Well, it's Friday, and since I'm a "numbers" guy I know this is The Elephant in the Room's lowest traffic/visitor day. It's not ideal, but what are you going to do? People have better things to do on their Fridays. :-)
I thought I'd have a little fun and see if people wanted to share their favorite talking points or "gotcha" phrases. Now truth be known, I'm personally not that big on talking points. They're pretty shallow (even if they're true), and rarely offer the backing needed to solidify one's position. I'd much rather delve deeply in to something, and create, back, and defend a position using sound (preferably economic) analysis. For example, when someone messages me on Twitter with "well, you know, Mitt Romney only paid 14% in taxes while the average American who makes $57k pays 28%," I'd prefer to say, "okay, well, let's take a look and see if you know what you're talking about or just blowing smoke." It turns out, with that exact example, the person who made that claim was just blowing smoke. Check it out: http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/02/exploring-tax-myth-what-tax-rates-do.html
So yes, talking points really aren't my thing. But, every once in a while, they can be fun to talk about. Just yesterday I saw a post on a friend's Facebook page. She was talking about how much she disliked Obama, to which she got a very standard, it's-getting-overplayed, liberal response like, "well, Obama is still cleaning up Bush's mess and Bush's debt."
<Crickets>
My response went something like, "cleaning up Bush's debt? Seriously? Let's see. Bush added roughly $5 trillion in debt in 8 years; Obama added about $5 trillion in debt in 3 years. So, by using your logic, if I accidentally spilled some ketchup on my kitchen floor, the best way to ensure my floor gets 'cleaned' up is to dump some more ketchup on it." - Talking point, yes... not my thing, yes... but I dabbled in it, and a some people laughed.
Talking points tend to come up at random times. Usually, when I'm driving to or from work, I tend to think about politics, and this is when they usually pop up in my head. For example, I heard an Obama speech on the radio where he said, "the other side wants to go backwards. They want to bring back the policies of the last administration. They want to go back to four years ago." This got me thinking:
"Go back to four years ago?" Well, let's see. If we went back to the previous administration (over 8 years) we'd have:
- An average unemployment rate of about 5.3% compared to an average of about 9.2% (Source: Google Data)
- A national debt that averaged $7.5 trillion instead of $12.5 trillion
- More people working
- Less people receiving food stamps
- No Affordable Care Act
- A somewhat more unified country compared to the hyperpartisan divide existing today
- A higher national credit rating
The list goes on and on and on.
Again, these are talking points, but, they are facts. They are simply "quick and dirty" answers to the question, "what would it be like if we went back to the way it was?"
What do you think? Care to share some of your favorite talking points? Happy Friday!
Back when Bin Laden was alive
ReplyDeleteYes, to go along with the theme, that would be a talking point response. But Bin Laden was essentially dead from 2006 on. He was powerless, resourceless, and couldn't do much.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't go down the path of "Obama got Bin Laden." Don't even get me started.
My poll numbers are falling. My donors are falling. Quick, I need some money.
ReplyDelete"I now support gay marriage."
Cha-ching! - Barack Obama 2012
Hope and change!
ReplyDeleteI think i threw up a little bit, was this really a post on trying to state that bush did a good job and implying what he did had no effect on our current situation......
ReplyDeleteI feel myself getting sick again.
He went out with a bang that's for sure! or I should say a collapse!
wow Im gona image i never read this and go watch "breaking the bank" again so i can get back to some sense of normalcy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/breakingthebank/view/
Loyal Watcher - good morning, and Happy Friday!
DeleteFirst, this had nothing to do with whether I think GWB did a good job or a bad job. It doesn't say that, and that's not what I wrote about. I, as someone who studied economics, think he did a decent job. It wasn't perfect, but it was decent. I also don't believe Bush had as much to do with our current economic situation as most non-economically-minded people, and can obviously back it. I've challenged the "Bush did terrible job" people many times, and, of course, get nothing but talking point (usually misleading, incorrect, or factually/economically false) responses in return. I'd challenge you to back why you think Bush did so "poorly" without spouting talking points or random fringe sites, but with pure, actual, economic analysis... but that's for another day, especially since this post was not about how good or bad Bush did. If you honestly think the collapse was the fault of Bush, you're sadly (economically and factually) mistaken. It is easy, without the academic or empirical background to think that and fall into that group, but again, I don't fault you for it, and that's a debate for a different day.
