Let Obama Speak Before GOP Debate! UPDATED

Let Obama speak. The more he speaks, the more he puts his foot in his mouth … even with Teletubbie. Let the people hear what he has to say … then hear what the other candidates have to say … it can only hurt BO and show the common sense superiority of even the least of the other candidates.

This really made me mad. That being said, I agree that there is really nothing he can say, he is just going to put his foot in his mouth.
I say just move the GOP back a few hours so that they havea chance to blow holes in what Obama says (which won’t be hard, I am sure)
Sigh.

He only requested the joint session of Congress for the speech because it is a good venue (he thinks) for him to kick-off his campaign. That’s all he cares about. As an added bonus for him the White House operatives think it would be great if he could upstage the Republicans on the night of their debate. How juvenile. Doesn’t matter to me when he speaks as I don’t watch or listen to him anyway. It still blows my mind to think that so many people were fooled by this grifter in 2008.

Obama’s administration in a nutshell…

Be incompetent in taking action. Then be weak and back down.

I for one am very interested in hearing what the President has to say and hope that Congress will act quickly on his proposals and/or come up with some of their own. We need to get people back to work. I know many people who are looking hard for jobs but remain unemployed. There is a great deal of suffering in this country and politics cannot get in the way of making things happen. I am reading that the President will propose tax breaks for companies that hire unemployed individuals. That would be welcome news because there are many places that will not even interview someone who is not currently employed. Since I am not a football fan I have no problem that the Speaker is making the President give his speech on the same night as the first game of the football season. I am also anxious to hear specific job proposals from the Republican candidates who would have to hit the ground running if elected. So far all I have heard from them are complaints about government spending and nothing specific about job creation. I would like to hear their ideas for getting these multi national corporations to invest in this country by bringing jobs back here.

Well the easiest way to get multinational corporations to come back to the United States would be to reign in the NLRB

Their rulings — from attempting to force Boeing to relocate its just-completed and ready-to-roll South Carolina 767 assembly line to Washington state, to those recent ones allowing unions to create unions within companies by job title all encourage multinationals to go overseas. (The NLRB has no say if Boeing puts its line in China or Australia.)

Similarly whimsical changes in environmental laws, based on junk science (the new CO2 caps) also encourage multinationals to move overseas. (Which also increases net global pollution, but better to shut down Texas coal-fired plants so that the coal is burned in Chinese plants that produce more particulate pollution — and that does drift over here.)

Then there is the Lacey act which allows the Federal Government to seize property containing certain types of wood or animal products until the owner can prove that they were extracted “properly.” This has been used to confiscate items that are 100 or more years old which contain ivory or certain woods — because the owner cannot prove the chain of custody to the Feds satisfaction. It, too, is encouraging multinationals to move overseas so they don’t have to hassle with Federal raids, such as the one Gibson Guitar had a few days ago — when the Feds asserted that Gibson was violating an Indian law (even though the Indian government says there was no violation). Now Gibson is facing an expensive court fight to get their property back.

Cutting back odious regulations are proposals that have been made by numerous Republican candidates. Anyone that is unaware of that is not paying attention. And, yes curtaining whimsical and odious regulation *does* affect job creation.

(Earlier this summer I briefly considered starting a company that would have created five to ten new jobs, but finally decided that I would make more money with less hours working for someone else. Main reason I did not was the tangle of Federal Regulations I faced, and the penalties for violating them. Wasn’t worth it. I have a job now that pays as much as I could have reasonably expected running my own company — at least initially — but there are four to nine others that are still unemployed because I chose to be an employee rather than an employer.)

Another *specific* example of a job creation initiative offered by the Republicans is Rick Perry’s “loser pays” proposal. If the loser of a lawsuit has to pay all court costs, frivolous lawsuits are discouraged. That means businesses have to defend themselves fewer times because “roll-the-dice and let’s see if we win” trial lawyers lose more than their time if they initiate a lawsuit and lose. Right now it makes more sense for them to sue someone than to sit in their offices doing nothing.

Reducing frivolous lawsuits will significantly reduce corporate legal costs which in turn frees up money for R&D or expansion, both of which create jobs. Admittedly some lawyers would go unemployed, but you can hire a lot of shop-floor workers for the cost of one lawyer. And the workers actually produce something.

