garbage or hazard material dump? Really?

Climate change - agree, not his best example. But remember, he was talking to his base at a fund raising event. They love this cause just like those on the right have their vices.

If he were worth a damn he'd be leading and not raising funds for 2012 in April of 2011. How about that?! Instead, he's more than ready to do what he's best at.....campaigning. He's a terrible President!

Grumps · April 15, 2011

Obamacare = Useless spending (if you think that Obamacare will save 1 trillion $$$$ then you are FAR less intelligent than I perceive you to be) EPA spending = useless spending and spending to prevent climate change = useless spending.

If you are going to make a claim that counters the CBO's estimates on projected healthcare costs/savings, you're going to have to present some facts.

As for the EPA, you don't want clean air, water? You don't want rules and enforcement to make sure companies aren't using our country as their own garbage or hazard material dump? Really?

Climate change - agree, not his best example. But remember, he was talking to his base at a fund raising event. They love this cause just like those on the right have their vices.

Regarding Obamacare...fair enough, I don't have enough data to refute Obama's comment that his plan will save $1 TRILLION, while simultaneously providing excellent care for millions of uninsured, so I concede that point to you (but I still do not think that you believe it) Do you?

Regarding the EPA: this is weak. Did I say that I do not want clean air and water? I believe that the government is overspending on environmental protection.

Maybe we can spend enough money to eliminate ALL climate change. We can have 72 degrees 24/7/365. Then there will be NO climate change. I bet that would save a GAZILLION DOLLARS!!!!

Auburn85 · April 15, 2011

Obamacare = Useless spending (if you think that Obamacare will save 1 trillion $$$$ then you are FAR less intelligent than I perceive you to be) EPA spending = useless spending and spending to prevent climate change = useless spending.

If you are going to make a claim that counters the CBO's estimates on projected healthcare costs/savings, you're going to have to present some facts.

As for the EPA, you don't want clean air, water? You don't want rules and enforcement to make sure companies aren't using our country as their own garbage or hazard material dump? Really?

Climate change - agree, not his best example. But remember, he was talking to his base at a fund raising event. They love this cause just like those on the right have their vices.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/05/discretionary_spending_and_the.html

Discretionary spending and the Affordable Care Act
Ezra Klein

When the Congressional Budget Office assesses the cost of a bill, they look at mandatory effects. So if the bill says you have to give subsidies to everyone making less than $80,000, they figure out how much that is likely to cost and add it to the total. If the bill says you have to tax employer-provided insurance plans, they figure out how much that tax will raise and add it to the total. If the bill simply says that you can choose to fund something by taking another vote on it in the future, it doesn't enter the tally. It's a world of musts, not mays.

At the request of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the CBO has now estimated the "mays" of health-care reform, and with a price tag that shocked some folks: $115 billion. "If Congress were to approve all of this new discretionary funding authorized in the health-care bill, almost all of the administration's highly touted savings would be made null and void," said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.

That's true, at least in the first decade. But it's all about that "if." Aside from $10 or $20 billion of administrative costs, the estimate is based on items that are not currently funded and that may not ever be funded. It's up to the appropriations committees to make those decisions, and we don't know what decisions they'll make. Moreover, because discretionary spending is limited, new programs tend to compete with old programs (i.e., appropriators decide to spend $2 billion on a demonstration project in Medicare and take that money from somewhere else, which means net cost to the deficit is zero). So CBO doesn't count potential discretionary costs because they may or may not be real, just like it doesn't count savings that may or may not happen, because they can't be projected with any sort of certainty.

Bottom line? As has so often the case with health-care reform, there's plenty of evidence to argue that the bill will save very little money, and plenty of evidence to argue that the bill will save lots of money. Where you end up depends on how you weight different probabilities. But so far as discretionary costs go, it's worth saying that CBO always separates them from mandatory costs and people don't generally complain. It's only when bills get controversial that these quirks of the budget process are given such a sinister cast.

Here's something to note. This is a snippet of what the CBO had to say in early 2008:

The state of the economy is particularly uncertain at the moment. The pace of economic growth slowed in 2007, and there are strong indications that it will slacken further in 2008. In CBO’s view, the ongoing problems in the housing and financial markets and the high price of oil will curb spending by households and businesses this year and trim the growth of GDP. Although recent data suggest that the probability of a recession in 2008 has increased, CBO does not expect the slowdown in economic growth to be large enough to register as a recession...

