Lobbying: We're doomed

Politics and religion
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012902249.html

Washington is broken: Lobbyists and special interests have turned our government into a game that only they can afford to play. They write the checks, and the citizenry gets stuck with the bill. Politics is no longer a mission; it’s a business.

I have never been more pessimistic about the possibilities for this country. I don’t care whether you’re a republican or a democrat…for the last 20-30 years congress and the presidency have done nothing to address some of the most terrible and cancerous problems in this society.

This country is going to be a modern tragedy within the next 30 years IMO.

I really hope that Obama can do something, but this retarded stimulus bill looks like a massive handout to supporters. :(

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I really hope that Obama can do something, but this retarded stimulus bill looks like a massive handout to supporters. :(

By and large, actually, it doesn’t. Not if you take in the big picture. 30% is unemployment benefits: foodstamps and aid to states. 87 billion is going to states to shore up Medicaid, another 79 billion to state education budgets. There’s 145 billion going to a tax credit to low income workers. There’s infrastructure spending and money to subsidize healthcare costs for the unemployed. Sure, there may be some things that slip in there that could be used as punch lines, but by and large it’s a pretty good bill. The biggest danger is that it might not be enough.

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Wait a sec - you mean Obama is delivering on the stuff he promised in his stump speeches? That’s unpossible!

Of course it looks like the money is going to his supporters! First of all, his supporters are everywhere. Second of all, the people who supported him agreed with his ideas of how the money would be spent in the first place.

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A woman at work complained about how Obama is handing out money to the banks and the wealthy. It took a lot not to punch her in the face.

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Wait. What? She said Obama is handing out money to banks and wealthy? OBAMA!? I’m actually not a hardcore liberal as some on this board are, but that’s just nuts. Does she even know who was President back in September through December?

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If the Senate votes yes on this stimulus plan I’ll get $7500 instantly for the first-time home buyer credit. Otherwise it’ll be a interest free loan I’ll have to pay off in $500 installments for the next 15 years. Go stimulus bill!

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OMG Jazar is a lobbyist!

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All the indications I’m seeing are that a very small percentage of the unreal spending that the bill contains actually occurs this year despite what Obama claims.

It’s really not a stimulus bill…it’s just an insane spending bill. I really hope you guys are right. It’s going to be terrible for the country if Obama is as big of a failure as Bush.

It’s interesting to watch this from the other side. Six to eight years ago when people were starting to call out all of the horrible things Bush was doing, most conservatives (myself included) basically dismissed the criticisms. We were so happy that the country was back in conservative hands after eight years of Clinton that we weren’t willing to see the rotten stuff Bush was implementing, from the erosion of rights to the wasteful spending to the disastrous foreign policy.

I think it’s likely that you guys are going to experience the same thing. At first you’ll be happy and optimistic that things are going to improve. But when they don’t it’s going to be a huge wakeup call.

I truly hope that Obama’s policies somehow work fantastically well to turn this country around but given how corrupt our political system has become I think it’s very unlikely. Even assuming Obama is really serious about fixing the myriad ways that this country has devolved I don’t think he could accomplish it. I hope I’m wrong.

We have a laundry list of problems that have been getting worse and worse under both republicans and democrats

Out of control spending/entitlements
Out of control greedy corporations
Erosion of rights/freedoms
Proliferation of insane regulatory regimes
Increase in corrupt officials
Disengaged citizens that don’t know/care what’s going on
Pay to play lobbying
Insane criminal justice system
Insane civil courts/overlawyering

The list just goes on and on. These problems were not caused by republicans or democrats, they were caused by US because we let our politicians use their offices to enrich themselves and throw money at problems. We let them pretend to serve us while they really just served their own egos.

:(

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So, Spoofy has a good point that many of us on the left have a tendency to give Obama a pass because his political leanings align with ours. Few on the left are really looking at the stimulus with the kind of critical eye it deserves.

One difference is, Obama is doing what people on the left want - namely, increased government intervention in the economic arena, while Bush was taking steps that fly in the face of conservative doctrine (increasing restrictions on individual rights, circumvention of the rule of law) and yet you never heard a peep, which led me to the conclusion that folks on the right were quite happy to sacrifice their principles so long as Their Guys Won.

I presume you’re talking about Medicare/Medicaid here. Because that’s basically all that’s gone up. And I have a hard time getting my knickers in a twist over health care for poor/old people.

Erosion of rights/freedoms

I’ve been a card carrying member of the ACLU for years, while my fellow Americans (and you, I presume) voted for Bush twice. What are you doing to promote civil rights, other than post angry screeds here?

Out of control greedy corporations
Proliferation of insane regulatory regimes

There seems to be an inherent contradiction in these two complaints, but sure, I agree that we need more regulation to restrict the excesses of the market. That’s very liberal of you. I’m not sure which insane regulatory regimes you are talking about, but undoubtedly it’s some kind of environmental/property rights hoohah.

