MISSTATING OF THE UNION 2008

73 comments on “MISSTATING OF THE UNION 2008”

1. As a guest on the Daily Show pointed out, we have a 13 trillion dollar economy. $600 per person (who qualifies) isn’t going to add up to enough to do much no matter what they spend it on. It’s not like $600 is gonna do anything long term for someone who can’t afford his house payments every month.

   I think the only real chance it has of affecting the economy is a psychological one. If people pay off a debt, maybe they’ll relax and stop panicking just as much as if they’d spent it buying something new.

2. Curioius. Apparently, the best way to stimulate the economy is the one method that is almost certainly not going to be in the package: Food stamps and unemployment benefits. (http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/29/news/economy/stimulus_analysis/index.htm?postversion=2008012913)

   The most amusing suggestion I’ve heard is give every college student in America $25 as they are virtually guaranteed to spend it immediately on domestic goods (pizza, wings, beer).

3. Ha! I like the low number. Give a college student too much and he’ll buy clothes, shoes, and other stuff that might be foreign goods. Give him $25 a week for 6 months and it’ll all go to pizza and beer. Interesting thought.

4. Bill, Alan – You’re assuming they would qualify for a rebate. Not necessarily so.

   >Nothing ever gets done.

   It goes against political life. Just finished an ITIL (best IT service practices) course and one example they gave was an engineer who’d worked out that spending more money on upkeep and maintenance could actually save the government money as they’d be able to avoid building new bridges as existing ones could have their life extended to 50 years hence. The Senator he mentioned this to had but one response: “I won’t be in office in 50 years.”

5. Well, there’s the personal aggrandizement part for sure, but there’s also the problem that voters don’t take the long term view and won’t vote for people who take the long term view. Would voters support a politician that would RAISE spending on maintenance? Nine times out of ten, that’d get portrayed as featherbedding to keep useless employees on payroll and thus more government waste to be cut out.

6. Hey, here’s a nice analysis for anyone interested.

   http://www.factcheck.org/bush/facts_of_the_union_2008.html

   Oh, time to put Hannity and Rush on suicide watch again. McCain, the man who would “destroy the republican party” if he got the nod, just took Florida an hour ago and looks strong in several other key states as well. And the latest word is that Rudy will drop out and endorse McCain tomorrow as well. Sick as I am right now, it’d almost be worth it to suffer listening to those windbags tomorrow just to hear them spin all of this.

7. For all those who say/think it doesn’t matter who gets elected because nothing will change, I believe if a Democrat were elected in 2000 we wouldn’t be in Iraq now. We’d have had a president who relatiated — correctly — against Afghanistan after 9/11 and not then fabricated facts to fit the next country on our hit list. We might actually still have dialogues with other countries (instead of a “you’re either with us or against us” mantra), we probably wouldn’t be performing warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, and we wouldn’t declare people “enemy combatants” and then deprive them of their rights as Americans or under the Geneva Convention. There might have been funding for stem-cell research, and we might not have had a surplus turned into a massive debt.

   Otherwise, yeah, things might be a little similar.

8. >Nine times out of ten, that’d get portrayed as featherbedding to keep useless employees on payroll and thus more government waste to be cut out.

   “OK, it’s like this. We pay $100 million on maintenance over the next couple of years, or pay $500 million to build a new one a few years later. Your call.”

   I know the avewrage voter isn’t very bright, but how hard would it be to explain this to them?

9. Posted by: The StarWolf

   “OK, it’s like this. We pay $100 million on maintenance over the next couple of years, or pay $500 million to build a new one a few years later. Your call.”

   I know the avewrage voter isn’t very bright, but how hard would it be to explain this to them?

   Considering that a huge percentage of people can’t be persuaded to save for retirement, or that it’s a Good Thing to make sacrifices now to prevent global warming from affecting the next generation…? Pretty hard.

   Here’s a link to a really good Public Service Ad about that…

10. More likely, you’ll have people disputing any study as padding the government budget and saying that we could “get away” with spending less.

