Let’s Get it Started
Let’s Get it Started
According to the White House’s “State of the Union Message Points,” the President is going to lay out a “blueprint” for the second term. But here’s the problem. The bad policy choices the President made in the first term — irresponsible tax cuts, the mismanaged war in Iraq, billions sunk into an ineffective Medicare bill — are going to severely limit his policy options in the second term, whether he realizes it or not.
Here’s why. This President has the worst fiscal record of any President in the history of our country. Period. He has presided over a ten trillion dollar swing from record surpluses to record deficits. The President may try and gloss over his reckless record of deficit spending tonight. But when you are talking fiscal policy, fundamentals matter and there are some facts even this Administration can’t dismiss. The US dollar is on shaky ground. To paraphrase Tennessee Ernie Ford (I’m showing my age): another day older another billion in debt. Over 90 percent of the increase in the debt under Bush has been bought up by foreigners.
He may lay out what sounds like a bold agenda, but he is going to have a hard time marshalling any of the resources to get it accomplished.
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Is this THE John Podesta?
February 2nd, 2005 at 8:28 pmWhether it is or whether it isn’t – I very much enjoyed your post.
I think Bush’s lack of popularity (much less popular than even Nixon starting his second term) will help stop some of the bleeding.
We just need to circumvent the right-wing media by talking to our friends and neighbors, e-mailing info regarding the truth about Social Security and Medicare and continue pushing the Dems and moderate Republicans to vote against these wild-eyed plans.
Wonderful to see this! Looking forward to your blog.
February 2nd, 2005 at 8:36 pmThe interesting question is whether any of the mainstream media will have the courage to headline the SOU with “President ALLEGES crisis in social security …”
February 2nd, 2005 at 8:55 pmGood to see you hear, John. I love Christy on the Franken Show on AAR. Good opening salvo here and I think that SS will be Bush’s downfall.
February 2nd, 2005 at 8:57 pmBush is just trying to run the country into to as large a debt as possible – by promoting making his (silly in the first place) tax cuts permanent – by not including war spending for Iraq in his base budget – and now calling social security in a crisis mood so we go another trillion or two in debt on top of what is already going to be there.
Bush wants to leave a legacy alright – a legacy of a bankrupt government that cannot help those in need nor those who worked for a living while he and his wealthy buddies can sit back while collecting all their tax free dividends and laugh at the rest of us working two jobs paying income taxes until we are in our graves.
Gee, why wouldn’t company CEOs of companies like Walmart want good cheap American workers….
February 2nd, 2005 at 9:01 pmHealthcare is going downhill in this country. We stand with the greatest technology and the worst management in history.
Borders are nothing like close to secure. We have some of the greatest engineers in the country and broken fences like those in a tenament.
Job’s are demanding life sacrifices. Commutes that kill you and overtime gone the way of the typewriter.
And now we assault our elderly. Why not just tell them to hurry up and die.
I am “favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible,es. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.” I believe in a representational form of government rather than an aristocracy or monarchy. I am free from prejudice or bigotry, I am tolerant.
I am a LIBERAL.
We need to remember the above dictionary definition of the term and be proud. It is the highest and best form of our democracy.
February 2nd, 2005 at 9:19 pmIt sounds like Bush has caved to the religious right, as well as to the corporate cronies and all who continue to feed off the average American. We are looking at a long hard slog through the coming four years and the potential for havoc wreaked by this man is immeasurable.
February 2nd, 2005 at 9:43 pmThis blog is a welcome development. Is there still room for a suggestion on its form? You ought to institute some form of ‘branching’ posts so that we can reply to each other coherently – have a give-and-take, a developing discourse, instead of simply a list of comments.
February 3rd, 2005 at 12:27 amI want to add my heartfelt thank you to those above. Doing this sort of posting is extremely time-consuming; doing it this well is the rare example of time well-spent. This sort of informed vigilance is exactly what someone like me needs to have as a resource. All too many of my acquaintances are well-meaning tabula rasas who desperately wish to believe in “their” president. It is necessary to be able to speak directly to them with solid details about specific issues and policies. The conversation can’t be allowed to degenerate into either angry sand-line drawing or awkward attempts at finding common ground in the hope of avoiding personal rifts. For me, it helps to keep things factual. So once again, thank you very much for this site.
