While some in the NY Conservative party and in the Right Wing blogosphere are trying to portray Tuesday’s historic defeat in NY-23 as a victory, the proof is really in the pudding.
Immediately past the election the House Democrats and Nancy Pelosi are scrambling to clear some hot button issues for a rare Saturday vote on Healthcare.
Here’s what Nancy says on the election from The Hill:
Although the Democrats lost two governors’ mansions in Tuesday’s election, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) picked up two more votes: John Garamendi, who replaced a Democrat in California, and Bill Owens, who won a GOP-held seat in upstate New York. Pelosi said Owens called his win a “victory for healthcare.”
“From our perspective, we won last night,” Pelosi said Wednesday. “We had one race we got involved in.”
The “Twooooo Konservatives” are such geniuses, this reminds me of the time they defeated Immigration Reform during the only period in which Republicans could hold sway over the shape and form of it. So this matches exactly with my final election tally yesterday for NY-23:
* +1 vote for public option
* +1 vote for cap and trade
* +1 vote for immigration reform
* +1 vote for Speaker Pelosi.
It’s now more that a month past my first post about President Obama’s First two quarters in office, and the outlook is not any better. Obama is presiding over an economy with accelerating job losses when he promised job gains with TARP’s passage. The economy is the key thing worrying the country right now, and his entire party and administration seems oblivious to that fact.
Here’s a graphic map that visualizes job losses through time at Slate, please hit the start button, then the green play button. You will see that job losses accelerated dramatically from November when he was elected through to the present.
Even his most ardent supporters cannot step forward in the face of this and say that he is succeeding in his election promise of saving and creating jobs. If he wants success there he’s got several long rows to hoe and with the course that he has set the outcome will be Congress facing elections with the US poorer and unemployment still high in 2010. This will occur even though the economy has turned and our basic economy is sound.
The contentious cap and trade and health care bills in Congress insure economic restraint through uncertainty if they are passed, and if they fail then they must fail dramatically to end the uncertainty. Both will introduce huge new costs to consumers, businesses, state economies, and local economies. These costs are unknowns which keep bean counters at every business in America awake at night because they can’t make forecasts with any hope of reasonable accuracy.
Bottom line:
High energy prices created by Cap and trade legislation will turn the economy down, not up, as President Obama promised.
Increased taxation from the Health Care bill will retard rather than progress the economy as Obama promised.
Cap and trade has been called “Cap and Tax” for a reason: one outcome will be increased energy costs for consumers and businesses, and high energy prices drive all other things in the economy.
Indeed there are good arguments to be made that the rest of the world’s countries implementing cap and trade policies in prior years led to the fragility which tipped us over the brink in the banking and mortgage loan industries. Without high energy prices the past several years the system might have been able to sustain with a lower burden of defaults, and mortgage companies might not have so many “toxic assets” on the books. High energy costs stifle economies worldwide, so why would you intentionally make them higher at a time of severe economic malaise?
The other problematic bill in congress is the Health care bill – the unknowns are more daunting than the knowns since the bill is a nightmare of cut and paste confusion as Pelosi’s staffers and lobbyists crammed like they were writing a term paper they had blown off all semester to get this before Congress in time. The resultant mess in the lower congress from “rushing to woo” the public is a crazy patchwork quilt of conflicting measures that can be interpreted any way opponents want to. This has been a real boon for grenade throwers like Sarah Palin and others.
The outlook for both bills has seriously worsened since I wrote this post, however I still expect pared down versions of both to pass. You can bet that some Republicans in congress do want some of the energy investments in the “energy bill portion” of Cap and Trade, and you can bet there are some health care reforms that Republicans and Blue Dogs could get behind. If Obama wants a cosmetic win in getting both passed then he’s going to have to give up the Pelosi and Waxman versions and cross the aisle to sanity.
To me that’s a failure since the Dems have a big lock on majority and should be able to get pretty much anything through. The struggles they are having now really demonstrates how truly incompetent their legislators are.
