Squabble Over Timing of Obama's Jobs Speech Is Embarrassing

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Many people are buzzing about an article at truthout.org by one Mike Lofgren, a longtime Republican staff aide on Capitol Hill who just couldn’t take the crazy anymore, left his job, and produced this buzzy (and quite well-written) lamentation about his party’s tactics and goals. If you haven’t read it, you must
The Lofgren piece is full of harsh observations and accusations, but here’s just a little sampling:
• The debt-ceiling debate was an act of “political terrorism,” in which the GOP concocted a crisis and used it to ensure that the party's unprecedented demands were met. He writes: “Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care.”
• The August FAA reauthorization fight was another instance such of hostage-taking: “Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers, and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel—how prudent is that?—in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.”
• The GOP plan to discredit government in the people’s eyes is very conscious: “A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.”
• As for belief as opposed to tactics, the party basically really cares only about the rich. Actually, Lofgren doesn’t say “basically.” He says “solely and exclusively.” And he explains how they’ve camouflaged this with talk of protecting small businesses and so on.
There is much, much more. He’s not very happy either about his party’s militarism, its cynical use of religion, its total opposition to doing anything about the environment, and other matters, but most
programs so they will be there in the future."

Eggman of CO 7:02PM September 06, 2011

Susan Milligan is an embarrasment to USN&WR...
But that's for USN&WR to worry about.
Any opinion blogger think of this:
Speeches are subject to revision up until practically the time they are delivered. My opinion is that the White House wanted to put out a test feeler a week in advance to see if Obama was able to pull off dominant-hamster, and get others to accomodate him. They found out he wasn't and couldn't.
And that's because nobody really bought the White House bull about them being unaware or unconcerned about the previously-scheduled republican debate.
That has implications for tone and content of his speech. The speech some* will hear from now non-dominant-hamster Obama at the new agreed-upon date and time will be considerably different than the speech a dominant-hamster Obama WOULD have given at his originally-requested time.
Plouffe is frantic with Obama given Obama's sinking polling numbers. He has to continuously determine and redetermine faster than a Borg can remodulate its shields how Obama should portray himself -- forcefully/conciliatorily -- and Plouffe needs to synch that with public perception of Obama. Otherwise, Obama looks even worse.
The long and short of it: Five bucks says Plouffe advised Obama to step on the republican debate and try and get the House to snap-to, to see how that would go over.
After two and a half years of Plouffe and Axelrod image-shaping of Obama, you'd think more would catch on to the constant behind-the-story machinations of the White House. They've totally lost all the positive inferences of what president Obama would be like given previous Candidate and Senator Obama -- because of the actions of President Obama -- and have to scramble to keep declining perceptions from unravelling any further.
Good luck with that one.
------
*Footnote: I said some will hear Obama's speech. I won't waste my real-time on it. I'll link up to that information superhighway everyone is talking sometime about after the speech, and read the full transcript.
I can read a lot faster than Obama can yammer.

dom youngross of OH 6:34PM September 06, 2011

Sentinel of CO
Looks like obama could have his own Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Watergate going on.
Blame anyone but obama. But I believe in Ghandi...
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Bill Hedges of MO 10:04PM September 05, 2011

In the fight over raising the federal debt limit, the political debate also influenced economic conditions — and not for the better. The wing nuts really screwed us over. First bush puts us in a hole and then his buddies in the house kick us in the teeth just as we start to crawl out. Now they can only squabble with the President over when he can and when he can't talk to the people. The wing nuts in the house have proven to be petty and vindictive. their only goal, to ham-string Obama. So , they squabble, hoping that if things are bad enough they will gain more power in the next election. Theirs is a zero-sum game. Nobody gains in the end. We all lose. Yet , to them , winning the next little skirmish is more important than lending a hand. Look at the debacle they created over the increase of the debt limit. It looks like they are going to harass Obama just like they harassed Clinton for eight years. Evidently, if they can't be in power, then they will do their utmost to sabotage the government. They have become a fifth column, constantly conniving to destroy our government if they are not in control. Other than defunding different branches of the government they are constantly trying to launch a judicial attack. They intimidate different branches by threatening investigations. They have no constructive goals, only destructive.

