Well, I gotta say, Obama seems to be making some pretty big rookie mistakes.
At least I hope they are rookie mistakes.
First there was New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson who had to withdraw from an Obama post over issues of improper actions while governor. *Dick Cheney and Halliburton anyone?
Then there was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who ‘forgot’ to pay taxes. *The Treasury is where taxes actually go.
And just this week there were two more nominees: Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer who both withdrew their nominations for…wait for it, not paying taxes.
Now I don’t blame Obama for these transgressions on taxes. These folks are freakin adults and supposedly public servants, so paying taxes seems like a given. Obama had nothing to do with their personal financial mismanagement.
I do blame Obama for nominating them in the first place. Seems like item #3 on every ‘will this person pass the scrutiny of the nomination’ list is: Have they paid their freaking taxes?
I just hope Obama learned a lesson and has his team working double-time researching the backgrounds of future nominees.
I know what you are thinking, “But JR., this is Barack Obama, he can do no wrong, don’t you love him like we do?”
And Yes, I do believe in Obama. I am still a big fan, which is why I am so upset.
This rant about Obama’s stumble out of the gate is similar to the way a mother scolds her child who just darted-out into the middle of the street before looking both ways. I am more scared than angry.
In today’s hyper-polarized world of partisan politics and light-speed journalism one mis-step is enough to kill a career: Howard Dean, anyone? Luckily, Obama is in office, so he dodged a bullet there.
A lot of the ‘change’ that Obama campaigned on was an end to partisan politics as usual…
So what is the first thing Obama and the newly-in-the-majority Democrats do as their first matter if business? Force through a huge stimulus bill that didn’t get one Republican vote. (Disclosure: I am a registered Democrat.)
Hardly the bi-partisan kumbaya moment everyone envisioned on election night.
Now I am not saying it was all the Democrats forcing this down Republicans throats. I am sure the Republicans were playing politics as well and decided not to vote for it regardless.
Which is utterly ridiculous.
Now is not a time for partisan-ism. America needs bold action, the stimulus package was just such an action.
But between the Democrats acting like 5-year-olds who just got a Nintendo for Christmas, rushing to pass anything they could with their newfound power and the Republicans licking their wounds and relishing their sour grapes, the Average American is lost in the shuffle. (Disclosure: I am not a fan of the stimulus package as it stands.)
So what is the remedy? Shoot, I don’t know. I am a loser who works in a call center.
But even so, I can see that this system isn’t working. Obama was elected to shake things up. But so far he’s looking like the first-round draft pick who is expected to save the franchise, but still has to spend the season carrying everyone’s bags.
Obama should step-up and reign-in the Democratic leadership- ‘Fall in line with my agenda of bi-partisanship or be gone.’ Obama also needs to tell the Republicans to quit bitching and do the job they were elected to do. The Republicans had the keys to the city for 8 long years, I can understand some bitterness after losing that. But we are all adults here and much the same way we all have to pay our taxes (Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer) we all have to roll-up our sleeves once we clock-in at the office.
America is hurting. Now is not the time for plotting for the next election. Now is the time to remember that we are all on the same team. Now is the time to restore some luster to our great country.
I still think Obama is the man for the job. He just needs to find his legs and remember to look both ways before darting into the street.
5 comments:
So....wait a minute here: You say we need 'bold action' and chastise the GOP for putting the brakes on this pork laden swindle-us package, but then go on to say you aren't a fan of said package? Which is it? The so-called stimulus package is a joke, nothing but payback to heavy Dem constituents that will do absolutely nothing for the economy. The promised infrastructure investments are not there, and the kicker is that BO is going off about how something needs to be done now...but only 10% of the package will go into effect this year. I'm glad the GOP and some Dems grew a pair and halted this legislation from being ramrodded down the taxpayers throats.
Also, nice try with the ol' boogeyman Cheney/Halliburton angle when bringing up Richardson. The problem is that Cheney donated any stock gains from Halliburton to charity. Before taking office even. His Gift Tax Agreement specifies that 40% will go to the University of Wyoming (Cheney's home state), 40% will go to George Washington University's medical faculty to be used for tax-exempt charitable purposes, and 20% will go to Capital Partners for Education, a charity that provides financial aid for low-income students in Washington, DC to attend private and religious schools.
