Why is Ryan lyin'?
Every time I read a question/forum post like this (about dishonesty in politics), all I can ever think of is my favorite scene from Casablanca:
" I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
Round up the usual suspects!
Hey Jaxson. Mind if I stick in my two cents?
While you and Ralph were debating the affects of the stimulus on unemployment and President Obama’s campaign promise of 5.5%, it occured to me that you are both correct. The President did not succeed in reaching his promise and a larger stimulus package would have probably resulted in a bigger, faster recovery.
Regardless of who signed the bill, why not brush aside the negativity and applaud the positive affects it has had on the recovery. Taking all the incentives in aggregate, the economy turned the corner and began to improve within 6 months of President Obama’s inauguration as the result of several aggressive measures including the Obama stimulus of 2009. So, while you are focusing on what did not happen, allow me to list a few positive things that did.
Contrary to the many claims that President Obama accomplished little or nothing in his first term, his stimulus bill was introduced in the House on his sixth day in office. Two days later, the bill was passed in the House without a single Republican vote. {1} The final Senate version passed on Feb. 10th on the votes of all the Democrats and only three Republicans. {2}
Alabama Republicans Jo Bouner and Robert Aderholt both denounced the stimulus plan from the floor of the House in July 2009. Over the next three months, both congressmen wrote to the Dept. of Transportation trying to steer stimulus-funded transportation grants to Alabama on grounds that the projects would help create “thousands of jobs.” So, while they knew that the stimulus plan would benefit the job picture, they voted against it anyway. Actually, more than 100 congressional Republicans and several Democrats who, after voting against the stimulus bill, wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood seeking money from the $1.5 billion the plan set aside for local road, bridge, rail and transit grants. {3} I’m not smart enough to make up these facts but you check them out for yourself.
Why haggle over real and expected unemployment rates? If you want the real truth you have to delve into the details. Although both job creation in the private sector and real estate values continue to drag, the measured impact of all the stimulus programs has been a phenomenal success in other sectors. Princeton economist Alan S. Blinder and Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moody’s Analytics, have studied the results of all the stimulus packages. They concluded that “the effects of the fiscal stimulus alone appear very substantial, raising 2010 real GDP by about 3.4%, holding the unemployment rate about 1½ percentage points lower, and adding almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls.” “We estimate that, without the government’s response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8½ million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation” {4}
Just to set the record straight, if Mitt Romney had signed this stimulus package and had had the same results, I would be applauding him now. However, he did not; President Obama did with no help from the Republican Party.
{1} http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/2 … 61654.html
{2} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_R … sentatives
{3} http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= … eLiub0jnQE
{4} http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/docum … ession.pdf
Ryan told a "big fish" story. LOL
That's not good and I'm not trivializing it. He lied.
But, to put it in perspective - remember what happened when the girl Obama was dating in NY claimed the things in Obama's book concerning her were lies?
Obama came up with the excuse that he really didn't mean THAT girl - even though he named her and described their time together - he really meant "a compilation of girls."
Politicians lie. Not all lies rise to the level of Bill Clinton's lies under oath, which earned him an impeachment charge in the House.
But - they all lie. Our job is to discern which ones lie the least - or at least, which ones get by with it the most.
Let's say you start your day with a to-do list with 20 items on it.
At the end of the day you look at your list and see you have 11 items you can cross off.
But, you think back to what you actually did during the day and add 7 new items to the day's list.
Maybe a client called with an emergency that had to be dealt with immediately.
Maybe your kid got sick at school, so you had to go pick her up.
Maybe a neighbor's car wouldn't start so you pulled out your jumper cables and helped him out.
Maybe you were going to pay a credit card bill and checked your bank account and discovered a check hadn't cleared. So you ended up having to talk to both the bank and the credit card company before you could proceed with what should have been a very simple transaction.
These are all items you didn't plan to do today, but that demanded your attention today.
And they all got done.
So if you are measuring your success based on the original 20 items, you're going to feel like a failure with only 11 items.
But if you look at what you actually got done, you see 18 items complete.
And I've got promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.
- JaxsonRaineposted 12 years ago
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