Can even Super-Obama get out of this predicament? (concerning the Debt Limit)

The Obama administration wants to raise the debt limit:

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said lawmakers must raise the federal borrowing limit in the first quarter of 2011 or risk a default on U.S. debt and a loss of access to global credit markets.

A failure to act would cause “catastrophic damage to the economy, potentially much more harmful than the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009,” Geithner said in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and all other members of Congress. Lawmakers should act before a default becomes “imminent” because damage from even a short-term disruption “would last for decades.”

But, wait just a minute. Back in March of 2006, then-Senator Obama said:

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally."

So, could someone please tell me which it's going to be? If he doesn't raise the debt limit it will "RISK A DEFAULT ON U.S. DEBT". But, if he does raise the debt limit it's "A SIGN OF LEADERSHIP FAILURE".

I feel like the comedian Lewis Black when he looks at the camera and shakes his jowls in utter disbelief.


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Yeah and Lewis just loooves republicans, doesn't he? LOL

 

I think he loves Republicans about as much as he loves Democrats. He'll certainly get a kick out this story! I can just see him shaking his jowls now!

 

Yeah I can see him getting huge laughs just talking about George.

 

So, back to the topic at hand, if the debt ceiling is raised do you think it will be a "sign of leadership failure" as quoted by Obama?

 

I think the markets must have something to do with it.

 

Of course you do. There, there now.

 

Nothing the right wing can't straighten out overnight at any rate.

 

I think you might find that the economic situation has shall we say slightly changed since 2006, now unless you are one of the people who do not want there politicians to adapt to changing circumstances then I am dont see what your complaint is Also do you not realise that the comments were directed at the Law Makers and not the President? it is they not him who would be responsible
So in reality what you have is a situation were the Treasury are asking Republican & Democratic law makers to choose

 

I think the mistake you are making here is that you are defining leadership only as Obama and focusing exclusively on a quote from him. There has been a failure of leadership at ALL levels of government. You choose to focus on Obama because you believe it earns you political points but we all know that there has never been leadership on this issue by anyone in the various leadership positions in a long while. Focusing on the one guy who walked into and/or inherited the worst recession in our country's history as the one who failed his leadership role is just a plain old partisan baiting tactic. Do you really think Obama or anyone else for that matter could actually reduce the deficit/debt during a severe fiscal crisis? All you've proven is that you're no economist and we already knew that.

 

I'm listening to what Obama had to say and, you know what, he was actually right! Hey, I'll give him credit where credit is due! Maybe saying this back in 2006 was one of the reasons he got elected two years later. Go Obama!

But, now after more than two years of reckless fiscal policies, his Treasury Secretary is asking Congress (and ultimately the President) to raise the debt limit. Obama may indeed have to do this in order to keep from defaulting on our debts. I wish it weren't so, but I don't want to see the country go under. If only the Congress and Obama had been more frugal and hadn't spent so much. They remind me of a teenager who's gotten his first credit card and maxed it out. Then he wants the credit card company to raise his spending limit (or ask for more money from daddy) so he doesn't have to file bankruptcy. Hey, teenager, how about spending less? Just sayin'.

Sorry guys, but Obama may have to eat his words on this one and admit "leadership failure". If he did, I'd respect him a little bit more.

 

Obama has only passed one budget. You forget the budget he inherited from Bush was already in place the day he walked into office. I'm not saying he hasn't added to the national debt in his one and only budget but look at the circumstances under which he was forced to do so. The economy was on the brink of collapsing, 750 thousand jobs were being lost a month, Wall Street was melting down, the auto industry and several insurance and financial firms were on the verge of bankruptcy, and the mortgage crisis was peaking. I'm not sure what it would have taken to decrease the debt at that point but I suspect something like an act of God.

 

If you needed a roof over your head and I gave you a house that was several payments behind, would you go out and buy more stuff or would you pay the debt on the house to keep from risking foreclosure? Let's use common sense here. Adding to the debt is one of the reasons Geithner is asking for a debt limit increase. Even in today's economic times I'm not saying that debt increase is a good thing, but unfortunately it may be the ONLY thing that will keep us afloat. Obama and the Congress haven't raised the debt limit yet so we'll just have to wait and see what they do. It still smacks of "leadership failure" though and on that I'll agree with Obama. He may have to bite the bullet on this one.

 

I think it took real leadership to bring this country back from the brink. The interesting part of this whole debt ceiling issue doesn't really involve Obama as much as it involves the Republicans and the Tea Party Republicans and the stances they have taken over the last year or so. They made promises to their base not to raise the debt ceiling that they have no way of keeping. Now that is what I'd call a failure of leadership. The Republican leadership like everyone else knows that they have to raise the debt ceiling or let the country collapse. The only real questions are who will they give political cover to and allow them vote against it even while letting it pass anyway and how can they blame the whole thing on the Democrats?

Here is my prediction: People like Rand Paul and Michelle "crazy eyes" Bachmann and several key GOP leaders will be allowed to vote no on raising the debt ceiling. Just enough Republicans will vote with the Democrats (the ones that aren't up for election anytime soon) to pass a debt ceiling increase. The Republicans will then say, "It was the Democrats who raised the debt ceiling not us", all the while knowing they could stop it in an instant.

I predict a vote something like this: 193 Democrats give or take will vote to raise the debt ceiling while right around 25 Republicans will vote with them give or take totaling right around the 218 necessary votes to pass the bill. About 25 Republicans will fall on their swords and allow around 217 other Republicans to be able to say they were against raising the debt ceiling. Follow the vote and tell me how close I actually was.

This is not only a failure of leadership on the Republicans part, it is downright cowardice.