The agreement states that it is "irrevocable and may not be terminated, waived or amended," so Cheney can't take back his options later. Find yourself a fact or two sometime, you might learn something outside your echo chamber. Oh, and the compensation he did receive while in office, some 350k, was deferred salary from an agreement signed in 1998 and while in office it would have been illegal for Halliburton to increase or decrease said salary.
Cheney did pay his taxes, though.
But back to Obama - BO's brilliant press secretary let it slip that Obama knew all about the tax issues each nominee had, but chose to press ahead. This was either a move of stunning arrogance or stunning incompetence. I go with arrogance - the press carried Obama's water during the election cycle and never questioned any of his moves. Having dodged all serious issues during the campaign with help from said media, I feel Obama thought it didn't matter if his treasury secretary didn't perform his patriotic duty and pay taxes. He's the chosen One! Yes He Can! However, after Geithner came the other clowns and it was all too much for anyone to ignore. This display of hubris and arrogance from Obama, alongside the idiotic stimulus bill, has burned a lot of politcal capital...and we aren't even 30 days into it.
Here's hoping Obama is not enjoying his portion of humble pie and that he'll learn that being President means you do have to answer for one's actions. However, while he's dealing with domestic issues Iran, N Korea, Russia, Pakistan, India and the EU have all unclenched their fists long enough to bitch slap him.
It's going to be a long 4 years.
'Mission Accomplished!' wasn't arrogant?
Ah, well it’s good that the era of binary political stances and analyses is behind us, as evidenced by the above tempered and objective viewpoint…
While the Senate is a different story, it was not exactly a bold political move for the Republicans in the House uniting against the stimulus bill. It was going to pass regardless, and so there was nothing to lose from a “no” vote – they could not be accused of blocking a bill that at the time had a lot of public support, and they could then feel free to legitimately point out a lack of bipartisanship. It’s like me voting no to a bill banning me from getting scandalously intimate with Jessica Alba. – I’m not screwed either way. Actually heard there’s one being drafted by Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. Really takin this social conservatism thing too far, in my humble opinion. In any case, with that kind of a Democratic majority in the house, and a Democratic Executive branch, the role of the House Republicans will basically be as dissenters, almost regardless of the bill.
I’m sure that there are some profound philosophical differences about the stimulus bill that are being hashed out in the Senate right now, including the use of tax cuts vs. spending as the most efficient stimulus, which gets into different estimations of multiplier effects and whatnot. It is good that these things are being debated, and hopefully the GOP isn’t simply rejecting anything with the hint of Keynesianism in it because of their rampant homophobia rather than their rampant monetarism. I’m kidding, though the first thing I’ll do with my time machine is invite Keynes from 1920 or so (or, in the updated naming conventions, John the Economist) to a cocktail party - with Joe the Plumber present. I’d serve High Life, the champagne of beers. The ensuing witty repartee that would ensue about active fiscal policies would be mind-bending. Those two at the top of their game… wow. Maybe I could introduce Milton Friedman and Caroline Kennedy, as well.
HoJu, I will agree with Jesse that the Cheney Haliburton thing is a little tired and smells of incense and artificially incensed young folks in the circle jerk that is the cathartic yet often meaningless Bush bashing tradition. They’re out of office. We don’t have to yell about Bush/Cheney warcrimes and conspiracies in order to get laid anymore; time to go onward, upward, something, hope, polar bears, etc., etc. We can now take a step back, be critical of all of the things that went down in the last 8 years are disagreeable to us, and try and objectively find the positives as well… there’s probably some in there, right? Right?