But, to the original point of this post... to dabble in the silly world of talking points, I gave a silly example of ketchup (rooted in facts about the debt), and additional talking points that are all 100% true. Would you like to try to refute those?
Wait, LME - are you surprised? Here is a guy who has no formal education let alone one in poli sci, econ, business, finance, and certainly not English (he can barely spell or write properly), and blasts this "Bush messed things up" crap, but has no clue what he is talking about. Does this surprise you? He has an opinion but no basis for that opinion. He clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. How many times has he come on here with his view, but it's just junk, supported by lefty loon (but hey, he likes a REPUBLICAN in Ron Paul) website. He is a lost dog.
DeleteAnna - good morning!
DeleteIt's a good thing these come right to my phone so I can response quickly :-)
Obviously, I tend to agree. I don't care what party you're in... if you're chanting "Obama sucks," or "Bush sucks," I'd like to hope that you can back it with something solid. I have little tolerance for either.
But there is a difference between you and me. Obviously, I and the admins on this blog would never edit or moderate away someone's comment or opinion unless it was threatening, violent, revealed personal info, etc. People can have opinions. The main drive behind this political blog is to give people the place where they can express themselves. I might never agree with Loyal Watcher. I just might. Who knows? But at least I can understand WHAT his opinion is. If he backs it, I can then understand WHY his opinion is what it is. I respect him as a person, and would never look at him negatively from that. Yes, sometimes people just rant and chant. Sometimes Loyal Watcher does this (I do it, too... we all do), but most of the times he doesn't. Heck, he can just come on here and only rant, with no links, no citations, and that's fine. That's his prerogative. Our blog is for all kinds of people. I might respectfully disagree with it 100% of the time if he did it this way, but still,.. he has the right and the avenue, and I and hopefully all the other readers hear can see what he thinks. At least we learn what is going on out there. As far as Loyal's comments, he actually does a relatively decent job of backing what he says. Now I might disagree with the sources, and will always look into the sources to see if they cite their info/data, but still,... it's not about always being correct. It's about giving the "meat" behind your case. Just as I do, just as RKen and 32slim32 does, and all the other great commentors on this blog do, it's all about "this is what I believe, and here is why I believe it." The "why I believe it" might be a website that is 100% gold, backed and proven by 50 Ph.Ds, or it could be 100% junk written by a 3rd grader. That's not really the point. The point is "this is what I believe, and here is why I believe it," and that's about that.
I hope this all makes sense. I'm really just trying to promote people having the ability, right, and motive to speak their mind civilly and respectfully, and I'm appreciative of all yours and especially Loyal's comments, no matter how off base you think they are. :-)
Happy Friday to all.
ReplyDeleteThe talking points that make me laugh usually come from the left. They include such gems as:
"Cuba has better health care than we do here in America."
"Republicans want you to breath dirty air."
"Republicans want you to drink dirty water."
"Holding X hostage" and "granny over a cliff" are side splitters too.
Talking points that include the word EXTREMIST are amusing.
"The rich steal from the poor". That is about the funniest one I have ever heard. I always get a mental image of a guy pulling up into the projects in his Bentley and stealing their color TV's.
Another funny one I have heard recently is "I didn't cross the border, the border crossed me".
HAHA that's funny as hell. I've never thought of it like that
Delete"The rich steal from the poor". That is about the funniest one I have ever heard. I always get a mental image of a guy pulling up into the projects in his Bentley and stealing their color TV's.
That's true. the left says that so often, but when you think about it, why in the world would people who have so much already steal the worthless crap off of poor people?
Liberals are ajoke
OK, even I laughed at the Bentley/TV comment. That's a pretty hilarious image.