    Locally, the voters HAVE KNOWN that we have to replace one viaduct and one major commuting bridge. Known if for the past decade. Tune of billions of dollars. Yet, they’ve repeatedly voted down gas tax bills specifically earmarked to pay for those replacements. They passed the last one—that only promised to pay for PART of them. Not gonna be likely to pass another one.

11. Mr. David – was wondering whether you had an opinion on the fact that Joe Quesada crossed a Guild picket line to appear on the Colbert report the other day?

12. Ugh, I don’t know how you guys could sit through even five minutes of him talking, much less the whole thing. For the past couple years, as soon as Bush comes on screen/air I flip the station.

13. So die already, coward.

    Spoken like a true, anonymous internet nut-job.

14. If people pay off a debt, maybe they’ll relax and stop panicking just as much as if they’d spent it buying something new.

    If the credit card companies were told to stop handing out new cards to anybody who asks for them, then the problem might eventually be solved.

    The same goes for our government.

    Until then, it will just keep getting worse.

15. We pay $100 million on maintenance over the next couple of years, or pay $500 million to build a new one a few years later.

    It reminds me of the FastTracks plan here in the Denver Metro. We voted a couple of years back for a massive plan to build a dozen new light rail lines, including to DIA.

    Well, the expected budget keeps going up year by year, because the cost of materials keeps going up.

    Another part of the battle is the need to buy up land for the rail lines and the struggle involved there. Meanwhile, people are calling for not-as-needed lines to be cut (such as the one to DIA)… only, by the time the project is finished in 10-15 years, we WILL need such lines, so you build them NOW while you still can. If you don’t, they’ll never get built.

    Ðámņ near everybody would rather think short term.

16. Mr. David – was wondering whether you had an opinion on the fact that Joe Quesada crossed a Guild picket line to appear on the Colbert report the other day?

    Since Marvel studios has carved out a separate agreement with the WGA, I’d have to think it falls into the clear conscience category.

    PAD

17. >>For all those who say/think it doesn’t matter who gets elected because nothing will change, I believe if a Democrat were elected in 2000 we wouldn’t be in Iraq now. We’d have had a president who relatiated — correctly — against Afghanistan after 9/11 and not then fabricated facts to fit the next country on our hit list. We might actually still have dialogues with other countries (instead of a “you’re either with us or against us” mantra), we probably wouldn’t be performing warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, and we wouldn’t declare people “enemy combatants” and then deprive them of their rights as Americans or under the Geneva Convention. There might have been funding for stem-cell research, and we might not have had a surplus turned into a massive debt.

    Otherwise, yeah, things might be a little similar.

    At least Bush did something about 9/11…Carter allowed American Citizens to be held hostage by terrorists for over A YEAR.

    I seriously doubt a Democrat President would’ve had the balls to go to war. All Clinton could do was lob SCUD missiles at em’ from far away.

    The last DEM that had any teeth was FDR.

18. Posting anonymously leads to being ignored. In some threads, there are two or three people who post as anonymous. Pick a name. Use the same name every time you post. Use your real name, if you wish. Many of us do.

19. Posted by Alan Coil

    Posting anonymously leads to being ignored. In some threads, there are two or three people who post as anonymous. Pick a name. Use the same name every time you post. Use your real name, if you wish. Many of us do.

    WHOA! What a concept!

    What is reality, and why does it keep following me around?

20. >Posting anonymously leads to being ignored. In some threads, there are two or three people who post as anonymous. Pick a name. Use the same name every time you post. Use your real name, if you wish. Many of us do.

    okay, can I use yours?

    Its a nice name….

21. okay, can I use yours?

    Only if you want to look even worse than you already have.

22. No, it’s not a ‘nice’ name, it is just a name.

    But you can obviously see that using Anonymous is something that just anybody can do.

23. Kathleen, thank you for your expert analysis. May I ask what your political crediatials are and which political papers you write for?

