posted
Obama challenges lobbyists to legislative duel Saturday, February 28, 2009 WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama vowed to fight America's powerful interest groups as he seeks to push through Congress a budget plan so breathtaking in its scope and ambition that it could help reshape American society.
While tackling the economic crisis, Obama is asking Congress to enact contentious measures that have been debated, but not decided, in calmer times: cut subsidies for big farms; combat global warming with a pollution tax on industries; raise taxes on the wealthy; and make big changes to the health care system.
"The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and video address. "But I don't. I work for the American people."
He said the budget plan he presented Thursday will help millions of people, but only if Congress overcomes resistance from deep-pocket lobbies.
"I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight," Obama said, using tough-guy language reminiscent of his predecessor, George W. Bush. "My message to them is this: So am I."
The tone underscored Obama's combative side as he prepares for a drawn-out battle over his tax and spending proposals. Sometimes he uses more conciliatory language and stresses the need for bipartisanship. Often he favors lofty, inspirational phrases.
On Saturday, he was a full-throated populist, casting himself as the people's champion confronting special interest groups that care more about themselves and the wealthy than about the average American.
Well-financed interest groups are likely fight back furiously, and the challenges Obama faces are daunting. The U.S. economy contracted by a stunning 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, its worst showing in a quarter-century. Obama says the crisis calls for gutsy actions.
Under the president's proposal, America's wealthiest 5 percent would pay a whopping $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, while most others would get tax cuts. Industries would buy and trade permits to emit heat-trapping gases. Higher-income older people would pay more for government health insurance benefits. Drug companies would receive smaller profits from the government. Banks would play a much smaller role in student loans.
Passing the budget, even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, "won't be easy," Obama said. "Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington."
Obama's climb is steep. Even with solid Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, he secured a $787 billion stimulus package only after accepting compromises that irked liberals but won the support of three Republican senators.
Not a single House Republican backed it. Judging from House Republican leaders' immediate condemnation of his budget blueprint, Obama can expect more of the same.
Almost every day brings another "multibillion-dollar government spending plan being proposed or even worse, passed," said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who gave the Republicans' weekly address.
He said Obama is pushing "the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible."
Also Saturday, A White House source said Obama has chosen Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be his secretary of health and human services, and plans to formally announce his decision Monday.
Sebelius, 60, was an early Obama supporter. She picked his presidential campaign over that of Hillary Rodham Clinton, now the secretary of state, worked tirelessly for Obama's bid and was a top surrogate to women's groups.
Obama's first choice for health secretary, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, withdrew after disclosing he had failed to pay $140,000 in taxes and interest.
As governor, Sebelius made addressing rising health care costs and making sure more people have coverage top priorities.
Obama turned his attention to the looming battle over his budget plan a day after he consigned the Iraq war to history. He set a firm withdrawal timetable for getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, declaring he will end combat operations within 18 months and open a new era of diplomacy in the Middle East.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
You can disagree with his philosophies and ideologies all you want, but you can't say this boy don't know how to get sh!t done. We've seen more come out of the white house in the last 40 days then we did all of 2008. and it ain't time wasters like bills about transporting monkeys across state lines neither.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Obama is pushing "the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible."
This is the final bubble - the government bubble. It sets up perfectly for the total collapse of our economy and our country! The "messiah" is going to destroy the country instead of save it.
Posts: 1577 | From: Ohio | Registered: Oct 2007
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quote:Obama is pushing "the single largest increase in federal spending in the history of the United States, while driving the deficit to levels that were once thought impossible."
This is the final bubble - the government bubble. It sets up perfectly for the total collapse of our economy and our country! The "messiah" is going to destroy the country instead of save it.
You damned hard headed backwards party-line republican fool! The total collapse of our economy came to pass last year. Are you really so ignorant you can't understand that?
The economy we had is a dead lifeless thing. Now is the time for all thinking Americans to come to the aid of our Country and do their part to build a new one.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
ANOTHER AIG bailout? PLEASE STOP OBAMA...stop spending all this money we dont even have!
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
It takes a pretty dumb fool to argue that the government can save us any money by refusing to spend money, borrowed or not, to try and pull the economy out of the hole. Guess who looses all the money several times over if it doesn't succeed?