DeleteU know what I hear a lot. The GOP is being hyjacked by the Tea Party. Hyjacked? You know what hyjacking something is? When a small group of people force their will upon a large group of people. You know. When a plane is hyjacked by a group of terrorists. 7 or so terrorists take people against their wishes to some place they don't want to go. The Tea Party hyjacked the GOP? Well, if that's the case, what do you say about the left and Obamacare? Recent polls show the vast majority of Americans don't want it. It was rammed down America's throats. The vote was pushed ahead by 31 days to do it before Scott Brown got seated. If that isn't hyjacking, I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteThank you
Galoofy Gooooo
Good afternoon and Happy Friday all!
ReplyDeleteOne of my personal gripes, as actually brought up in your post, would be assessing every single aspect of a President by the day they're sworn in to the day they leave office. I feel like that in itself is often part of over-used talking points that attempt to simplify the situation beyond all outside factors, and we see this from both sides (but of course only when it suits their point).
For example, in your post you refer to spending under Bush versus spending under Obama. Which is, by many, defined as the first day of the year that Bush was sworn in to the last day of his presidency vs the first day of the year that Obama was sworn in to the last day of his presidency. It’s an overly simplistic snapshot and method of defining a president’s successes/failures/policies and their results that in reality is not accurate or tells the whole story.
For instance, a convenient truth that many ignore is the fact that the 2009 budget for the first year of Obama’s term was drawn-up, passed, and signed by Bush in 2008. (yes, that was the $1.7T budget) And yes, by a Democratic Congress, a fact I’m not ignoring (and will touch again later) but the point still remains.
Additionally, people will call the deficits of the past few years all “Obama’s spending”, but the reality is that spending bills personally pioneered and signed by Obama himself have only added ~$1.5T to the deficit. A great deal of our deficit spending is actually, in reality, whether we like to hear it or not, from policies of the Bush years (tax cuts, Medicare Part D, the two wars, etc) and not new policies added by Obama.
This is where it gets fuzzy.
Some people will claim that the day a president takes office, is the day they inherit everything from the previous administration and now own and are fully responsible for it. And on some level, I can agree in a general sense with that statement. However, not completely, as it again is an oversimplification. A president does not just get inaugurated, give Congress a list of changes they want, and then presto-chango everything is fixed to their liking. This is particularly the case with a divisive Congress and/or when the Congress is controlled (at least in part) by the opposing party, and even more-so during fragile economic times, and again even more-so for certain policies (rarely do none of those apply).
That also goes into the other topic in that people tend to ignore the fact that Congress, not the president, is responsible for most of the policies and spending at the time. And though we like to label certain periods as ‘Bush’s failure’ or ‘Obama’s failure’, the presiding Congress of that time is equally if far not more responsible.
I’m kind of going all over the place here, but my overall point is that these simplifications hide the reality of many truths that got us to our situation. To look at a time period a president was in office, ignore everything before/after and view it in a vacuum, and then assign blame for everything good/bad at that time to one person is a bit ridiculous.
The reality is that Obama is not fully responsible for the mess we’re in. Just like Bush isn’t either. There’s far more to what lead to where we are today than one or even two presidents and their Congresses, or an extremely general number over a simplified time period.
I just wish there was more focus on policies themselves, than artificial time periods and presidential associations.
RKen - Good afternoon!
DeleteI do want to make clear that I'm one of those people that understands fully when one president's term ends fiscally, and when the next president's term begins. That being said, the numbers above are correct for who "owns" what for deficits. This cite can be used to roughly formulate the debt the country had at what point in time, and that can be extrapolated to who passed which budget: http://treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm
To say "Obama added only $1.5T to the deficit (do you mean debt here?)" is simply not true. Obama has passed a budget that has averaged $1.3 T in debt every year, and for the budget he proposes, it's nearly another trillion (this budget will take us well into next year, just as Bush's final budget took us in to 2009). $1.3T x 3 + $1T is about $5T. The left likes to simply slide that "well, actually, Obama hasn't added that much to the debt, and he hasn't expanded the deficit that much." But that's not true at all. That's like when people say, "hey, did you know when your blood is inside your body, it's really blue, not red." If it gets repeated enough, people start to believe it.
