It's Official: Obama is an idiot | 122 comments
but he's been sending that message (0.00 / 0)
since Iowa. he's promised to "cut wasteful spending" far more times than I care to remember. It was part of his post-partisan sheen. From some of his remarks later last year, I expected a move like this THIS year. Not now, maybe in late spring. But he was definitely going to move toward "deficit reduction" before the midterms. Pelosi apparently just this month put him on notice that, until the senate moves on the backlog of house bills passed, the only measures she would take up are jobs jobs jobs and deficit control.

this is the 2010 budget:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

of course I want the defense budget to shrink by 20% or more. but I can't imagine any president doing that in the middle of two wars that aren't going well.

everything else through Veterans Affairs is off the table. including, according to Bernstein, Education, HHS, and Transportation ($50 billion in infrastructure).

Also not being frozen: Homeland Security, and Energy, given Bernstein's reminder of Obama's great confidence in our coming investment in the new driver and savior of our economy, green energy.

As for the stimulus, it's baked into 2010, and will be spent by the end of the year.

so that leaves these departments as possibly open to being frozen for 3 years at their as yet unannounced 2011 levels:

State (? really?)
HUD
Agriculture
Justice
NASA (outsourcing?)
Commerce
Labor
Treasury
Interior
EPA
SSA (? probably not)
NSF
USACE
National Infrastructure Bank
Corporation for National and Community Service
SBA
GSA
Other Agencies
Off-budget spending ?

Is this terrible? I don't know the answer. But my initial instinct tells me, No.

[ Parent | ]
But There's VERY Little Wasteful Spending. (4.00 / 4)
It's one thing to say it in a general way.  That bugged me enormously and was one reason I could never support him.

But NOW it's gone way beyond that.  Now it's validating Herbert Hooverism.  

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent | ]
I agree that there's very (0.00 / 0)
little in the discretionary budget. but he promised to do it over and over again. and I think he believes in it. so we shouldn't be surprised that he's proposing it. politically, since it seems (to me at least) that it was a given, there's no point in waiting till after the midterms. lots of good house dems won't like it--and maybe won't abide it--but it could give lots of other moderate and conservadems cover. I don't like that, but maybe it will get them to stick with him on energy, education, etc. maybe even health care.
[ Parent | ]
It Won't Give ANYONE Cover (4.00 / 11)
That's stupid Versailles Dem consultant talk.

What it does is amplify the GOP's message 100-fold and cut the legs out of down-ticket Dems that want to run as populist progressives based on good old-fashioned Democratic values.

It's literally killing the Democratic Party.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent | ]
The thing about consultant class thinking (4.00 / 3)
is it tricks people into thinking they can be the guy giving the advice and, therefore, are just as good as the people who themselves actually have power.  

It's kind of similar to why some (and a highly exaggerated number at that) working class people vote Republican.  But very much unlike the wishful thinking that motivates so-called "Reagan Democrats," it's actually a fact that a majority of people who can speak in complete sentences would make perfectly capable professional political consultants.

What's so false and insidious about it is it deceives people into believing that what builds broad based political coalitions that win elections over the long term is the right consultant who can come up with a "magic bullet" in the form of a brilliant technocratic strategy driven by the "right message."    

[ Parent | ]
Yep. (4.00 / 3)
When you think about it, it's actually a form of pornography.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent | ]
I'm not suprised anymore (4.00 / 2)
when progressive promises get ignored and conservative promises are kept.

But I still don't like it.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

[ Parent | ]
Your instinct is wrong (4.00 / 3)
It is terrible. US is already hurting in terms of science funding - freeze science funding for three years and see howany scientists still choose to live in this country.

It's not terrible if you accept the ideology that government is wasteful. But if you accept that ideology, then you're a conservative.  

[ Parent | ]
if he wants to end wasteful spending (4.00 / 1)
there are two wars i can think of off the top of my head.  assuming no new ones have started since i started writing this comment.
[ Parent | ]
Three - the Drug War (4.00 / 1)
However brutal the Drug War is in the US, it's a metaphorical war. Not so in Mexico, Columbia and the rest. In Latin America, our drug war is a real war.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.
[ Parent | ]
It's Not Metaphorical In Third World America (0.00 / 0)
Black and brown neighborhoods here have been decimated, too.

Not as bad as Mexico, Columbia, etc., true.  But hardly metaphorical.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent | ]
The violence and devastation is certainly real (0.00 / 0)
not metaphorical. I was thinking that it's more individualized violence here at home. Similarly, the War on Terror is largely a metaphorical war - in the sense that there are not two clear sides squaring off, but that doesn't mean it's impact it any less....  

Nevermind. I reject this distinction that I was making as meaningless.  Any distinction that distracts from the violence and devastation of the Drug War or the WOT is not useful.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

[ Parent | ]
It's Official: Obama is an idiot | 122 comments
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