Increase in corrupt officials

This is not true. Read some history. I’m reading a Truman biography, and the stuff detailed back in the 30s and 40s would make the monocle pop right out of your eye.

Disengaged citizens that don’t know/care what’s going on

Clearly you slept through the last few years. I could characterize the Obama movement many ways (a cult, mass hysteria, etc) but I would not characterize it as “Disengaged citizens who don’t know what’s going on”. I’d also say that the rise of the blogosphere has led to a more engaged and informed citizenry than we’ve had in years.

Pay to play lobbying

Yup. Agreed, agreed, agreed. I presume you screamed loud and long when Cheney refused to disclose the details of his meetings with Enron when formulating the US energy policy? For the record, it’s bullshit for Obama to make a “No Lobbyists” rule, then break it by appointing William Lynn, and is another good example of folks on the left giving Obama a pass on things they should be irate about.

Insane criminal justice system

I agree here, but I suspect we think it’s insane for different reasons. But, yeah, I think it’s bad for America to incarcerate people for minor drug offenses.

Insane civil courts/overlawyering

We’re going to have to agree to disagree here. Civil courts are part of the checks and balances against your “greedy corporations”. As much as Rush might rail on people suing McDonalds for hot coffee, the reality is that the threat of a civil suit is one of the few things that keeps corporations in line. In fact, I’d say that we don’t go far enough in this area (do a wikipedia search for Lilly Ledbetter).

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This is really a rephrasing of “the US health care system costs too much and sucks,” as Medicare and Medicaid are the only pricey entitlements; they’re suffering from the same cost explosion the private sector is. The only other significant entitlement is Social Security, and the long-run deficit on it is fairly small, and considering past predictions of doom & gloom from the trustees being inaccurate it may not really be a problem at all.

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Thanks for the thoughtful replies guys…I have to head out but I’ll try to answer later.

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This is not the situation as we had when Bush took office. Clinton was a highly successful president.

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You deserve a punch in the face as much as that women who told Euri that Obama was handing out money to banks and wealthy people*. Eight years of Republican mismanagement is largely responsible for the mess we’re in, and now you want to play all bipartisan.

Sigh…

-Tom
  • For the record, I don’t think either of you deserves a punch in the face, but the sentiment is still there.
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The reading I’ve done suggests that Clinton shares a lot of blame for some of the crazy policies that have led to the situation we’re in now.

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Medicare/Medicaid/Prescription drug benefits:

Yes, I’m basically griping about these. I’m very concerned that these costs are going to spiral even further out of control. The idea of providing top quality health care for everybody is a great idea, but I’m very worried that the attempt to do this is going to turn into a tragedy…that we’ll start to suffer the same kind of horrible and crazy problems that Britain has with its system for instance…people being refused care because the doctors are put under a huge amount of pressure to reduce costs by the government only to have those people die of perfectly treatable conditions.

Civil Liberties:

Well I’m not going to donate to the ACLU (although, believe it or not, I actually have in the past!) but I’m very concerned with the crazy DHS/TSA stuff and the erosion of civil liberties.

Regulatory Regimes:

Yeah…it’s the property rights hoohah. Eminent domain, etc.

Corruption:

You may be right that things are better. I wish they were better still.

Engaged Citizenry:

I don’t consider the groundswell of support for Obama as evidence of truly engaged citizenry. Angry, yes. Engaged no. Not yet. I hope people start to look at the issues more carefully. The majority of national politicians we’ve got right now are the product of complacent voters though. Daschle, Rangel, Dodd, Ted Stevens, Don Young, etc. How do these people stay in office?

Lawsuits:

I just wish we had a better way to handle frivolous lawsuits. :(

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Rush Limbaugh books are not a good foundation for your political beliefs.

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I dunno, printed words are not so good a source. Did you hear it on Good Morning America?

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Now you really deserve a punch in the face* for suggesting Clinton should share the blame for these things:

You might as well go whole hog and blame Iraq on him because he didn’t take down Osama bin Laden. Bonus points for saying he didn’t do it because of Monica Lewinski.

The other stuff in your list is typical Republican talking points, so I can understand why you’d go there. But for god’s sake, man, your people made a giant mess over the last eight years. Own up to it.

-Tom

  • Not really.
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Clinton did put a lot of faith in Greenspan, but to single out Clinton, when he had to move to the right to get anything done with a Republican congress is pretty absurd.

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If Clinton managed to fuck things up the Republicans had eight years to fix those problems.
That’s a FAIL, in case you missed it.

And as I remember it he left us with a Surplus and a rocking economy after after the Republicans spent us into a hole.