    Kathleen here. I put my POV on this behind the cut.

    9:01
    Kathleen here. I am going to comment here. I am watching it on NBC currently but I may flip around a bit as this goes on.
    9:03
    This just in….Bush is not nostalgic that this is his last SOU address. Nor I think is just about anyone else except possible Rove.
    9:05
    Let’s get this show started! Here he comes. Of course with a blue tie.
    OK any bets how long it is going to be before he starts talking? Apparently he has been practicing all weekend
    Aaaand the winner is….who had 9:10?

    Vigorous Debate? In what alternative universe?

    We believe in the power of the individual? He does? Really?

    (My question is – do you libs? You guys seem to want to make everyone a victim.)

    He trusts us with our own money as long as he can dictate how we spend that money. Oooo a warning to do it his way or the high way.

    (At least he admits it is our money. Just how long have you been paying taxes?)

    He is pushing for those absurd tax cuts again.
    9:14
    And the Republicans stand and the Democrats sit.
    But the stimulus package is is cheered on.

    (Yeah, what a silly thing. Better to lie and say he is going to raise taxes that only affect the upper class. Kathleen, do you have a better proposal to keep the ecomony strong.

    Oh now he is slapping them on the hands for things that have been done since time began.

    We could use the word VETO as a drinking game tonight,

    (Yeah, from the man that approved every spending measure that crossed his desk in his first term. As for the drinking game, that probably explains your political thinking.)

    The collapse of the housing market in firmly because of Bush’s policies and the “look the other way” as money is being pushed around to make everyone’s bottom line look better.

    (It would have been nice to have some evidence in writing rather than simply your all-knowing mind.)

    His health insurance promise is a scam from word go. Anyone remember his idea for Social Security.

    (His idea was a modified version of the same idea Bill Clinton tried to pass during his term. As for health insurance promises, Hellary Clinton’s has a strong whiff of manure coming from it.)

    Ask a teacher No child left behind is a big ášš joke. States are being forced to teach to the test. There is no money for the school to do what the feds insist that they do by law.

    Still trying to get school voucher in there.

    Yeah, the all the problems with our school systems are GWB’s fault. I basically agree with you about NCLB, but the problems with the public school system existed long before W came to office.

    Free trade with the countries that supply the most drugs to the US. That’s a great idea. Let’s get in bed with some more dictators since we saw how well that worked in Iraq and Iran.

    Yeah, and let us not forget how many libs think Castro and Hugo Chavez are such wonderful people.

    Oh NOW he wants clean energy. Coal power is dead unless someone could come up with a new way to do it. OK we are talking about Nuclear Power again. That makes more sense.

    (Funny, I’ve heard the same thing coming from the Dems as part of the upcoming election. Not that the Dems have a great record for coming up with realistic solutions…for anything.)

    Slow and stop Greenhouse gases….Like the Kyoto Treaty that we have STILL NOT PASSED?

    (If you feel that strongly about it, Kathleen, why don’t you do something about the countries that don’t have our standards, like China and India. Spare me the whole global warming hoax, Chicken Little.)

    Moral boundaries ? Oh Stem Cells and that mess. Buying Selling or patenting human being? Sorry the barn door is already open and the tissue is out.

    (Clarification? Evidence? I know, I know …too much to ask.)

    Moral Judges? Oh PLEASE. I am going to lose my lunch.

    (Funny…I’m getting the same feeling from reading your delightful analysis.)

    He is still trying to get federal funding for religious organizations again.

    (What? No mention about how much funding is going to liberal groups that do not work and have not worked. If the money went to religious groups, maybe it might so some good. Ah, but I forget…there’s that all church vs. state thing.)

    Here is his run on Social Security again. My plan didn’t work so you do it.

    (Gee, I remember back in the late 70s, how the Democrats were saying Social Security is going broke and something needed to be done. Guess they were wrong and the president is just trying to scare people now.)