 

The U.S. economy added 103,000 jobs in December, while the unemployment rate fell from 9.8% to 9.4%.

There have now been 12 straight months of private sector job growth for the first time since 2006.

Any questions?

 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

[FONT=&quot]Table A. Seasonally adjusted unemployment rates and changes due to [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]revision, January - November 2010[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Year and month As first As Change[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] published revised[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] 2010[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]January ............... 9.7 9.7 0.0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]February .............. 9.7 9.7 .0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]March ................. 9.7 9.7 .0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]April ................. 9.9 9.8 -.1[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]May ................... 9.7 9.6 -.1[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]June .................. 9.5 9.5 .0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]July .................. 9.5 9.5 .0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]August ................ 9.6 9.6 .0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]September ............. 9.6 9.6 .0[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]October ............... 9.6 9.7 .1[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]November .............. 9.8 9.8 .0[/FONT]

(sorry, the statistical table didn't copy/paste correctly.. but, you can go to BLS to see it for yourself).

WOW! Those are some stunning statistics!

I think it's interesting to see that even Barney Frank called the Obama administration "dumb" when Obama/Obama's aides predicted that unemployment wouldn't rise over 8% if the Stimulus Package.. er.. "Recovery Bill" wasn't passed:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called into question the wisdom of projections issued by the Obama administration during the congressional fight over the stimulus bill that argued it would prevent higher levels of joblessness.

"President Obama, whom I greatly admire ... when the economic recovery bill — we're supposed to call it the 'recovery bill,' not the 'stimulus' bill; that's what the focus groups tell us — he predicted or his aides predicted at the time that if it passed, unemployment would get under 8 percent," Frank said during an appearance on the Fox Business Network. "That was a dumb thing to do."

Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Economics Writer says, "The nation's economy added 103,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent last month, its lowest level in 19 months ...the drop in unemployment was partly because people stopped looking for work." He also said, "the unemployment rate has topped 9 percent for 20 months, the longest such streak on record. And even with last year's job gains, the unemployment rate fell only from 9.7 percent to 9.4 percent".

Ryan Sweet, economist at Moody's Analytics states, "It's a bit of a mixed bag. Many analysts hoped to see larger job gains, and the drop in the unemployment rate is unlikely to be sustained". He also went on to say, "The labor market ended last year with a bit of a thud".

Apparently last November, the voters decided to throw out the politicians who wouldn't focus on job creation. So, my question to you is when will Obama and the Obama administration start focusing on job creation now that his term is half over?

 

Oh foolish, foolish boy! Obama nor any other president has the ability to actually create jobs, that is the private sector's responsibility. Unless it is that you want him to hire a lot more government workers, I guess that would take care of a few unemployed folks. He could hire 10 millions new federal employees and solve the unemployment problem over night too. What do you think Obama should do to create jobs? Just curious how you would focus on job creation if you were the president. What should he being doing that he isn't doing?

Just to show you that I am not being facetious, I'll tell what I'd do if I were president. I give anyone that needed a job a government job and make private industry foot the bill. How long would it be before a heck of a lot of private industry jobs suddenly opened up since they were already paying for these people to work? It would mean for the first time that those who profit off of this country would actually have a stake in keeping Americans working. Now wouldn’t that be interesting.

 

One of government's responsibilities is to create an environment conducive to job creation by the private sector. Obama and his administration have failed to do that (obviously). What's the answer? It's Obama's responsibility to do find the answer (hey, the "buck stops here" remember?). That's why we elected him and that's why he's surrounded by so many economic advisers. Whatever he's doing, it ain't workin'!

Your proposed plan won't work either. From 1981-2008, the last year of the Bush presidency, the number of civilian government workers bounced between 1.1 and 1.2 million. But Obama's first year saw a surge to nearly 1.3 million civilian workers. And in 2010 he added yet another 153,000 new employees, reaching an historical total of 1.43 million. So with that many new government jobs during the Obama years, it certainly doesn't seem like a "heck of a lot of private industry jobs suddenly opened up", does it? No, it doesn't.

I'll rephrase my question so that you might understand it better, "When will Obama and the Obama administration begin creating a conducive environment for the private sector to begin creating jobs"?

 

THIS JUST IN:

WASHINGTON – His presidency tied to the fate of the economy, Barack Obama is revamping his economic policy team and signaling cooperation to ascendant Republicans and the business community at a pivotal moment in the nation's recovery and Washington politics.


The president is surrounding himself with veterans of the Clinton administration. Chief of staff William Daley, economic overseer Gene Sperling and recently confirmed budget director Jacob Lew form an inner circle with a history of bipartisanship and experience in the art of the deal.


"Our mission has to be to accelerate hiring and accelerate growth," the president declared Friday at a window manufacturing plant in suburban Maryland.
It's a mission facing political and economic crosscurrents, underscored Friday by a mixed bag of an unemployment report and a relatively upbeat but cautionary assessment of the economy from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.


The Labor Department said unemployment dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent and private employers added a net total of 103,000 jobs last month. But the drop in unemployment was due partly to people who stopped looking for work.


Alright! It's about time!!!!!! He's finally realized that his policies of the previous two years weren't working so he's revamping them. Great! Let's see how it plays out now that he's willing to work with the Republicans. I'm concerned about something he said, though: "Our mission has to be to accelerate hiring..." I hope Obama realizes that the only "hiring" he can do is to hire employees to work for the government. If his mission is to be hiring for the private sector or to try to create jobs, well, he'd better wise up.

 

If you want him to be able to create jobs overnight then you have to bite the bullet and allow a program of public works across the country on a scale not seen since the New deal This would lower unemployment straight away create much needed manufacturing jobs as well as a host of ancillery jobs BUT it would cost New bridges, New roads right across the country