Going After Bush and the GOP Is a Bad Strategy for Democrats

Why doesn't Obama come forward with all of his secrets? Where born? Which passport used in the 1980's to travel to Pakistan? Grades and paper trail of his questionable college activities? Where he got all of his money in the 2008 campaign?

Obama is an arrogant elitist that needs to have his idiot boards stolen and then the world would see how dumb he sounds.

Citizen of WI 2:12PM October 13, 2010

There's actually been little spending since January 2009 and billions in tax cuts. According to Paul Krugman;

"...government purchases of goods and services have gone up. But adjusted for inflation, they rose only 3 percent over the last two years — a pace slower than that of the previous two years, and slower than the economy’s normal rate of growth. So as I said, the big government expansion everyone talks about never happened. This fact, however, raises two questions. First, we know that Congress enacted a stimulus bill in early 2009; why didn’t that translate into a big rise in government spending? Second, if the expansion never happened, why does everyone think it did? Part of the answer to the first question is that the stimulus wasn’t actually all that big compared with the size of the economy. Furthermore, it wasn’t mainly focused on increasing government spending. Of the roughly $600 billion cost of the Recovery Act in 2009 and 2010, more than 40 percent came from tax cuts, while another large chunk consisted of aid to state and local governments. Only the remainder involved direct federal spending."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1

The current crisis has nothing to do with deficits. Low spending and overcapacity in industry has stalled investment.

The current economic crisis is one that besets workers and their families, not the rich. Corporate profits have hit an historic high of over $1.2 trillion. There have also been tax cuts. The small increase in the top margin and the capital gains tax set to go into effect next year is not sufficient to throw off investor confidence. This is especially true when you consider how a surge in labor productivity, mostly through downsizing, has contributed to lower costs and higher profits. According to one economist;

"Real U.S. GDP in 2009 was nearly the same as for 2006-just under $13 trillion. (The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports figures of $12.8806 trillion (in 2005 dollars) for 2009 and $12.9762 trillion for 2006). While these measures of total output produced are nearly identical, the figures for the number of workers employed and the number of work hours required to produce that output are strikingly different. In 2006, about 138.7 million workers (16 years and over) were employed, compared to only about 134.4 million in 2009. The total time spent at work, by all workers 16 and over, was about 18 billion hours fewer in 2009 than in 2006. Producing the same quantity of output in fewer hours means that labor productivity has increased. There are several possible causes: increased intensity or pace of work (or “speed up”), increased worker skill, improved production methods, or greater quantity or quality of tools used...The increase in productivity over the last few years, however, has not been matched by an increase in demand for goods."

http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2010/0910reuss.html

How will all this new output be sold with insufficient demand?

steve of IL 9:53PM October 12, 2010