It's like this. Supposed you had cosigned a note for a son or daughter to to buy a house and, with the mortgage over half paid off, they loose their job and can't make the payments 'til they find a new job. When they come to you for help, you tell them, "No, I won't borrow money to pay for your mortgage payment until you find a job". Guess who looses then? I promise you, a few months worth of paying their mortgage payment would have been cheaper, even with the added for amount of interest to the bank on the money you had to borrow to get the money.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
It's like this bdgee. After 9-11 people wanted something, and Bush was able to capitalize on emotion by making the case for Iraq. It worked, and there was just enough support against the strong opposition to win the case to go to war.
Now, after years of Bush Obama won because he was able to capitalize on the emotions of the people and their anger to Bush. Like Iraq there was enough support for him to win, but there was just about as equal opposition.
Remember, 48% of America said no. If we had a time machine today im sure people who voted for Obama who crossed party lines would take their vote back.
Sure, he hasnt been in the long and it takes time. Sure doesnt look good though...yes you have to spend SOME. Not TRILLIONS stacked on more trillions. This is just sick how drunk they are in Washington on spending. The Republicans failed when Bush was in, and now we suffer the price.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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You are a sick puppy, full of hate running out both ends.
And the sight and sound of your rampage are every bit as ugly as the smell.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: It takes a pretty dumb fool to argue that the government can save us any money by refusing to spend money, borrowed or not, to try and pull the economy out of the hole. Guess who looses all the money several times over if it doesn't succeed?
It's like this. Supposed you had cosigned a note for a son or daughter to to buy a house and, with the mortgage over half paid off, they loose their job and can't make the payments 'til they find a new job. When they come to you for help, you tell them, "No, I won't borrow money to pay for your mortgage payment until you find a job". Guess who looses then? I promise you, a few months worth of paying their mortgage payment would have been cheaper, even with the added for amount of interest to the bank on the money you had to borrow to get the money.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
If we had a time machine today im sure people who voted for Obama who crossed party lines would take their vote back.
not the source Cash:
President Obama goes into tonight’s big speech with a 68 percent approval rating, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. Great numbers? Average, for this point in a presidency.
Here’s a comparison of presidential approval ratings taken in February of their first year as president.
Bush 43 (2/25/01): 55 percent Clinton (2/23/93): 63 percent Bush 41 (2/14/89): 76 percent Reagan (2/20/81): 68 percent Carter (2/21/77): 71 percent Nixon (2/25/69): 60 percent Kennedy (2/15/61): 72 percent Eisenhower (2/27/53): 67 percent
Partisan breakdown
How is Obama doing in this age of post-partisanship?
Some 90 percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s first month, compared to 37 percent of Republicans.
A full 73 percent of Americans believe Obama is trying to work with Republicans. Only 34 percent believe the GOP is working with Obama.
Down, down, down
Gallup has a new poll out as well.
Job approval numbers are similar to the Wash Post/ABC poll. But they note Obama’s disapproval rating has doubled from from 12 percent to 24 percent.
posted
Obama needs to stop giving money to these companies.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
While you dance to the drum beat of Keith Olberman and follow the pied piper of Chicago.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: Obama needs to stop giving money to these companies.
according to Bernanke's testimony at congress this morning, AIG's money is going to banks and financial institutions that would fail if AIG didn't pay it's OBLIGATIONS.
AIG cannot pay without the bailout money.
according to Bernanke, AIG will someday be able to pay the money back by being liquidated, but not in todays market....
simply put? don't pay AIG's bills for them and we all fail.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Lockman: Obama told everyone during the campaign what he wanted and what he stands for.
He is setting up class warfare and wants to set the United States on a clear path to socialism.
i agree with the first half of that. he's doing it too.
"class warfare" is poor choice of words IMO..
class warfare such as it is today and "what's being set up" has always been with us...
the French Revolution was about class warfare.
So was the Russian Revolution.
warfare implies fighting.
as for the "redistribution of wealth" issue? Bush and Cheney were redistributing wealth in very big way. "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.
does that make Lincoln a Socialist? i think not. it's just a truth....
think about this in terms of class warfare too:
"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came." Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
keep in mind that very few southerners actually owned slaves. slaves were more expensive than homes.
yet the south had no problem recruiting poor dirt farmers to go die
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Clearly anyone making over 250,000.00 a year is being targeted as being rich and somehow being portrayed as being evil. They should pay those extra taxes so the lower class can have their entitled lifestyle.