Sentinel of CO 8:31PM September 05, 2011

"It looks like they are going to harass Obama just like they harassed Clinton for eight years"
Sure did !!! What we did was get him elected to 2nd term, because he joined us. Like obama joins us on EPA regulation:
1. "Obama Delays New Smog Standard"
"Bowing to Republican and industry pressure and contradicting his top environmental aide, President Obama announced on Friday he was delaying for at least two years one of his administration’s most significant environmental and public health standards."
"This action alone will prevent more job losses than any speech the president has given, and I hope he will listen to the bipartisan calls from across the country to address his administration’s negative impact on job creation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement"
http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/obama-delays-new-smog-standard-20110902
___
"New Fears EPA Smog Rule Will Cost 7.3 Million Jobs"
"Lawmakers today issued a new warning that an aggressive antismog plan being pushed by the Environmental Protection Agency could cost the nation $1 trillion, kill another 7.3 million jobs, or 4.3 percent of the workforce in 2020, and halt major construction of highways and factories in employment starved swaths of the nation"
"In 2008, the Bush administration tightened ozone standards in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) from 84 ppb to 75 ppb (parts per billion)."
• "Although the next ozone standard review isn't due until 2013, the EPA is moving forward with another rule to drastically lower the ozone standards."
• "The Business Roundtable has called this new rule the "single most expensive environmental regulation ever imposed on the U.S. economy."
• "If communities aren't able to meet these new standards, the EPA will have the ability to intervene and block any new construction, including new highways or factory expansions, if those activities contribute to ozone pollution."
• "This will crush local investment, economic expansion and jobs."
"Economic Impact::
•" It would "push 565 new U.S. counties into non-attainment status under the Clean Air Act." – National Mining Association."
• "Non-attainment status has a chilling effect on any new economic activity in a designated area." – Midwest Power Coalition."
• "The President's new ozone regulation "could cost nearly $1 Trillion over ten years." – Business Roundtable."
• "Total U.S. job losses because of the new standard are estimated to rise to 7.3 million by 2020." – Manufacturers Alliance."
• "Pennsylvania businesses and individuals could incur control costs of up to $3.2 billion and gross regional product could decline $31.4 billion by 2020. The state could also see more than 330,000 jobs lost by that same year." - Gene Barr, Vice President, Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry."
http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/07/19/new-fears-epa-smog-rule-will-cost-73-million-jobs-new-fears-epa-smog-rule-will-cost-73-million-jobs
2. "The 1993 Clinton Tax Increase Did Not Lead to the Budget Surpluses of the Late 1990s"
"Since the Clinton Administration’s own numbers reveal that the 1993 tax increase was a failure, we have to find a different reason to explain why the budget shifted to surplus in the late 1990s."
"Fortunately, there’s no need for an exhaustive investigation. The Historical Tables on OMB’s website reveal that good budget numbers were the result of genuine fiscal restraint. Total government spending increased by an average of just 2.9 percent over a four-year period in the mid-1990s. This is the reason why projections of $200 billion-plus deficits turned into the reality of big budget surpluses."
"Republicans say the credit belongs to the GOP Congress that took charge in early 1995. Democrats say it was because of Bill Clinton. But all that really matters is that the burden of federal spending grew very slowly. Not only was there spending restraint, but Congress and the White House agreed on a fairly substantial tax cut in 1997."
"To sum things up, it turns out that spending restraint and lower taxes are a recipe for good fiscal policy. This second chart (click to enlarge) modifies the first chart, showing actual deficits under this small-government approach compared to the OMB and CBO forecasts of what would have happened under Clinton’s tax-and-spend baseline."
http://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2011/02/10/the-1993-clinton-tax-increase-did-not-lead-to-the-budget-surpluses-of-the-late-1990s/