I'd like to know a CBO projection that has turned out to be correct. CBO doesn't anticipate future natural disasters, wars, a stimulus. From my understanding their calculations are based that most everything stays exactly the same over a 10 year period. And that's just not realistic.

The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Act is costing more than projected. Turn's out Obama's stimulus is costing more than projected.

mdg929 · April 16, 2011

Obamacare = Useless spending (if you think that Obamacare will save 1 trillion $$$$ then you are FAR less intelligent than I perceive you to be) EPA spending = useless spending and spending to prevent climate change = useless spending.

If you are going to make a claim that counters the CBO's estimates on projected healthcare costs/savings, you're going to have to present some facts.

As for the EPA, you don't want clean air, water? You don't want rules and enforcement to make sure companies aren't using our country as their own garbage or hazard material dump? Really?

Climate change - agree, not his best example. But remember, he was talking to his base at a fund raising event. They love this cause just like those on the right have their vices.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/05/discretionary_spending_and_the.html

Discretionary spending and the Affordable Care Act
Ezra Klein

When the Congressional Budget Office assesses the cost of a bill, they look at mandatory effects. So if the bill says you have to give subsidies to everyone making less than $80,000, they figure out how much that is likely to cost and add it to the total. If the bill says you have to tax employer-provided insurance plans, they figure out how much that tax will raise and add it to the total. If the bill simply says that you can choose to fund something by taking another vote on it in the future, it doesn't enter the tally. It's a world of musts, not mays.

At the request of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the CBO has now estimated the "mays" of health-care reform, and with a price tag that shocked some folks: $115 billion. "If Congress were to approve all of this new discretionary funding authorized in the health-care bill, almost all of the administration's highly touted savings would be made null and void," said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.

That's true, at least in the first decade. But it's all about that "if." Aside from $10 or $20 billion of administrative costs, the estimate is based on items that are not currently funded and that may not ever be funded. It's up to the appropriations committees to make those decisions, and we don't know what decisions they'll make. Moreover, because discretionary spending is limited, new programs tend to compete with old programs (i.e., appropriators decide to spend $2 billion on a demonstration project in Medicare and take that money from somewhere else, which means net cost to the deficit is zero). So CBO doesn't count potential discretionary costs because they may or may not be real, just like it doesn't count savings that may or may not happen, because they can't be projected with any sort of certainty.

Bottom line? As has so often the case with health-care reform, there's plenty of evidence to argue that the bill will save very little money, and plenty of evidence to argue that the bill will save lots of money. Where you end up depends on how you weight different probabilities. But so far as discretionary costs go, it's worth saying that CBO always separates them from mandatory costs and people don't generally complain. It's only when bills get controversial that these quirks of the budget process are given such a sinister cast.

Here's something to note. This is a snippet of what the CBO had to say in early 2008:

The state of the economy is particularly uncertain at the moment. The pace of economic growth slowed in 2007, and there are strong indications that it will slacken further in 2008. In CBO’s view, the ongoing problems in the housing and financial markets and the high price of oil will curb spending by households and businesses this year and trim the growth of GDP. Although recent data suggest that the probability of a recession in 2008 has increased, CBO does not expect the slowdown in economic growth to be large enough to register as a recession...

I'd like to know a CBO projection that has turned out to be correct. CBO doesn't anticipate future natural disasters, wars, a stimulus. From my understanding their calculations are based that most everything stays exactly the same over a 10 year period. And that's just not realistic.

The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Act is costing more than projected. Turn's out Obama's stimulus is costing more than projected.

mdg929 · April 16, 2011

Please I ask you understand until you mother is 85 ,raised four children who are Auburn grads. Please think that you are changing the rules and way life that they sacrirficed so much for. Please let them have the dignity they deserve.Health care is the smallest amount of respect you can show.

Grumps · April 16, 2011

Please I ask you understand until you mother is 85 ,raised four children who are Auburn grads. Please think that you are changing the rules and way life that they sacrirficed so much for. Please let them have the dignity they deserve.Health care is the smallest amount of respect you can show.

The above post exemplifies the problem. We seem to act like there are two choices: the democrat plan to keep things the same (and spend ourselves into oblivion) or the republican plan to cut spending by killing everyone over 40. Obviously, I am exaggerating, but cutting medicare spending does not mean quit paying for healthcare for 85 year-old mothers.