UPDATE:Charles hits the nail on the head about the political sideshow of the “DeathPanel” debate, with fact checking on the provisions provided by ABC. Also note that Rick Moran’s been taking a lot of heat over his stance on this, but he’s right.
UPDATE:Slick Willie Preps the diehards for the deal they will have to make if they want a health care bill.
Nancy Says “Everything is on the Table” including Taxes
When it comes to how to pay for their health care plan costs the Democrats are being vague as you can see in this interview with Nancy Pelosi. When asked about taxes her only reply is “everything is on the table… everything is on the table.. ” For Nancy that really means everything is on the table except questions about her lies about the CIA, and working with the Minority on health care reforms. Those must be under the table, in the other room, or perhaps outside and down the block underneath a dumpster or something.
That’s how it started off, a plan like the Europeans… but since then it’s turned into a patronage scam of perks and pork as Rep. Henry Waxman trades credits to states whose votes he needs to pass the bill. It’s a monstrosity that we don’t need while the economy is recovering.
Pelosi Pimps National Energy Tax and Iowa Congressman Braley in Des Moines
Nancy Pelosi was expecting a quiet soiree of Democrat fat-cat insiders as she attends a private fundraiser for the Democrat Congressional Committee and Congressman Bruce Braley. Braley was out speaking last night trying to tamp down the upset over her lies about the CIA, but they just won’t go away.
Meanwhile the NRCC robo-called across the district to let voters know about the National energy tax that’s the likely outcome of the Democrat Cap and Trade scheme.
At inception it was a plan like those imposed upon Europeans the past few years, plans which have totally failed to reach goals and that increased use of fossil fuels in Europe while strangling those economies. Some of the economic malaise we are in can be tracked back to Euro cap and tax schemes.
That’s how it started off, a plan like the Europeans… but since then it’s turned into a patronage scam of perks and pork as Rep. Henry Waxman trades credits to states whose votes he needs to pass the bill. It’s a monstrosity that we don’t need while the economy is recovering.
A funny video send up up Nancy’s lies about the CIA, and her refusal to address the issue. Friday she once again ducked questions on the issue backed by a coterie of other Congresscritters, and then got out of DC as fast as she could…
Pelosi vs The CIA [with Bond Theme Song]
A funny video send up up Nancy’s lies about the CIA, and her refusal to address the issue. Friday she once again ducked questions on the issue backed by a coterie of other Congresscritters, and then got out of DC as fast as she could…
Forty briefings: those squawking the loudest about enhanced interrogation techniques knew about it. If President Bush is a war criminal for this then so is Speaker Pelosi. See the video below where the hypocrisy abounds:
Am I angry? No, I am enraged at Pelosi’s speech. It seems intended to politicize this and ensure that there is no fix. The Dems are not happy unless we are all poor victims and the economy is tanking because they are party-power first people.
The title of the post says it all.
The American people know who has held the US economy hostage for housing the past few years, it’s time for a new speaker. If the Dems want a vote on this, they can put forward a speaker who is less incendiary. IHT 11/08/2006:
Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who will soon become the head of the House Financial Services Committee, said he and other Democrats who have been advising Pelosi, the party’s leader in the House, were planning to propose a “grand bargain” with business interests.
If the Republicans support the Democrats’ efforts to increase minimum wage, extend student loans and expand affordable housing programs, Frank said, then the Democrats would support efforts to reduce trade barriers and burdensome regulation.
Representative John Dingell, who will head the Energy and Commerce Committee, said that he intended to focus on an energy bill that would make America more independent of foreign oil and another one outlining a bill of rights for patients. He also plans to hold hearings on unfair trade practices that have hurt American industries and workers.
Dingell, who is the chamber’s senior member, said he intended to work with Republicans in crafting legislation because “it’s best to legislate from the middle.” But he also said that “it won’t be the easiest task because the far right has controlled the House and I’m not sure how we can emancipate the Republican party and work with them.”