Bill Hedges of MO 7:31PM September 05, 2011

In the fight over raising the federal debt limit, the political debate also influenced economic conditions — and not for the better. The wing nuts really screwed us over. First bush puts us in a hole and then his buddies in the house kick us in the teeth just as we start to crawl out. Now they can only squabble with the President over when he can and when he can't talk to the people. The wing nuts in the house have proven to be petty and vindictive. their only goal, to ham-string Obama. So , they squabble, hoping that if things are bad enough they will gain more power in the next election. Theirs is a zero-sum game. Nobody gains in the end. We all lose. Yet , to them , winning the next little skirmish is more important than lending a hand. Look at the debacle they created over the increase of the debt limit. It looks like they are going to harass Obama just like they harassed Clinton for eight years. Evidently, if they can't be in power, then they will do their utmost to sabotage the government. They have become a fifth column, constantly conniving to destroy our government if they are not in control. Other than defunding different branches of the government they are constantly trying to launch a judicial attack. They intimidate different branches by threatening investigations. They have no constructive goals, only destructive. And to demagog to their cult of stupidity.

ProEvolvingScientificAdvocate of CO 7:18PM September 05, 2011

1. "In the fight over raising the federal debt limit, the political debate also influenced economic conditions "
obama was told by Moody in January $$$ 4 trillion was needed to be cut, LONG before "fight over raising the federal debt". Was no secret in D.C.. We could not get that much. We sure tried.
2. "wing nuts really screwed us over"
Here is what your side choice to do. Your side played politics and *ucked up:
"Why Didn’t Democrats Raise The Debt Ceiling Last December?"
"I want the Republicans to have some buy-in on the debt,” he said. “They’re going to have a majority in the House. I think they should have some kind of a buy-in on the debt. I don’t think it should be when we have a heavily Democratic Senate, a heavily Democratic House and a Democratic president."
Harry Reid
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/why-didnt-democrats-raise-the-debt-ceiling-last-december/
3. "bush puts us in a hole"
obama match Bush's $$$ 4 trillion in debt over 8 years in 2 years.
4. "house kick us in the teeth just as we start to crawl out. "
House doing what they were elected to do. " start to crawl out", NO WAY. Moody warned in Jan., when we got elected. We reduced debt, not added to.

Bill Hedges of MO 11:56PM September 04, 2011

In the fight over raising the federal debt limit, the political debate also influenced economic conditions — and not for the better. The wing nuts really screwed us over. First bush puts us in a hole and then his buddies in the house kick us in the teeth just as we start to crawl out. Now they can only squabble with the President over when he can and when he can't talk to the people. The wing nut cult of stupidity has become our worst nightmare.

ProSciencePlannedParenthoodTeachersEnvironmentBulletTrainsEnvirpnment of CO 8:54PM September 04, 2011

We should have listened to Biden & Hillary, they said he was not ready. More debt in 2 years than Bush in 8 years. Higher unemployment. No more AAA rating.
Finally obama listened to us & is stopping one EPA regulation. Is a start, at least we can hope.
Bush warned of recession, and Barney Frank say no problem. By all Democrat vote, regulation to stop/lessen recession was voted down:
"Nancy Pelosi (D) Caught Lying: Says Bush Didn’t Warn Congress About Financial Crisis"
http://friskaliberal.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/nancy-pelosi-d-caught-lying-says-bush-didn%E2%80%99t-warn-congress-about-financial-crisis/

Bill Hedges of MO 1:48AM September 04, 2011

We can't afford another 8 years of bush- like dummies. What hurts about the wasted bush years is that it was so avoidable. Everyone knew he wasn't up to the job. Now we are paying the price.

ProScienceProEducationProTeachersProgressive of CO 1:15AM September 04, 2011