The republicans suggested phasing in changes in medicare based on the age of the recipient (or future recipient) and the democrats say they are making it a voucher system. One of the best ways to cut medicare spending without "changing the rules" is to make few changes for people already receiving medicare but for people who do not receive it yet don't them become eligible until later. This is not that complicated but is made to be so because everyone wants a solution that desn't hurt anyone. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

AFTiger · April 16, 2011

1. The deceptive accounting in Obamacare has been well documented in other threads. You seem to rely on the false assumptions provided by Congress that the CBO was forced to use in their calculations.

2. The EPA is overstepping its purpose and is now setting rules that can destroy the economy. It is not about clean warter or air anymore is is about economics. Again---CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT!

3. Global warming is under severe attack by reputable science. The issue about manmade global warming is not about the climate. As the new home for communist, it is about destroying our way of life.

The Democrats have been funding their agenda with tax money for 80 years. Now defunding this crap and bringing fiscal sanity to DC is a social agenda?

Grumps · April 17, 2011

1. The deceptive accounting in Obamacare has been well documented in other threads. You seem to rely on the false assumptions provided by Congress that the CBO was forced to use in their calculations.

2. The EPA is overstepping its purpose and is now setting rules that can destroy the economy. It is not about clean warter or air anymore is is about economics. Again---CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT!

3. Global warming is under severe attack by reputable science. The issue about manmade global warming is not about the climate. As the new home for communist, it is about destroying our way of life.

The Democrats have been funding their agenda with tax money for 80 years. Now defunding this crap and bringing fiscal sanity to DC is a social agenda?

Well put, AF!

Tigermike · April 17, 2011

Failure Is Very Much an Option
April 14, 2011 1:28 P.M.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Lost in the furor over the budget is any discussion of the fact that, after a certain baseline point, redistributive payouts might be making things worse for those on the receiving end.

Black middle-class flight from northern big cities, failing public schools like nearby Fresno City College, where yesterday it was announced that 70 percent of students (the majority of them on some sort of federal and state loan support) fail to receive a two-year AA degree — these are just a few indications that increasing reliance on government subsidies does not eliminate, and may well perpetuate, such ills as illiteracy, poverty, and hunger.

Here in California, the CSU system — the largest university system in the world — cannot explain why 46 percent of entering freshmen in 2001 needed remediation in math and English, still less why that number has soared to nearly 60 percent after a decade of record spending on campus budgets. Only about half of students graduate within six years, even fewer within five.

In a surreal interview with Neil Cavuto yesterday, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Texas) insisted that all sorts of federal entitlements were “investments” that, in a time of record deficits, could be paid for by going after the wealthy. The argument comes full circle when we remember that Johnson was revealed to have steered Black Caucus Foundation scholarships to her own grandsons and other relatives and friends.

At some point, this historic debate must address the real pathological origins of federal debt: Congressmen, senators, and administration officials of both parties have steered public monies to chosen constituents and causes, without any worry whether the money helps or harms, because by doing so they can build a political base and, in many cases, gain personal profit while in office and real riches when out of office.

Right now, Democrats are arguing that record-level social spending programs are absolutely necessary; that when they fail to achieve promised results, it’s because of too little money; and that anyone who questions these premises is a cruel megaphones for the wealthy who wants to throw the ill out on the street. This is the familiar circular logic of big government: When massive infusions of cash fail to produce results, the reason is insufficient funding — not that it creates complacency and dependency in lieu of self-reliance and personal responsibility.

link

Mr. Obama is nothing more than a tax and spend liberal wanting to continue failed policies of their past.

I think when RR said "Nail meet hammer. Well said, Mr. President.", it would have been more appropriate to say great use of the hammer and sickle.

AURaptor · April 17, 2011

Sounds about like his old buddy...

" You never want a serious crisis to go to waste... and what I mean by that, is an opportunity to do things which you think you could not do before "

Yes, Barry, we do think that's exactly what needs to be done.

Does that surprise you ? Even a little ?

Sign In

Obama on the GOP's strategy

Recommended Posts

RunInRed 16,992

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Auburn85 434

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Grumps 3,706

Link to comment

Share on other sites

RunInRed 16,992

Link to comment

Share on other sites

autigeremt 6,970

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Grumps 3,706

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Auburn85 434

Link to comment

Share on other sites

mdg929 24

Link to comment

Share on other sites

mdg929 24

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Grumps 3,706

Link to comment

Share on other sites

AFTiger 282

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Grumps 3,706

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Tigermike 3,425

Link to comment

Share on other sites

AURaptor 1,137

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Archived

Members Online

Recently Browsing 0 members