For some large companies, the Democratic victory is a major one. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage finance giants, which have been recovering from accounting scandals, had faced the possibility of tight new oversight laws pushed largely by Republicans. But some powerful Democrats had resisted, preferring to promote the companies’ housing mission over tighter capital standards and portfolio limits.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, would be allowed to expand their $1.5 trillion mortgage portfolio to buy subprime loans under a Democratic plan to help struggling borrowers.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats also called on President George W. Bush to increase funding for foreclosure prevention and appoint a coordinator to oversee the administration’s response to the mortgage-market turmoil in the plan they unveiled today in Washington.
“Our country faces a challenge that threatens the economic security and the dream of homeownership of many of America’s working families,” Pelosi, of California, said at a news conference.
Just a year ago she was begging to shove more crap loans down the american taxpayer’s throats.
Here’s her friends Chuckie Schumer and Barney Frank trying to lower lending standards on homes costing nearly half a million dollars — yes we should give half million dollar homes to people not worthy of credit Chuck & Barney, I mean the taxpayers are always willing to take it up the bum from Dems in congress right?:
Schumer and other Democrats have called on the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight to relax government restraints barring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from buying home loans exceeding $417,000 and from expanding their assets.
The senator introduced legislation last month to let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac temporarily increase their mortgage portfolios by 10 percent. The bill would also allow the companies to buy loans in “high-cost areas” where values are 50 percent higher than the current $417,000 cap.
U.S. Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Congress would pursue “sensible regulation” to restore investor confidence in the mortgage markets. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he wants to meet with mortgage lenders to urge them to help borrowers refinance.
“We need the people who hold the paper to be more flexible,” Frank said.
Am I angry? No, I am enraged at Pelosi’s speech. It seems intended to politicize this and ensure that there is no fix. The Dems are not happy unless we are all poor victims with a tanking economy because they are party-power first people.
“From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Senators Obama and Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others. Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families.
“Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain, and refused to even say if he supported the final bill.
“Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome.
“This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.” — McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin
More History from 2006 — When the Bankers and the Dems shot the fix for this down in flames.
Here’s the timeline:
Along the same vein, I want to know who in the WUSSANIMOUS Republican leadership decided not to put John McCain’s bill up for a vote in 2006. What are the names?
UPDATE: I’m taking a bit of heat over this post, so let me clarify, I am in favor of doing this save for the credit markets, and unlike most I always have been. What I don’t think we need to do is rush into it and be hammerlocked by expediency into bad choices. Like Steve Forbes I do think it absolutely necessary to prevent a deep recession. However I also have a lot of faith and confidence in both the breadth and depth of our economy, and do not think it would lead to depression.
What we don’t need with it is political posturing of the sort Pelosi pulled that is transparently false and riddled with Bush derangement syndrome. The Dems in the house have fought off any reform or any change to FNMA GMAC and CRA since 2001, to point at Republicans as the cause is very heinous demagoguery and a flat out big lie. She needs to be replaced by the Dems, or she needs to resign, or she needs censure. Holding this bill hostage a day or two until she at least does a mea culpa isn’t going to absolutely kill the economy, and it will give people a couple more days to digest why it’s necessary, and to improve it.
In her latest bid to buy votes for democrats in the unpopular legislative branch, Nancy Pelosi is pimping more farm subsidies to the midwest, and ignoring her own constituents.
In her latest bid to buy votes for democrats in the unpopular legislative branch, Nancy Pelosi is pimping more farm subsidies to the midwest, and ignoring her own constituents.
While farm incomes are soaring, thanks to boom times and high corn prices for ethanol producers, she is sticking with a set of market props born in an era of hard times.
Pelosi is billing her party’s farm bill as reform, but it’s hard to think she really believes that. The bill continues rich subsidies for a handful of major crops such as wheat, corn and soybeans. Aside from subsidies for cotton and rice, the package does little good for California, where high-value fruits and vegetables are grown without Washington’s largesse. President Bush on Wednesday said he may veto the bill if it lands on desk.
