…than you were four years ago?
It will be useful to remind the voters that the Pelosi and Reid have been in control of Congress since 2006, when things started to head downhill, economically. And for the administration, I’m assuming that the recent attempt to Alinskyite Boehner is a desperation tactic, because after being gone for two years, blaming Bush doesn’t work any more. It’s also stupid, because to the degree that people know who the next Speaker is, it just serves to further nationalize the local races, which is the last thing the donkeys need.
With all respect to the Gipper, I hate that question, and that slogan. Yes, as a matter of fact I am better off than I was four years ago. But this has zero to do with government. It’s because of my own work, or the particular circumstances of my life. I despise even agreeing to the terms of the statist’s debate, whereby we assume from the beginning that government is responsible for the general quality of my life — and then we just dicker around about how it’s going to make it better, and what it will cost me.
Well, screw that. Give me a politician who says: Your life? That’s YOUR business, friend. You’re an adult, a free man. Do as you wish with your allotted time. My job, as President/Congressthing/Imperator is (1) to stay the hell out of your life and (2) ensure that other people stay the hell out of your life, unless invited in. Vote for me and I’ll hamstring every busybody, thief, parasite and looter who wants a piece of your pie — and that includes anyone who works for me.
“Pham in 2012.”
I believe a better question to go viral on bumper stickers and such would be:
Is this our new reality?
This question comes from a Democrat woman. It is a very appropriate question. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi have no acceptable answer to this question.
“Pham in 2012.” ditto
Demonizing Boehner: it’s an indication that they expect to lose the house and are preparing the field for blocking “reaction” to the revolution.
Am I better off than I was 4 years ago?
Not just NO, but HELL NO.
Yes, as a matter of fact I am better off than I was four years ago. But this has zero to do with government.
For once I have to disagree with you.
No matter how good a worker, businessman, entrepreneur etc. you are your success can be greatly affected by the government, especially given how bloated and over reaching the US federal gov’t has become.
In your particular circumstance (whatever that may be) you may not have been adversely affected by Obama policies, but I believe that puts you in the minority.
If being better off or not has zero to with with Fedzilla (love that Ted Nugget term) what does it matter who is in power?
The Gipper was, as usual, right. In 1979 we were for the most part worse off than we had been in 1975 and it had a lot to do with Carter policies. Reagans solution was to do as you suggest in your last paragraph, get out to the way of the American free enterprise system and let it work. He succeeded, in part, in achieving that as POTUS and as a result I for one was better off in 1984 and 1988 than I had been previously. And it had a lot to do with what Reagan did, or “undid” if you prefer, as POTUS. Likewise if Obama policies are undone by the 2010-2012 elections we will also be better off.
No, No a thousand times NO!!!!
I’m not crazy about the “Better off” question, either. Instead, I stipulate that every accusation President Obama has expressed about the Great Recession and GWB is true. But the recession was over last summer.
Who’s in charge of the recovery?
Cec, I fully agree with you that the government can make things worse, indeed inasmuch as it claims the power of life and death over a man, it can make things infinitely worse.
And that’s actually the way I would put it: Have you had enough government ‘help’ in your life? Well then, let’s pull the lever for someone other than El Supremo Narcissist, who looks in the mirror and sees the image of Christ the King.
I don’t object to the comparison Reagan made between his thoughts and the rotten despairing philosophy of the Democrats. I just don’t like the way he phrased it — as if he’d already conceded that government had the obligation to improve your life once Mom and Pop got done with their duty.
Here’s a creed worth the name.
Titus, I haven’t done anything nearly wicked enough to be forced to serve in public office!
I just don’t like the way he phrased it — as if he’d already conceded that government had the obligation to improve your life once Mom and Pop got done with their duty.
Knowing something of Reagans writing and speaking before, during and after his presidency I can assure you that that was not his meaning, other than possibly that government had an obligation to improve your live by leaving you alone to the greatest extent possible.
W and Alan Greenspan were two of the people responsible for the crisis.
Greenspan kept pushing the interest rates down and increasing the money supply. This kind of monetary policy did not work for Japan in the 80’s-90’s, what made people think it would work in the US?
This crisis is IMO also similar to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Just replace Japan with the US and the other Asian countries affected by the crisis in the EU.
The US government led by W increased defense spending in order to be able to fight multiple wars simultaneously, then entered into two simultaneous wars. These wars continue today. Neither of these wars comes particularly cheap.
World oil prices spiked after the Iraq invasion. Saddam burned the oil wells in a scorched earth policy to slow down the invasion. Insurgents kept fighting efforts to restart production. Iraqi oil production came crashing down. Soon after world oil prices started surging.
The resources spent on the Iraq war will probably be paid by Iraqi oil output in like a decade. However these destroyed resources which could have been invested elsewhere are not going to come back.
I doubt the Democrats getting elected had any major impact in what happened.
Obama rightly deserves to be scolded for not acting in an appropriate manner to solve the crisis. His policies are not IMO significantly different from W’s once you take the rhetoric out. The did not make any significant policy details. It is mostly a matter of cosmetic.
Neither of these wars comes particularly cheap.
Seven years of war in Afghanistan/Iraq under the Bush administration was cheaper than 20 months of the Obama / Pelosi / Reid spending orgy.
But I do agree that the monetarists shoveling money out, who have committed the great crime of replacing our understanding of the true source of capital from savings to borrowing, ultimately from nowhere at all, vice the Fed, should be shot. The harm the several asset bubbles stimulated by this absurd fantasy have done is enormous.
Hayek was write: capital comes from savings — labor the fruits of which are not sunk directly into consumption — and you simply can’t replace that with fiscal hocus-pocus by the central bank that attempts to let you borrow from thin air.