economy

Obama’s Approval Ratings Are Down Because…

August 20, 2010 By mario piperni

It’s not complicated at all: Obama’s approval ratings have fallen because the economy stinks. End of story. Anything else is on the margins…and it’s certainly possible that everything else is pushing his ratings up, not down.

If the unemployment rate is under five percent two years from now and the economy is in full recovery mode, you can bet on a second term for President Obama. If not, then it’s wide open…unless, of course, Palin is the Republican presidential candidate. In that case, the unemployment rate could be at 78% with a mosque glimmering in the Rose Garden and Obama would still win it.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, economy Tagged With: Barack Obama, economy, political art

Not Every Republican Is A Lying Shill

August 7, 2010 By mario piperni

Orrin Hatch, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, had this to say about allowing the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% to expire in January.

“I don’t know anybody who believes that’s a safe or wise thing to do. And whatever it takes, we should not increase taxes.”

Really? No one believes it’s a wise thing to do? Not a single person?

A number of old Republican hands warning of a deficit crisis have split with the GOP leadership over extending the George W. Bush-era tax cuts.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), President Reagan’s budget chief David Stockman and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan have each argued that extending the tax cuts — set to expire at year’s end — would increase the nation’s $13 trillion debt.

“It’s like tax reductions, you don’t need to pay for them? To me, that’s nonsense,” Voinovich said.

“It’s crisis time, and we’re ready to go over the cliff.”

Voinovich is on his way out so I imagine he felt he had nothing to lose by going against the party line. Still I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and choose to believe that not every Republican is a hypocritical accomplice to the rich…just most of them.

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Filed Under: economy, taxes Tagged With: bush tax cuts, political issues, politics, Republicans

Let The Unemployed Eat Want Ads

July 29, 2010 By mario piperni

Republican candidate Michele Rollins:

“I know this is a bad market and a very bad time. But you just cannot keep paying people, cannot keep taxing us to pay people to do nothing, because they will continue to do nothing for a very long time.”

Greg Sargent:

Let’s call it the “Let Them Eat Want Ads” Caucus — those candidates and public officials who argue that unemployment benefits are problematic because they discourage people from seeking jobs.

Perfect. It’s so much more effective for these heartless bastards to portray the unemployed as shiftless bums than to acknowledge that there is currently a single job available for every five people looking.

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Filed Under: economy Tagged With: jobs, political issues, politics, quote, republican

America’s 99′ers: The Forgotten

July 25, 2010 By mario piperni

For many, the unemployed are little more than a statistic they hear of on the nightly news. For Republicans in Congress, they are another means to a political end. But for the unemployed themselves, it’s about their very existence.

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Filed Under: economy Tagged With: 99'ers, economy, jobs, political issues, politics, video

Deficits – Republican’s WMDs

July 18, 2010 By mario piperni

Christopher Hayes.

Perhaps the most egregious aspect of the selling of the Iraq War was its false pretext. It never really was about weapons of mass destruction, as Paul Wolfowitz admitted. WMDs were just “what everyone could agree on.” So it is with deficits. Conservatives and their neoliberal allies don’t really care about deficits; they care about austerity—about gutting the welfare state and redistributing wealth upward. That’s the objective. Deficits are just what they can all agree on, the WMDs of this manufactured crisis. Senator John Kyl of Arizona, speaking on Fox, has come out and admitted as much. All new spending increases must be offset, he said, but “you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” So there you have it.

As good an analogy as you’ll ever find on Republicans and deficits.

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Filed Under: economy Tagged With: deficits, Iraq, political issues, politics, wmd