February 3rd, 2005 at 6:39 amnot an exact quote:
“faith based programs to give inner city young men in gangs an alternative”
First off, I am white but the inherent racism of that statement is offensive. Secondly, since he was clearly talking about mostly black and latino “inner city young men” (where are the gang girls when you need them?) being assisted by their churches–where has W been to think that inner city churches have not always been active in providing alternatives? And without government money.
February 3rd, 2005 at 2:39 pmMr. Podesta writes (and I agree) as follows:
…”when you are talking fiscal policy, fundamentals matter and there are some facts even this Administration can’t dismiss. The US dollar is on shaky ground… Over 90 percent of the increase in the debt under Bush has been bought up by foreigners.”
Um, that’s the rub. Does anyone out there understand what Mr. Bush has done to us all with his web of lies and convenient diversions? Friend, I say He has sold the farm to the wreckers! He is a Bonesman. That is what Bonesmen do.
Another Bonesman is doing that very thing to K-Mart these days. K-Mart, America, only a matter of scale. Liquidation and denial. Denial and liquidation. Every day. All the time.
The Skull and Bones Society, unto which Mr. Bush is oath-bound and morally beholden, derives its constitution from that of the 1930s-era German Thule Society. The Thule Society stands as the brainchild of Messrs. Himmler, Hitler, and Goering prior to their own ascent to the apex of criminal primacy in Nazi Germany, the which they invented.
Now get this, Good People: The Thule Society’s and Bonesman’s agendas are readily seen as partaking of an identical nature once dissected. Both are social Darwinist organizations, dedicated to the extermination of all “substandard” humanity. (Um, that’s you and me by /their/ foul lights…) Like Scientology, only the monkeys have more clout.
Um, what has devoured Washington is /not/ science fiction. It is rot. Rot at the core. Nothing else, no euphemisms.
Mr. Bush has frankly sold America as we once knew and loved her straight down the river. He has sold us all out – to just about anyone who is willing to pay up and do what it takes to get a seat at the trough… um, /table./
Um, is there any question who’s for dinner today? Prepare to bleed, America. You voted this poisoner in – or not. Now deal – or not. Is another corporate-media wartime infotainment special maybe more fun for you? Ya wanna watch that instead of dealing with the mess back home at the real source? Go figure.
As to the criminal SOBs such as Bush, DeLay, Rice (OK, DOB) and Cheney (to name only four): Indict, impeach, immobilize them all. Even though it’s likely too late for America already.
Hey, how we gonna buy the country back? Can we get the votes in Congress to make things right again? I think the money has caused the Constitution to be dismissed by its purported defenders, protectors, and preservers as so much wuthless nonsense. It surely is a tasty chicken-coop for these neocon crypto-Nazi Fascist “DemocraScammers” and their garbage-headed apologists.
Um, what’s that plonking sound I keep hearing? Um, ain’t that the sound of a whole lotta Americans being shoved off the wagon into the camps? Um, did ya know we got /big/ detention camps these days? Um, who’s this “we” these days, Kemo Sabe?
Tom DeLay and Corrections Corporation of America seem to be all we find working for to change things for our socioeconomic class of existence…
I saw this Gotterdammerung on America plain as day, headed to here and now, just over thirteen years back. My companions made bad jokes about sanity and lifestyle on me back then. Um, these people are no longer my companions – and look who saw aright.
No joy in that – I’d have preferred being wrong to having to navigate this emerging nightmare. Meanwhile, the USDC Jurisdiction’s crypto-Nazi crims devour their own children wholesale – and make us pay in blood to hear their warmed-over (and still-false) promises for just as long as we stay foolish and stupid about it. (”we”???)
Cause and effect. Live it – or live with it. Today, the camel is eating tent and inhabitants alike, samesame. Says it wants more children for lunch, too.
If I had a hammah… Ah’d HAMMAH on that camel. The tent’ll come clean later. That camel’s gotta GO NOW.
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