Jesse, the Geithner tax thing was embarrassing for him and the administration – calling him a “clown” may be mischaracterizing his employment history a bit. In general Obama as assembled a pretty impressive economic team. A rational way to go about it would be to say, “I think the symbolism of a tax error by the potential treasury secretary outweighs any credentials he may have.” Daschle’s problems are far worse, including payments he received for speaking to the medical and insurance industries, but he withdrew so the hell with it, eh? How about Paul Volker? Is he a clown too? Just give me Paul frickin Volcker, ok? He controlled monetary policy during the Reagan administration, so that should give you the warm fuzzies. Think happy thoughts! Maybe the 4 years won’t be so bad! As far as your last couple lines, I think it maaay be a touch to early to fully evaluate his foreign policy, but you’re right - if you expected him to be frolicking through a wheat field with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both of them allergy free, then it has been an abysmal failure indeed.
To call the stimulus bill “idiotic” and “a joke, nothing but payback to heavy Dem constituents that will do absolutely nothing for the economy” (as unique and riveting as peeps angry about politics can be) smacks of blind vitriol more than reasoned argument. I started to read the bill awhile ago, http://readthestimulus.org/index.php, and while I now know the definition of “nonambulatory disabled cattle” more clearly than I ever planned to, it’s not really all that funny of a joke as a whole. Around page 60 or 70 or so there start to be some pretty meaty grants towards infrastructure and energy programs… maybe you didn’t get that far Jesse? Most of the grants I’ve seen remain available only until October of 2010, which isn’t a long timeframe for grants of the size I saw, but maybe I’m missing something or misreading it…
Oh wait, I found the funny part, here it is on pg. 215…
“The Administrator of the United States Agency for Energy and Water Development, a rabbi, and a priest walk into a bar… The rabbi says to the bartender ‘the amount appropriated under this heading, not less than $126,000,000 shall be used for water reclamation and reuse projects authorized under title XVI of Public Law 102–575.’ At this point the Administrator, looking very thirsty, specifies ‘Provided, That the costs of maintenance and rehabilitation activities carried out with funds provided in this Act shall be repaid pursuant to existing authority, except the length of repayment period shall be determined on needs-based criteria to be established and adopted by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, but in no case shall the repayment period exceed 25 years!!’”.
Gettit?? Maybe a little highbrow, but funny stuff, funny stuff….
Juice – write about UW basketball or something for chrissakes, I’ve now wasted too much time on this political crap.
Hoooooo doggie, you have finally opened a can of worms worth digging into the dirt over. First the easy stuff: the idea of a 'bi-partisan era' is a joke. Sadly, not even Barack's popularity can make that happen. While I would love to blame Republicans for this, the truth as I see it is that both sides carry decades of broken deals and frustrations with the 'other' side. Politicians will never really get along with one another until after they are retired (and it's not likely even then). More easy stuff: everyone knows that ANYTHING that can be brought up to tarnish a record WILL be brought up, so I agree that Obama's pics should have been better researched. That being said, I think most of his pics have been pretty solid. He paid due lip-service to being bi-partisan (which I still feel is a joke) while keeping the big ego's happy enough in the Dem party.
Ok, harder material is the stim package. While I personally don't like the idea of dumping a Trillion dollars (close enough) on ANYTHING, I do feel that this bill is going to make more of a long-term dent in our economic problems than the completely failed Bush bail-out (which, I should point out, was passed by our Dem congress). Building from the bottom up is the way to go in my opinion, and liberals have a better history of doing this. (And I'm not JUST talking about FDR here). Virtually no one with a solid brain will ever fail to find SOMETHING wrong with a bill involving sums of money that large. Government isn't perfect, even liberals agree with that. But dumping money into banks, investment firms and corporations is not going to solve the problems that most folks face right now. And whether or not one agrees with the government helping people in financial trouble--even if they put themselves there--the current crisis has the potential to crush the country, even the folks who feel insulated from the current problems. So helping the bottom is the way to go, this stim package has the ability to do this. Something will be done, and even if it's not perfect, I think this bill will be OK...pork notwithstanding.
PS: anyone who does not believe that Dick Cheney wanted Halliburton to financially profit from his administration has a seriously over-positive view of Dick Cheney. The fact that he did not personally profit from no-bid contracts does not change my opinion that taxpayers overpaid Halliburton for doing a generally shitty job; even if it is passe to point these things out.
I forgot to mention that my beer got warm just reading all this. Now I'm pissed. MARCH ON WASHINGTON! Or at least march to the fridge.
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