Obama caps executive pay tied to bailout money

[sn-e3]

How long until GW starts to look good?

[SuperScout]

Would you believe about 2 weeks ago for me??!! Maybe earlier.

[revwardoc]

Kinda looks to me that the Republican representation in Congress is going out of its way to thwart any attempt by the administration to do anything. Why can't both parties realize that they're supposed to do their job for AMERICA and not just for their respective parties.

[SuperScout]

Could it possibly that the Republican party is (1) responding to the voices of the people they represent, who say that this bill is nothing more than 'porkulus' (2) listening to the Congressional Budget Office (currently run by Democrats, BTW), and (3) are intelligent enough to know that no economy in the world stimulates itself by creating government jobs. Remember, government jobs create net tax eaters, not tax producers. And maybe the GOP and other intelligent folks realize that it is the private sector that creates long-lasting jobs, and that these long-lasting jobs ultimately create tax revenue.

[exlrrp]

Originally Posted by revwardoc

Kinda looks to me that the Republican representation in Congress is going out of its way to thwart any attempt by the administration to do anything. Why can't both parties realize that they're supposed to do their job for AMERICA and not just for their respective parties.

Its interesting to read all the republican's whining about Obama which is obviouslty to cover up the shortcomings of the miserable failure called republican rule. George BUsh and Republican rule have been an unmitigated disaster, a phenomenal failure in every quantifiable aspect.

Let's establish a factual agreement: A republican president has been in power the last 8 years, the first 6 of which republicans controlled both houses of the Congress----which they'd done since 1998----all on board? No disagreement with that? During this time they enacted taxcuts which, they said were sure to keep the economy in Surplus: which was where Clinton had left it, $127 billion in surplus). Lets also agree that what the republicans brag about is their penchant for deregulation and taxcuts. Agreed?
Now lets look at some more facts:

The economy just lost 600,000 jobs the last month of the Bush administration, after losing
3.2 million in the previous year---the last year of the BUsh administration.
"The United States lost almost 600,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, its highest level in more than 16 years, the Labor Department said Friday.
...Employers in the United States have shed jobs every month since January 2008, for an aggregate decline in payroll employment of 3.2 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/bu...07jobs.html?hp
The Bush administration was the worst 8 years of job creation since records have been kept. Anybody want to argue that?

The Unemployment rate when Bush took office: 5.2% and the republicans were screaming about how high it was.
Current unemployment rate after 8 years of George Bush: 7.6% . Thats a terrible increase---there's nothing like it in recent history.

Dow Jones Industrial Average the day George W Bush took office: 10,624
As I write this, after 8 years of George Bush's policies: 8197. The NAsdaq ia STILL lower than it was the day GWB took office.
This gives the complete lie to the republican misperception that your retirement funds would be better off in the stock market---if this were so, they just lost 20% of their value in the last 8 years.

Jan 2001: National Budget after 8 years of Clinton: surplus: $127 billion.
Jan 2009: George Bush's last Budget: Deficit: $1.2 trillion (thats: TRILLION) George Bush has his name signed to the 5 highest deficits in American history. There's no one else even close. he is The Deficit President, the Maximum President Of High National Debt. Again: there's no one else even close.
this is a HUGE disgrace, especially from someone who crowed so much in 2000 about how we'd be in $4.2 trillion Surplus:
"(6/28/2000)...Mr. Bush said that the news on Monday that projections of the federal budget surplus were up to $4.2 trillion only confirmed his own earlier estimates. He said he did not expect to increase the size of his proposed tax cut -- $1.3 trillion over 10 years -- just because more money might be available..." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...+prices&st=nyt)
He really sold some snake oil then: George Bush never balanced a budget, never came close, never even tried.

National Debt the day George W Bush took office: 5,727,776,738,304.64
National Debt as I write this: 10,625,053,544,309.79
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway

This is the most phenomenally spectacular failure of financial policy and leadership in American History. George W Bush ( and John McCain) was saying the economy was sound as recently as August 2008. It was not, and Busb had tio know it, MccAin too. If not they were the mosts spectacularly dumb financial analysts in America. By every account this country has been in a recession since Dec 2007 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNTL14FCBU.DTL
And George W Bush claimed financial expertise because of his Harvard MBA. America should use it for toilet paper because he astronomically ran up the American debt like he bankrupted every enterprise he ever started. (google: Arbusto)

That IS the BUSh Legacy: paying off his administration's debts will still be happening when our grandchildren are old. The cherished repuiblican precept that taxcuts pay for themselves is a flatout lie: they don't, as 8 years of record deficits has shown us.

Lets not forget we're still in 2 wars that Bush knew how to start but, 6+ years later, didn't know how to finish. Some one else is going to have to bail him out then too. We're in the worst financial catastrophe since the great Depression to a large extent because deregulation and taxbreaks under the Bush administration and republican rule set off the biggest feeding frenzy and creative financing ever. (ggogle: credit default swaps and derivatives) Yes I know there were Democrats who played a part in this but the Bush administration's policies only set it up.
Paulson's TARP program was a flatout giveaway---there was no accountability at all. Now that there is, the bright light gets shown on, among other things, bloated executive pay. I'm all for people getting paid what theyre worth, but when their pay is established by boards over which they have great influence, it gets astronomical and certainly does lead to focus on whats good for the president rather than whats good for the shareholder.

Another lie given to a another cherished republican precept: Deregulation doesn't work, neither does self regulation. It leaves the American public open to HUGE bailout problems where the American Publis has to pony up trillions to cover what can olny be described as regulatory falures.

So in the last 8 years of george W Bush, we've seen all the republican concepts shot down: Deregulation is a disaster, taxcuts aimed at the wealthy spur huge public debt, Republicans don't know how to win a war or manage the economy. They couldn't do it whane they had complete charge. Thats the lesson of the last 8 years.
So why is Obama listening to them at all? Theyre the ones who engineered the disaster!

Whats amazing to me is, now thats Obama's been in power for all of 19 days, the amount of hatred they continuously dump into society based on all the things he hasn't done yet but they say will happen. It takes a lot of fingerpointing and name calling to cover up THE WORST presidential record in Americann history by any measurable standard.

Obama is trying to pay too much attention to republicans, trying be too bipartisan. The other side only sees this as weakness, they certainly don't make that mistake.
Let them filibuster all they want to, its an empty threat: America will only see them as the completely intellectually bereft party they are, the party of Pill popping Rush Limbaugh and Joe the Lying Plumber.

[SuperScout]

So the deficit spending of the Bush administraion was bad, but the TRILLIONS more that The Bastard's administration is going to rack up is somehow good? You fail to even remotely comprehend that this is more of an international economic problem that simply one confined to the US. And it became supranational when foreign countries started trying to redeem the shares of stocks which were in turn based on the bogus mortgages that your buddy, Barney The Fudge Packer Franks helped being into being. In case you forgot, Barney is a Democrat. And so is that thug, Chris Dodd.

So you're trying to blame the layoffs of Japanese companies, as well as those in Europe, on Bush? What imbicilic logic. And do you seriously think that The Bastard will know how to 'finish' the wars? This blithering dolt appoints and tries to appoint tax scofflaws and another incompetent and untrained fool like Panetta to the CIA. No leadership, no experience, but hype and blather.

America deserves better.