Ron Paul: Stimulus Packages Will Turn Recession Into A Depression

[notyoueither]

Come back when you can make sense of what you're reading, Ben...

You asked me.

Don't get all sucky faced because I didn't accept your amateur reading of history.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Your problem is you won't accept basic economic facts and good-faith comparisons to previous economic downturns.

[notyoueither]

Is that like "negative growth"? I personally want to shoot the **** who came up with that phrase. It's like calling death "negative life".

Shhh. Don't look at the sacred cows too closely.

[notyoueither]

Your problem is you won't accept basic economic facts and good-faith comparisons to previous economic downturns.

Your problem is you think your opinions are facts.

You compound that with an almost willfully ignorant use of historical precedent, and a complete ignorance of what actually matters in history.

[Naked Gents Rut]

We'll see who's right in a couple years. Wanna put some money on it?

[Agathon]

We'll see who's right in a couple years. Wanna put some money on it?

Real men bet in Euros.

[notyoueither]

We'll see who's right in a couple years. Wanna put some money on it?

You have better people to win over, like the people who form opinions in your Federal Reserve Banks.

[Naked Gents Rut]

The people at the Fed agree with me. Your own article said so.

Real men bet in Euros.

That's fine with me.

[notyoueither]

Now that you bring up Ben...

[Darius871]

He's also defended earmarks as inevitable in such a package.

No, he didn't. That's why you're not using a direct quote.

more charitably, obtuse. It actually is not that infrequently wrong. But he never said that.

Then what do you think Obama's bolded direct quote from the AP was supposed to mean?

Around midweek, however, Obama began changing his tone. Democrats need not apologize or compromise further except on small items, he said.

Some critics, [Obama] said at Thursday's retreat, contend the bill "is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one."

Ratcheting up the sarcasm, the president said: "So then you get the argument, 'well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill.' What do you think a stimulus is?"

"That's the whole point," he said, as the audience hooted and applauded.

Obama warned Republicans not to "come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis." Americans, he said, "did not vote for the false theories of the past, and they didn't vote for phony arguments and petty politics."

"They sent us here to bring change," he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...1yqlwD966BRN80

I can only read that comment to mean either 1) "come on guys, deep down we all know that earmarks are inevitable" (highly likely given the context & audience), 2) "this bill won't be passed" (highly unlikely), or 3) "this bill will be unprecedented by not having earmarks like the historical bills to which I'm analogizing had" (possible...) Do you really think #3 is the best interpretation of what he said?

If it's #1 I appreciate Obama's honesty.

An "earmark" isn't the same thing as "spending that I don't care for." If you google "stimulus" and "earmarks," you get articles such as this:

When congressional leaders began to assemble the mammoth economic stimulus bill, top Democrats and the Obama administration decided that there would be no earmarks: no "special projects," no pork-barrel spending. In so doing, they gave up some control over how the money is spent, leaving the decision to public servants around the country.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=100304449

I know what earmark means, and I know that the original bill (arguably) included no earmarks (technically), and I never said anything to suggest otherwise. Obama's the one who made that comment implying that earmarks are inevitable, not me. That means either 1) he perceives some things in the present bill to be localized enough to be reasonably classifiable as earmarks or 2) he expects that earmarks will be tacked on at some time in the future as a quid pro quo to get bipartisan support on the hook. You'll note that either case is inconsistent with his previous pledge, not that there's anything wrong with that...

No, that's your interpretation of what he said. Which is an odd conclusion given that the bill was specifically constructed to exclude earmarks (even if some of the spending is sufficiently localized to constitute "pork"). Obama was gloating that there weren't any earmarks in the legislation. As he said, "not one."

Sure it is, that's why I asked what your interpretation would be. Glad to know we're on the same page that it's entirely subjective and the AP is therefore not "wrong." We won't know until the final product is passed anyway.

Ok I was mistaken - instead of including the "inevitable" earmarks in the controversial stimulus bill, they instead "saved" them for almost surreptitious insertion into a catch-all spending bill just one week later, which is effectively one half of the same measure as far as I'm concerned. But I suppose that has no bearing on what his comment implied, right? Or is it A-OK that these are "only" a $3.8B drop in the bucket? Even if he was just gloating, I still fail to see why it's so hard for him to just say "no earmarks, period" and stick with it. It's not like Congress is in a position to bully him around.

House Democrats propose $410B spending bill
House bill to keep govt. running totals $410 billion, features thousands of pet projects
David Espo, AP Special Correspondent
Tuesday February 24, 2009, 8:50 am EST

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year, setting up the second political struggle over federal funds in less than a month with Republicans.

The measure includes thousands of earmarks, the pet projects favored by lawmakers but often criticized by the public in opinion polls. There was no official total of the bill's earmarks, which accounted for at least $3.8 billion.

The legislation, which includes an increase of roughly 8 percent over spending in the last fiscal year, is expected to clear the House later in the week.

Democrats defended the spending increases, saying they were needed to make up for cuts enacted in recent years or proposed a year ago by then-President George W. Bush in health, education, energy and other programs.

Republicans countered that the spending in the bill far outpaced inflation, and amounted to much higher increases when combined with spending in the stimulus legislation that President Barack Obama signed last week. In a letter to top Democratic leaders, the GOP leadership called for a spending freeze, a step they said would point toward a "new standard of fiscal discipline."

Either way, the bill advanced less than one week after Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that all Republicans in Congress opposed except for three moderate GOP senators.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/House-...221.html/print

[snoopy369]

I know this thread is fascinating, but as it's after 500 posts, start a new one to continue the discussion please...