Ignoring the cost of regulation and lawsuits on job creation is to ignore a major reason for anemic job growth over the last two years.

To add on to Mike’s post, the other things that could be done would be to flatten and lock in tax rates and cut federal spending. Businesses want certainty. When federal intervention in the form of taxes, spending policy, and regulation is all over the place, it creates a climate of uncertainty and businesses/investors are significantly less likely to invest their capital and/or expand. Flattening and locking in tax rates makes the tax system predictable and easy to comply with, providing certainty businesses are looking for. And getting our spending under control would go a long way towards strengthening consumer confidence. After all, who is going out and spending their money when they’re worried the entire country is on the verge of collapse? Nobody, that’s who. If consumer confidence could be eased, people would loosen their wallets a bit and then businesses could get going. But if a company expands and hires more workers while consumers are simultaneously tightening their belts, that’s a bad investment and will harm the company.

All of these things, BTW, are frequent suggestions by Republicans in Congress, GOP presidential candidates, as well as GOP policy analysts. Providing some kind of tax credit for hiring the unemployed is worthless if companies aren’t in a position to expand and hirein the first place. The key is to get the economic and regulatory certainty that businesses and consumers need to quelle some enough of their fears that they start spending again.

Where is the outrage that all the GOP candidates want capital gains tax and dividends tax to go to ZERO. Thus the super rich won’t pay any tax. They only pay 15% now and want zero.. They don’t go to work like us slobs. They don’t have wages just investments.

With respect to Gov. Perry’s “loser pays all” proposal, why should corporations have so much power over us? Have you ever tried to make a complaint to a corporation? You cant even get a human being on the phone and if you do the response is generally unhelpful. This gives corporations total power with no accountability – there would be no right or way to redress grievances and you cant vote them out of office. Be careful what you wish for – no regulatory oversight of multi national corporations with no allegiance to this country and limited ability to sue a multi national corporation in court does not benefit individual Americans. I personally believe it is where our country is heading and it frightens me.

I am not one who believes the federal government is my enemy. Yes I do think corporations have a great deal of power and are accumulating more. If I am unhappy with the government’s actions or direction, I can vote to change that. I have a constitutional right to redress my grievances. I have no such rights with respect to corporations. As for doing business with another corporation, that is not always possible. Take for example cable services – the options are very limited where I live and the only real service is very expensive. Take for example the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. If the government does not stop that merger, there will be only two huge corporations to choose from -AT&T and Verizon. This limited competition will reduce services and increase costs for us and we would have no right or ability to change anything. We will be at the mercy of corporations that are accountable to no one but their owners and shareholders. I love my country and I support the federal government. It is not perfect but I can change what I do not like – I have no ability to do that with a corporation.

Excessive government regulations should be modified – I agree. I am not sure which regulations you refer to that have forced businesses to close but government should be responsive to such a situation You have to work hard to convince me that corporations are unfairly taxed in this country – oil companies received huge subsidies, General Electric paid no taxes last year I believe and there are CEOs whose compensation is higher than the taxes paid by their companies. If there are unfair taxes then they should be revised. I believe both parties believe in tax reform. As for the GDP – we are not producing anything in this country. We are a consumption economy. Our jobs left this country before 2008. This is a jobless recovery because the large corporations have outsourced our jobs. Ford is building a plant — in India because that is where the demand is. If there is no demand here and the private sector is not creating jobs here and the federal government stops spending and goes on an austerity plan – how are we supposed to crawl out of this mess? The fact that there is no apparent way out is the reason for a lack of consumer confidence. Borrowing is not healthy but neither is public sector austerity when the private sector is not creating jobs in this country but is investing instead in emerging markets across the globe.

Another thing I would like to point out is that ALL economies are “consumption” economies. Consumption is what drives production. If people aren’t consuming something, it won’t get produced. I think what you mean to say is that our jobs market is more of a service market than a production market; ie, we’re more in the business of providing customer service instead of making things. But that’s an important distinction to understand. And it really ties in to everything else I’ve said because if it were cost effective to build things in the US, companies would be doing it in a heartbeat.

