Republicans are the Problem, They Are Sabotaging The Economy for Political Gain

A new Daily Kos/SEIU poll released today found that nearly half of voters believe that Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jump start the economy to ensure that President Barack Obama is not re-elected. 49 percent of respondents to the poll say that Republicans are intentionally stalling the economy, compared to 40 percent who say they are not. 11 percent replied “not sure.”

Among independents, 50 percent said that Republicans are stalling the recovery compared to 40 percent who said they are not, and 61 percent of self-described moderates said they are compared to just 40 percent who said they are not.

Recently, news analysts from major networks (not Fox) have began to question whether Republicans really are deliberately tanking the economy to defeat Obama. The behavior of Republicans in Congress is beginning to give credibility to that charge. The poll shows that a very large number of Americans including half of Independent voters agree.

Take the Highway Bill for example, we have been ignoring our infrastructural needs for decades. Not only about roads and bridges, but also water, sewage, power, and communication lines to name a few. In the senate, the highway bill was written with bi-partisan support, however the house refuses to pass it. Why? Probably because of the estimated 1 MILLION jobs it will create....

The GOP's "Job Creators" Don't Create Jobs

 From www.dailykos.com

For years, Republicans have warned that President Obama's proposal to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the top two percent of taxpayers would crush "job creators."  As Speaker Boehner protested:

"The top one percent of wage earners in the United States...pay forty percent of the income taxes...The people he's [President Obama] is talking about taxing are the very people that we expect to reinvest in our economy."

If so, those expectations were sadly unmet under George W. Bush. After all, the last time the top tax rate was 39.6 percent during the Clinton administration, the United States enjoyed rising incomes, 23 million new jobs and budget surpluses. Under Bush? Not so much. On January 9, 2009, the Republican-friendly Wall Street Journal summed it up with an article titled simply, "Bush on Jobs: the Worst Track Record on Record." (The Journal's interactive table quantifies his staggering failure relative to every post-World War II president.) The meager one million jobs created under President Bush didn't merely pale in comparison to the 23 million produced during Bill Clinton's tenure. In September 2009, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee charted Bush's job creation disaster, the worst since Hoover.
That dismal performance prompted David Leonhardt of the New York Times to ask last fall, "Why should we believe that extending the Bush tax cuts will provide a big lift to growth?" His answer was unambiguous:

Those tax cuts passed in 2001 amid big promises about what they would do for the economy. What followed? The decade with the slowest average annual growth since World War II. Amazingly, that statement is true even if you forget about the Great Recession and simply look at 2001-7...
Is there good evidence the tax cuts persuaded more people to join the work force (because they would be able to keep more of their income)? Not really. The labor-force participation rate fell in the years after 2001 and has never again approached its record in the year 2000.
Is there evidence that the tax cuts led to a lot of entrepreneurship and innovation? Again, no. The rate at which start-up businesses created jobs fell during the past decade.

The data are clear: lower taxes for America's so called job-creators don't mean either faster economic growth or more jobs for Americans.

It's no wonder Leonhardt followed his first question with another.  "I mean this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one," he asked, "Given this history, why should we believe that the Bush tax cuts were pro-growth?"  Or as Mark Shields asked and answered in April:

"Do tax cuts help 'job creators' or 'robber barons'?"

Just days after the Washington Post documented that George W. Bush presided over the worst eight-year economic performance in the modern American presidency, the New York Times in January 2009 featured an analysis comparing presidential performance going back to Eisenhower. As the Times showed, George W. Bush, the first MBA president, was a historic failure when it came to expanding GDP, producing jobs and even fueling stock market growth.  Apparently, America's job creators can create a lot more jobs when their taxes are higher - even much higher - than they are today.

(It's worth noting that the changing landscape of loopholes, deductions and credits, especially after the 1986 tax reform signed by President Reagan, makes apples-to-apples comparisons of effective tax rates over time very difficult. For more background, see the CBO data on effective tax rates by income quintile.)

What Would Have Happened If The Banks Were Not Bailed Out?

