Senator Judd Gregg gave Saturday's GOP rebuttal to the Obama plans for the economy. His criticisms sound reasonable, but the plan he advocates is the same as Hoover used in 1929. Why should we expect different results this time?

Thanks, Old School. Sadly, you are right. Which doesn't bode well for two-party politics.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on March 29th, 2009

Hi, OS. I think if the GOP can't come up with something better than that, they should button the lip and keep quiet. They are now definitely the party of "no" and obstructionists who are hypocrites on top of everything else. They produce their version of a "budget" and have no numbers in it. They are asked where their budget is and we are told that it is not their job to create a budget, just to poke holes in the budget that the Dems propose. So..where are we? Exactly, precisely and specifically nowhere. Someone should tell them that "silence is golden" 'cause the hole they dig for themselves is getting to be like "the big dig" in Boston! :)

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by RosieGHM Jetpacker on March 30th, 2009

First rule of holes. Stop digging. The Republican's havne't evolved to comprehend that yet.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on March 30th, 2009

Between thee and me I don't think many of them are Rhodes Scholars my friend. :)

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by RosieGHM Jetpacker on March 30th, 2009

Evolution proceeds slowly for those who do not believe in science. They have to wait for supernatural intervention.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on March 30th, 2009

Bingo..personally, I don't think we should hold our breath! :)

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by RosieGHM Jetpacker on March 31st, 2009

If you are so against deficits, then why aren't you screaming about the deficits that Obama is running up? He is proposing to increase the deficit by more than AL of his predecessors combined. If you are so against government spending, then why aren't you howling over the huge increases Obama and the Democrats are engaging in? You sit there criticizing the Republicans for doing what this current crop of Democrats are taking to extremes.

Old School, you stated that when you find yourself in a hole you should stop digging. Well, fiscally speaking, where the Republican were digging by hand, the Democrats have brought in steam shovels.

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by Glenn Blaylock on September 25th, 2010

@Glenn Blaylock - I am not necessarily against deficit spending, it has its appropriate uses.

I am not against government spending. Government spending brings us many of the things that makes our civil society possible.

And I have been howling for years for a politician who is willing to return the US to the system of progressive taxation we had from the 1900s to the 1980s while simultaneously reigning in the the relatively useless spending on the American Empire (making the world safe for theocratic dictators who will sell us cheap oil since 1952).

To the extent that the Democratic party is complicit in the takeover of the Corporatist Kleptocracy, a plague on their house too.

But the policies that led to that takeover come from an ideology that is largely Republican.

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by Old School on September 25th, 2010

Glenn, I am definitely opposed to large deficits. But sadly, deficit spending is the ONLY good way out of a deep recession. The bad way is what Hoover did in 1929 -- launching a federal austerity program and waiting for it to fix itself. When consumers can't spend, and thus businesses can't spend and have to keep laying off to trim costs and because they can't even sell the inventory they have; if government shuts down spending and lays its people off, you get the perfect storm of a dwindling spiral.

Obama inherited an $11 trillion deficit from George Bush. He isn't proposing doubling it. Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion deficit from Clinton. He DID double it. Reagan tripled the $1 trillion deficit he inherited from Jimmy Carter. The Elder Bush was on track to double the $3 trillion, but couldn't win a second term. And Clinton actually started paying the deficit down before the profligate Bush II blew through the surplus and drove the economy into the ditch. Republicans have no room to lecture when it comes to deficit doubling!

We all need to quit shaking our fists at one another, roll up our sleeves, and get this country back to work. THe greatest generation paid down the WWII debt when it hit 120% of GDP. We can do it again. But not by constantly fighting against one another.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on September 25th, 2010

@Jim.in.a.NC - It's difficult to not shake fists at each other when one 'side' of the debate has a deeply entrenched mythology ("Reagan's tax cuts brought prosperity", "Tax cuts pay for themselves", "Tax and spend liberals", "Cadillac-driving welfare queens", "Foreign aid is bankrupting our government", "tax cuts create jobs", "Roosevelt's polices prolonged the Depression", etc., etc., etc.) that it absolutely will not give up.

Until such people are willing to rejoin the Reality-based Community...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_based_community

...it's going to be difficult to come up with realistic solutions to our budgeting problems.

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by Old School on September 25th, 2010

@Old School. Well said, and thanks so much for the link.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on September 26th, 2010

Thanks. Any ideas for a cure?

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on March 29th, 2009