Democrats bash Cantor on stimulus
Rep. Eric I. Cantor, the Richmond-area congressman and No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives will have his say on economic recovery in a speech tomorrow to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.
But before Cantor lays out his views, Democrats are piling on the 7th District representative. They want to know whether Cantor would favor junking the Obama administration stimulus program -- a program that they say helps Cantor's district.
For example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the political arm of the House Democratic Caucus, notes that while Cantor complains that the economic jump-start plan is too expensive, he favors stimulus dollars for a high-speed rail link between Richmond and Washington.
Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the DCCC and a former Richmonder, says Cantor should use tomorrow's remarks to "let his constituents know the truth -- does he favor canceling funding from the recovery package in his congressional district that created jobs or does he plan to continue taking credit for the funding he fought against?"
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We’ve got to cut the spending. Bush doubled the debt in 8 years but Obama tripled it in 10 months.
Surely you know that we were on Bush’s budget until October 1? Obama’s budget took effect at the beginning of fiscal year 2010.
When Obama took office on 1/20, the debt was around 10.626 Trillion. It now stands around 12 Trillion, an increase of 13%, not 300% as you had claimed.
I have no doubt that Obama will continue to increase the size of government around or above the pace of Bush but to pin the recent deficits entirely on Obama is dishonest.
I wouldn’t go around quoting Goldman on the state of the economy right now.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=ahD2WoDAL9h0
Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder
Commentary by Alice Schroeder
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg)—“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
Sub-prime lending was a sort of stimulus program - to help people get into a house they couldn’t afford. It really got going after welfare reform stuck in the democrats’ craws. When government takes money and doles it out to those who can’t handle it, it deprives people who would have used that money to create jobs, of the ability to create jobs. Centralized borrowing and spending is to the free market what bleeding the goose is to the goose that lays the golden eggs.
We’ve got to cut the spending. Bush doubled the debt in 8 years but Obama tripled it in 10 months.
Why are democrats wasting time bashing Eric Cantor? That’s like beating up the kid in gym class wearing hard soled shoes and black socks with his gray gym shorts. Eric Cantor and the Republicans can’t stop anything with their votes, don’t have the will or the ideas to be relevant - seems to me the Democrats are simply kicking the blind beggar on the corner.
Frankly, other than deflecting attention from their hideous mistakes and far left extremist policies, there doesn’t seem to be much point in punching a politician and a political party that’s awaiting an autopsy.
Well, if they stopped the program completely, I would not be disappointed. However, if the Feds are going to throw money away, we may as well belly up to the troth.
loggerhead,
Your data is a little out of date. The CBO today issued a report that said 1.6 million more Americans would be out of work if it weren’t for the Stimulus.
That’s it? That’s a “bash”. It looks to me more like the DCCC guy took a feather duster to a gun fight.
I know the anti-Obama mouth-frothers, and head-in-sand kooky cons, like to deny that the bank bailout and stimulus have improved the economy… but as good Mr. Adams said more than 225 years ago “facts are stubborn things”.
The fact is Wall Street is back up over 10,000 from the below-6000 that GOPers like Lindsey Graham tried to blame directly on the Obama Administration… which I guess they have to give the Administration credit for the 4000-plus point recovery there. I not holding my breath for that to be pointed out.
I provide a link to a fine article by Deborah Solomon written in September about this very subject.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/has-the-economy-improved-from-the-stimulus/question-650063/
Pertinent to the discussion: “Economists say the money out the door—combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon—is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action.
Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter—something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.
For the third quarter, economists at Goldman Sachs & Co. predict the U.S. economy will grow by 3.3%. “Without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero,“ said Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman.“
Unfortunatley, job growth has not increased for 2 reasons: it fundamentally lags behind other recovery factors, and small- and medium-sized banks continue to fail (more than 250 have folded) that hold title to a number of small shopping centers and office spaces where many businesses have abandoned or failed. So, therefore comes the “rub” that the bank bailout was not BIG ENOUGH. It’s these banks that need money to survive until recovery as well… money they can use to help as capital to businesses in danger of failing for lack of revenue.
Is it our tax money that’s used to foot these bills? You bet! Will it be our tax money that will foot the bill if we fail to bail banks out and stimulate the economy? You bet! Because, as the economy fails, the tax burden shifts more heavily on those of us who still have jobs.
I’d much rather pay for our economy to have a chance to thrive than to watch our nation fall into economic collapse. That cost is much, much higher… and thank God because Bush and Obama had the intestinal fortitude to do what they did, we won’t have to pay it!
“How will 185,000 Virginia jobs be created with a taxpayer investment in high-speed rail? What methodology was used to fabricate that number?“
It is the same math the WH uses to show they created or saved 650k jobs by using the stimulus. Which BTW, the number of jobs was recently reduced due to their poor math and usage of jobs they did not save or create.
Sounds like “Embarrassing Eric” is not too popular here today.
The multimillionaires who usually frequent these discussion boards must be still be on Thanksgiving break in St. Barts.
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