Eventually 250,000 becomes 100,000 because they run out of 250,000.
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!! Posts: 3317 | From: CT | Registered: Dec 2006
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What is targeted is that they have been being excused from responsibility long enough to have endangered the viability of the Nation.
It is time they accepted an amount of responsibility for the welfare of the nation somewhat inclined in the direction of the vast benefits they have so long siphoned from the economic strength of the Nation.
Which of those with incomes over a quarter a million a year did not gain the educations for its leaders to stay therein without that education relying on government funding (Hint:Even the wealthiest of private colleges get the large part of the cost of teaching their students from government funding.)?
Which Trucking entrepreneur functions on roads entirely constructed and maintained via private monies?
Ever try to fly an airliner across the Country without federally funded air traffic control?
How many alternate sections of public lands were transferred to RR ownership in order to get us the network of RRs we have?
Any shipyards you know of or commercial ports that were not financed with government funds?
What heavy or other industry can function absent the need for those transportation systems provide fro with government funds.
Shall I continue, or are you beginning to realize that government funding is now and always has been necessary for us to have had successful industrial development and if carried out completely, the list started above would give a list that never ends.
And in order for us to successfully participate, not necessarily compete successfully, but simply, just to participate, in the modern world, government participation AND GOVERNMENT FUNDING in private industry is not only feasible and reasonable, it is absolutely necessary, as it always has been.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
How many alternate sections of public lands were transferred to RR ownership in order to get us the network of RRs we have?
it's even worse than that...the theft of private lands to build them was excessive as well.
after the RR's were built? they got sell the "extra" (and there was alot) land and decide which towns got stops (survived and thrived) and which did not...
the wealthy of this nation owe everything they have to this nation just as much as the poor do.
the problem is that at the end of the year? the only people with any money to contribute are not the poor.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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What is targeted is that they have been being excused from responsibility long enough to have endangered the viability of the Nation.
It is time they accepted an amount of responsibility for the welfare of the nation somewhat inclined in the direction of the vast benefits they have so long siphoned from the economic strength of the Nation.
Which of those with incomes over a quarter a million a year did not gain the educations for its leaders to stay therein without that education relying on government funding (Hint:Even the wealthiest of private colleges get the large part of the cost of teaching their students from government funding.)?
Which Trucking entrepreneur functions on roads entirely constructed and maintained via private monies?
Ever try to fly an airliner across the Country without federally funded air traffic control?
How many alternate sections of public lands were transferred to RR ownership in order to get us the network of RRs we have?
Any shipyards you know of or commercial ports that were not financed with government funds?
What heavy or other industry can function absent the need for those transportation systems provide fro with government funds.
Shall I continue, or are you beginning to realize that government funding is now and always has been necessary for us to have had successful industrial development and if carried out completely, the list started above would give a list that never ends.
And in order for us to successfully participate, not necessarily compete successfully, but simply, just to participate, in the modern world, government participation AND GOVERNMENT FUNDING in private industry is not only feasible and reasonable, it is absolutely necessary, as it always has been.
I have no problem with our government being involved with infrastructure. Government money used properly benefits the prosperity of all the people.
Government money used to support the masses and determine a life style is destructive.
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!! Posts: 3317 | From: CT | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
we'll see if it goes thru the budget or not Lock.
i am not saying don't make your case, i am saying that this budget was put out for discussion.
it hasn't been voted on and i bet it looks very different when it is done. i do beleive that Obama wants to go down in history as a President that made real meaningful difference, and i beleive he has the capability (that Bush did not) to do that.
IF you want it changed? you have to offer up some serious debates and not resort to calling people socialistas cuz everybody who actually matters stops listening once that happens. quite frankly? i was pretty shocked when Cash posted som eof th stuff int he stimulus bill and saw it was from Lindsey Graham..
every dollar i ever had came from the US govt to begin with. i don't like it, but when you dig down deep and study (not so obvious) facts? they all belong to the government, we just get to use them instead of bartering direct, which we are in fact allowed to do
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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