Dead Wall Street Bull

With the economy in the state it is in, and the actions that our Government has taken to protect the rich, it may be fair to say that capitalism is dead.
Failed businesses are supposed to be allowed to fail and in their failure other entrepreneurs step in and replace them. However, rather than allowing the banks to fail our government was convinced to bail them out, to protect the rich.


What would have happened had the Bailout NOT occurred?

Had the bailout NOT occurred, what would have happened is.... Well we don't know, but theories regarding what would have happened depend on which economist you talk to.

Scenario 1

Top Bailout Recipients

Not all banks would have "collapsed", you get a depression as banks won't be able to give credit since they will have a 'real' approximation of how much money they have to give out.
Mortgage payments would spiral while companies cut back or went bust unable to take loans that are used to cover costs.
In the long term you'd get massively lower spending causing further economic contraction leading to a depression lasting years, similar to that of 1929. The major worry in the event of a depression is that there may be a run on the dollar which would deepen said recession.

Lets Break it down: (paraphrased from: Why the Bank Bailouts Were Necessary, by: James Altucher)

• Banks would have gone bankrupt. Forget about fault for a second....
  Morgan Stanley (MS) would have definitely gone bankrupt. Then Wachovia. Then Citigroup. Then Goldman Sachs. Then Bank of America (BAC), etc.

Would this have been a good thing or a bad thing? NO! Very bad.

• Many Fortune 100 companies would have gone bankrupt If the company did not go bankrupt, they would have had to scale back all of their operations drastically. General Electric (GE) is a prime example. They would have lost their access to the commercial paper and short-term financing that they have used to finance their business on a day to day basis for decades. The entire commercial paper market was frozen and would have remained frozen for months, in turn putting companies like GE out of business.
  
• Many small businesses (20-1000 employees) would have gone bankrupt.
  Not only are large fortune 100 companies reliant on short term lending, but small businesses are able to operate only because of Short term lending. Many small businesses do not get paid for their work until it is completed, because of this simple fact, they need
• Millions of people would have lost their insurance. Companies like AIG would have gone out of business, millions of people would have been without adequate healthcare coverage. Not to mention life insurance, property insurance, and other insurances that would have been lost, and obligations that would never have been paid or would have taken years to settle in bankruptcy courts. Sure, AIG’s competitors could have picked up the leftover business. But anyone with an outstanding obligation or a preexisting condition would have been in trouble. Pain would have occurred to tens of millions of people.
• Unemployment would have instantly gone to 20-25% or much higher. Not this mythical “U6” that everyone keeps talking about but real unemployment, as 50%+ of businesses would have had to close down or drastically scale back.
  
  
  

Scenario 2

Wall Street Drowning Taxpayers

• Banks would have possibly gone bankrupt.
  Morgan Stanley (MS) would have definitely gone bankrupt. Possibly Wachovia. Then possibly Citigroup. Then possibly Goldman Sachs. Then possibly Bank of America (BAC), etc.
• FDIC
  The FDIC would have covered the individual accounts from being completely wiped out. Although banks would have failed, middle class Americans would not have lost all of their savings.
  
• Credit unions and solvent banks would have stepped up
  With some banks unable to provide the credit businesses need, credit unions and solvent banks would seize the moment and begin lending. The beauty of CAPITALISM is that entrepreneurs are able to CAPITALIZE on OPPORTUNITIES. Many opportunities would have arisen that would have enabled groups of people to collect there money together and start their own bank, like Gateway Bank in Florida.
• Toxic Assets Would Have Been Liquidated
  Toxic assets, like homes that were underwater, would have been liquidated. Homes that are liquidated would have been sold at a severely discounted rate and bought by families who could afford them. Other liquidated assets would have been sold to various individuals or businesses that could use and afford them at the discounted rates. Supply and demand would have created market prices for the toxic assets, the assets would have become affordable again and the economy would recover.
• Millions of People Would Be Fine
  Even though we may have experience a year or two of hardship, programs like unemployment security, social security, food stamps, medicaid and medicare would have kept things from getting unbearable.