Yes, in Bush's last year, largely due to the stimulus (which I disagreed with) he passed, his budget deficit was around $1T. Obama continued and expanded that to more per year. He signed every budget into law since Bush. With an average of $1.3T for every budget, he has added that much to the debt. No matter how much it's spun, the fact is, Bush's responsibility ended at about $11T. With Obama, we are about to reach $16T.
Additionally, people will call the deficits of the past few years all “Obama’s spending”, but the reality is that spending bills personally pioneered and signed by Obama himself have only added ~$1.5T to the deficit. A great deal of our deficit spending is actually, in reality, whether we like to hear it or not, from policies of the Bush years (tax cuts, Medicare Part D, the two wars, etc) and not new policies added by Obama.
DeleteThis is not true Rken. Those policies were yes, enacted by Bush. In the end, Obama still signed 3 consecutive budgets with about $1.5T in deficit every year. He signed them. If he was passed the baton and then he himself signed on the bottom line without changing (actually expanding), then yes, he is now responsible, and it is HIS spending.
Budget and deficits; click on each budget link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_in_recent_budget_submissions
DeleteTotal enacted budget deficit for Obama in 4 years $5.054 trillion.
"I will halve the deficit in 4 years"
Not gonna happen. Obama isn't working.
I did meant debt* and you're not including the part that in those budgets, what new spending was added in? The budget itself isn't a spending bill; you can't just stop other bills by not including them in the budget.
DeleteAside from the regular increase in the deficit as a result of the lower revenues, rising costs of Medicare/SS, and the costs of upholding policies in the past administration (again like Medicare Part D, the wars, etc)... What part of those increasing deficits are from newly passed/pioneered Obama's policies?
That's the point.
It's a very small number relative to the debt of the past 4 years; because the only major spending bills Obama has passed are the first round of stimulus/bailouts, and the payroll tax holiday. Healthcare reform as well, but that has not taken effect yet.
So what other spending bills Obama has passed are you referring to?
Again, one item of confusion seems to be equating that every budget is a new spending bill. It isn't.
DeleteYou can't simply choose not to include a major spending bill in the budget, and allow it to default into itself. I mean, you could, but it is not practical at all (and by my knowledge, has never happened with any major bills).
Like, a Republican administration that hates SS, can’t just get away with not include SS in the budget as their way of eliminating it. Issues like that are addressed with amendments to the original spending bills themselves, if not a completely new policy.
And likewise, to say that the second a new administration signs a spending bill is the second they become fully responsible for everything in it, is a bit ridiculous as well. Spending bills are not addressed that way.
Medicare, Social Security, Tax Cuts, Medicare Part D, the wars in Iraq, etc, every major spending bill under the sun was passed as its own bill and not just a minor part of a budget bill. Budgets are not spending bills. Spending bills are not budgets.
RKen - I actually don't have time to delve into each individual budget and find the specific increases, but, using the figures OIW linked, requested outlays were:
Delete2009 - Bush: $3.107 T
2010 - Obama: $3.550 T
2011 - Obama: $3.800 T
2012 - Obama: $3.720 T
2013 - Obama: $3.803 T
That's an average of 20.2% more over Bush's last budget (which was terribly high relative to his previous 7 budgets - he averaged around $2.4 T in spending for the previous 7 years). So no, I don't have the budgets in front of me to pick out exactly what additional spending was in there. Obviously, it's there. Regardless, Obama ran on a promise to halve the deficit. He hasn't. He can easily change his spending ways if he wants, but he didn't. Also, if he said he would "halve the deficit" why would he continue to push bills that aren't holding that promise? Regardless of what Bush did, Obama still came in, made a promise, and hasn't delivered. Perhaps he shouldn't have made that promise in the first place.
I'm sorry, I simply can't go along with "it's not his budget because of all the spending of the last guy."