    Guest Worker program again. Didn’t get it last time and won’t get it this time. He just don’t get it does he? The congress doesn’t want to do it his way.

    (Yeah, and he doesn’t want to things the way House Speaker Nancy Lugosi and Harry “Murkin Muffley” Reid want it done. So what’s your suggestion on how to solve the problem, oh most expert Kathleen?)

    Are we going to talk about Iran? Not yet? Maybe later.

    (What about Iran? Did they take hostages? Oh, wait…I forgot, that was when Jimmy “I’m doing my on-the-job training as president” Carter.)

    Justice to our enemies. *snort*

    Is that what we are doing? Spreading the hope of freedom? I thought we were spreading the threat of terrorism.

    (A great statement if you are preaching to the choir. A left-wing talking point that is absolutely meaningless to anyone else. Boy, I wish I could have seen one thing to back up your statement. Too much to ask again, I guess.)

    Ah so rather than staying the course we changed it and sent more Americans into countries that don’t want us there. He is trying to prove that he did what he said he was going to do in the last year even though the Iraq government has not hit the minimum for continued funding. But he still wants more money and more bodies to throw at the problem.

    (Hey, Kathleen — if you want the troops outta there, go talk to the Democratically-controlled Congress! They do have the power to cut the funds. And do you really believe that, if Obama or (God help us) Lady McBeth get elected, that he/she is going to take the troops out of Iraq? Ain’t gonna happen.)

    Wait a minute…weren’t they on the run last year and the year before and the year before that?

    Return on Success? What? That just is too vague for me to even comprehend.

    (You may have a point here, because it’s the only thing that explains the same about your statements.)

    So now if you don’t get what you need it is Congress’s fault not the Presidents? I call Shenanigans!

    (Funny, the libs have been blaming the president for EVERYTHING that’s gone wrong since he’s been in office. Maybe he’d just angry about that little slumber party they had a few months back.)

    Oh good ONE group of people came home. Do you know how many are over there? Are about to have to go over there again? 20,000 is a drop in the bucket.

    Shi’a, Sunni and Kurds are rebuilding together? Yeah each within their own tribe trying to keep the others from gaining anything.

    There are problems there that will never be solved unless the Prophet himself comes back and sorts it out himself. (that quote given to me by a friend who’s family still lives in Bagdad.)

    Here is the poke at Iran (with a side poke at North Korea)

    Ah the Freedom Act! Let it DIE!!!!!!

    Oooo look at the divide on that one. And the Democrats have the majority.

    Sudan is mentioned as are some other troubled spots that are being ignored or given token respect by the world. Bad President no biscuit for you.

    (Ah, yes, and Bill Clinton did sooo much are all those places.)

    Here is the HIV part of the speech. The problem is that the virus is mutating and the numbers in new groups are increasing.

    (Funny that you didn’t mention that the president has spent more money on research on HIV than Clinton did. Guess you can’t, though.)

    Vets do need more for what they did. And hey here is a wacky idea, stop pushing people out of the system for stupid reasons like creating the situation of dishonorable discharge to people who now have serious mental health issues. I hate how the veterans have been treated by our government.

    (And I hate the way the far-left, anti-protesters are treating the soldiers. I still remember how the libs treated the soldiers when they came back from ‘Nam. Spare us your indignation.

    Oooo Someone gave him a history lesson.

    (Don’t kid us, Kathleen. It was you, wasn’t it. Just for one moment, you enlighted him on history so that he could enlighen us all. Thank you, all-knowing history matron.)

    Kathleen, I want to thank you very, very much. Your “analysis” has given me the best laughs since I read that the New York chapter of NAG claimed Ted “Swimmer” Kennedy betrayed them by not backing Ahillary the Hun. Thank Peter, too. Now I have to go; I have to put my Peter David-written issues of the Hulk (along with the rest of the stuff I have that he has written) because every time I’ve tried to read them lately I fwow up. Thanks again for the laughs…and maybe you should think about getting your own radio show.