Also, employers in other countries do not have to worry about health insurance expenses. As far as I know, this is the only country in the world where health insurance is an employer expense. Does anyone know of any other country that has our system of employer based health care?

I don’t know who is paying for those employees to have insurance. What I do know is that thenlaw will cause them to not have a job. So, if they are paying their own, they will still be responsible for that in addition to having no job. If they are on medical assistance they will still be on medical assistance in addition to having no job. Either way, their situations are worse.

All companies need those write offs Barbara or else there’s no reason to go into business at all. And the record profits argument is yet another talking point that’s frankly been debunked. Oil companies make a smaller profit- percentage wise and dollar amount- than Apple, for example. But I don’t see anyone calling for the removal of Apple’s ability to write off losses. And I don’t see any convincing argument as to why we should tax people on money they have lost. We charge taxes on earnings and income. A loss is not in either of those categories.

Further, oil companies provide a vital service to our society. That service costs money: to procure, to refine, to transport, to pump, etc. If you add in yet another cost what do you think will happen? Do you think prices might go up further harming every day consumers?

One thing that I need to point out here is that your fall back answer to these things is to continue punishing businesses in the form of higher taxes. But then complain that the demand for jobs is not here. Well, when you make it your policy to punish success what do you think will happen? You really need to remember that businesses are created, invested in, and run by people. And not all of those people are rich. But the vast majority of them took very great risks to themselvesnand their livelihoods to start those businesses in an effort to attain financial success. If we punish people for that success then why should they bother doing business here?

As far as the debt and the deficit goes, a few points. First, the deficit has increased dramatically in the past three years. We went from running deficits in the low hundred to mid hundred billions to over $1.5 trillion annually. And no that money isn’t all going to food stamps and unemployment benefits. Second, when you hear people in Washingont talk about cuts, what they’re talking about is a cut in the rate of growth. That means that funding for program x is set to increase by y amount next year and we cut the amount we’re increasing it. So when you hear people crying about cuts to their pet programs what they’re really talking about is that the will be getting a smaller amount of additional money next year. That’s not a real cut. Third, we are paying for a heck of a lot of junk that is flat out wasteful. Cowboy poetry? Do we really need to be paying for that? I didn’t think so. Cut that garbage out. Fourth, if you look at total federal expenditures, the biggest dollars go to defense and the big 3 entitlements. 52 cents out of every dollar spent goes to the big 3. About a quarter of every dollar spent goes to defense (military, DHS, etc) and that figure includes the wars that are winding down. We can certainly find places in the defense budget to cut. But we also need to start being realistic about our entitlements. As it stands now the big 3 are on course to overtake federal revenues in the next decade or two. That means that every dollar we take in will go to entitlements and we will have to borrow additional money to fund the big 3 in total. Every single other federal expenditure will have to be paid with borrowed money. So, reform absolutely has to happen, period.

I get the feeling that you don’t like the idea of cutting back on our spending but what I really, sincerely urge you to consider is that all those entitlements and spending programs aren’t going to mean much if we collapse. We truly are in serious danger of facing a Weimar Republic situation if we can’t get spending and inflation under control. And it is going to get to the point where our creditors stop lending to us because there’s no way they will ever get paid back. And there are literally no amount of taxes you could increase on “the rich” or those nebulous “corporations” that will reverse this trend. Historically, even with tax increases, the federal government takes in about 18% GDP. Year in and year out, that’s what they take in. The key is to not do anything that will make GDP contract (or at least keep it from contracting for an extended amount of time). GDP needs to grow and we need to curb our spending to get out of the mess we’re in. Which is why spending a boat load of money on all these incentives is only going to make the problem worse, not better.

I know I just wrote a novel here (sorry!), but these are really important concepts that you really do need to understand. I think you mean well so I don’t want to offend you here, but a lot of what you’re saying is just not economically sound. In my life prior to children I was quite a career girl and I managed two businesses over a period of about a decade. So this isn’t a matter of me repeating GOP talking points but of things I learned through experience.

Doc says..”Sick people in other countries also don’t have to worry about getting superior treatment from the government health care system. They often get no treatment at all, right up until death.’
Doc…[not] tell that lie to the northern Euopean citizens.

tnxplant – we have to try something. we are spent out on stimulus – what else is there?