DeleteIt's his budget the second he endorses it. He can chose to push for cuts, and that would also be his budget. But if the last guy spent wayyyyyyyyy too much (which he did in his last year, I'll admit), and the new guy simply signs the same spending, then yes, it's the new guy's budget. I can't get around that. I can't slide any more blame away from Obama. And like I've said, he did make a promise. He had the power to follow through with it. He didn't. I don't care about the reasoning, a broken promise is a broken promise.
I didn't say that "it's not his budget because of all the spending of the last guy."
DeleteIn fact, my original post I picked apart the inaccuracy of such a statement made in regards to both Obama and Bush.
I'm just pointing out the reality that Obama has not added new spending bills that amount to more than $1.5T. And saying "but his budget was $3.1T!" is on a completely separate subject; a budget is not a new spending bill itself. It's the appropriation of resources among already-passed spending bills.
Otherwise, I ask again, what new spending bills has Obama passed other than the ones I mentioned?
RKen, LME, and Texas Tea..... gentlemen I believe you are all kind of forgetting a key component in the equation. The Democrats have not passed an actual budget in over 3 years. Therefore they do all of their spending based on 2009 which had the bailouts and the Stimulus bill.
ReplyDeleteA minor typo I found in my last post, correcting for clarity:
ReplyDelete"And likewise, to say that the second a new administration signs a *budget* is the second they become fully responsible for everything in it, is a bit ridiculous as well. Spending bills are not addressed that way."
"Regardless, Obama ran on a promise to halve the deficit. He hasn't. He can easily change his spending ways if he wants, but he didn't. Also, if he said he would "halve the deficit" why would he continue to push bills that aren't holding that promise? Regardless of what Bush did, Obama still came in, made a promise, and hasn't delivered. Perhaps he shouldn't have made that promise in the first place."
I'm not debating broken promises at all, my argument is about the oversimplification of some of these talking points. :) For both Obama AND Bush.
Also, "He can easily change his spending ways if he wants" is a bit disingenuous to the situation. Spending, again, is primarily the role and power of Congress. Not the president. Nor is it particularly easy as the president to hold significant influence (much less, absolute influence) over spending. The veto is not something tossed around lightly, nor are they the last say.
You guys are something else on here man,
ReplyDeleteYou really think the budget would be different if Romney or if McCain were in office?
You guys are living in lala land, both these parties have the same agenda
and why are yall complaining?
Its the one of the best times in american history if youre one of the chosen few.
http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-america-you-should-be-mad-as-hell-about-this-charts-2012-6#lets-start-with-the-obvious-unemployment-three-years-after-the-financial-crisis-the-unemployment-rate-is-still-at-one-of-the-highest-levels-since-the-great-depression-1
That’s actually another point that I rarely see brought up.
DeleteIf McCain won in 2008, why is there any doubt that we wouldn’t be at similar levels of debt? Especially if Democrats still held major influence in Congress.
The biggest difference would potentially be the lack of a stimulus, but we would in all likelihood still have the tax cuts, still have the Medicare/SS problems, still have the wars (actually if McCain had his way, we’d likely have troops in Libya/Syria), and still have bills like Medicare Part D and U.I.. We’d likely even still have the auto bailout bill, as much as Obama likes to take credit for it, it was actually already appropriated before he was in office (he just modified it).
And all of those put together already puts us at a minimum of $.5-1T deficits. Which would likely be boosted up higher by paying for more tax cuts instead of the stimulus; which is what the GOP called for originally.
Even if the GOP did manage to pass bills cutting PP, PBS, and welfare fraud those don’t amount to much of anything.
I also love how you guys talk about obama's promises and all the while holding a blind eye to the fact Romney is just as much of a liar and flip floper:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI9yjhd8b84
What does this have to do with anything?
DeleteWhat does this have to do with anything?
DeleteLadies and gentleman, here is royal watcher. he talks about living in lala land but he talks about what would romney or mccain do? The biggest example of lala land is saying he would or he would not do this or that, how would things be under somw other guy. um please stick with reality and not hypothetical situations involving other people. and thank you for the completely unrelated but makes you sound like you know what you're talking about graphs.
ReplyDelete