Boehner was fine with the address on the night of the debate until Rush Limbaugh called him out on it. If the Republicans take the White House we can look forward to a country run by Rush Limbaugh. I do not like that man’s policies and politics. This isnt the White House looking like the Keystone Cops, it is the Speaker and his staff.

Just reading over the comments and post gives a clear example of the huge gap between the parties and between liberals and conservatives. The major differences are clearly that one side, the liberals, still believe in and want ever larger government controlling everything in our lives and the other side wants government out of everything except for what they are allowed by the strict reading of the actual text of the constitution. It is a debate that cannot end in compromise any more than favoring abortion rights and thinking one can the get to heaven. The liberal believes somehow that putting together a massive government program for the poor will help the dead infant and that it will somehow make up for the death they desired. The liberal does not want to go by the actual text of the constitution, but favors finding words not there like privacy and from those words not there, grant rights to murder and sodomy. The liberal wants to take an amendment written after the civil war specifically to stop the injustice to freed blacks and pretend it somehow has special meaning to allow special rights to selected behavior choices. The liberal equates skin color which we are born with and is not chosen to having same sex attraction and choosing to act on that weakness and uses the 14th amendment to then decide that sodomy and hetrosexual sex are equal and both deserve to be granted the rights of matrimony by decree. However, they cannot seem to answer why based on the very same law and logic, that incest, poligomy, or any other behavior choice of those born with other weaknesses are not allowed.

Logic and liberalism do not work which drives the conservative up the wall. Some, mostly on the left, believe that the solution is to have compromise which ends in the same place they want the country to go. gay rights compromise does not end with having a gay person not sent to jail or beaten, but demands that all people are forced to recognize that lifestyle as equal to marriage between one man and one woman with anyone who denies this liberal truth in jail as a bigot. Compromise on race issues does not stop where MLK wanted with everyone being judged on the content of their character and not on the color of their skin, but must have special rights granted based on skin color and the wide use of the race card that anyone who disagrees with them on liberal policies is a bigot and guilty of hate crimes. Liberals do not really want quality healthcare for all, but in reality will not see an end until the federal government controls every aspect of our healthcare. Conservatives want the government out of healthcare realizing that the medicare program and big government started sending healthcare over the cliff. Of course medicare came about with an expansion on the other government controlled program social security which used another lie about the constitution in the wide expansion of the commerce clause. Once that lie was allowed and we had social security ruling to allow a very small wedge, the liberal drove their constitutional wrecking ball into high gear. One reading of the minimal social security bill passed compared to what we have today tied to that small bill shows what a liberal big government lover does to something when they get their foot in the door. A vote to go back to the bill as passed under FDR and everything that was piled on after that bill be repealed. Or how about going back to the size of government in even 1996 after Clinton’s first term and locking the government size and expense at that forever… How is that for a compromise folks? Compromise with the liberal is like inviting the most angry and depraved mother in law to come and live with you on a permanent basis after she has discovered the fountain of youth. Once in your house, life as you thought you knew it will end forever.

Corporations are making record profits so I do not understand how eliminating regulatory agencies will increase demand and create jobs. If there are excessive regulations that hinder demand and job growth then there should be revisions and modifications. Our system of government allows for change and provides ways for us to redress grievances.
As for the “demon liberal” rant in #36, I don’t see the relevance or connection to anything that has been discussed here. I will say though that our democracy is based on compromise and the only alternatives to compromise are dysfunction or tyranny

Sorry I didnt mean to suggest that the Politico story supports my statement regarding Mr. Limbaugh’s control over the Republican party – that is my opinion based only on my observation. I put the link in the wrong place. The Politico story reports on the chronology regarding the timing and scheduling of the President’s job speech.

Blame Limbaugh, blame “corporations”, tax the rich (um, we’re running out of “rich” people to tax, guys; and taxes affect lower, and middle income people, too.)

(Also, re the “tax the rich” mantra—nice way to push class warfare, there; that’ll really help the economy—sarc.)

I believe a national day of penance—maybe even a penitential week—is the only thing that can bring us back to sanity, at the moment.