Conservative media peddle a raw deal
The conservative punditocracy that has spent the past eight years propping up a president who gave us an illegitimate war and leaves us with an almost unimaginably bad economic crisis apparently grows weary of defending this spectacular failure of a president. And so they have begun to shift their efforts to an easier task: trying to turn Americans against the president who ended the Great Depression, initiated the minimum wage, created Social Security, and helped defeat the Nazis.
Yes, they're trying to bring Franklin Roosevelt down to George W. Bush's level. Good luck with that.
On Fox News, for example, Brit Hume insisted this week that "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed."
Unless by "both sides of the spectrum," Hume means "far-right ideologues who have shows on Fox News and far-right ideologues who do not yet have shows on Fox News," he's overstating the consensus by a fair amount.
Economist Paul Krugman, for example, disagrees.
Krugman may not have the gravitas that comes with being Washington managing editor of Fox News, but he does hold the most recent Nobel Prize in economics. Krugman says the New Deal included "long-run achievements" that "remain the bedrock of our nation's economic stability" and "brought real relief to most Americans" and notes that "[b]y 1937, things were a lot better than they were in 1933." According to Krugman, the New Deal would have been even more successful had Roosevelt not been "eager to return to conservative budget principles."
Ben Bernanke disagrees with Hume, too. Bernanke has neither a Nobel Prize nor a gig at Fox News -- but he was appointed to chair the Federal Reserve by President Bush. Bernanke wrote in his Essays on the Great Depression: "Only with the New Deal's rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression."
So liberal Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says the New Deal was a success, and the Bush-appointed Fed chair says the New Deal was a success. That's quite a broad spectrum of people who disagree with Brit Hume's assertion that "both sides of the spectrum" agree that the New Deal failed.
Not that Hume is alone in his attacks on the New Deal. Washington Times columnist Jeffery Kuhner called it "a complete and utter failure" during an appearance on Michael Savage's radio show, in part because it "never tackled the problems of unemployment and poverty." And Pat Buchanan added that "[b]efore 1940, not once did unemployment fall below 14 percent," concluding that "economically, the New Deal was a bust."
That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Unemployment above 14 percent every year of the New Deal? What a failure!
Well, maybe not. Here's a Heritage Foundation chart upon which Buchanan is likely relying for that statistic. Note that at the point Heritage identifies as the beginning of the New Deal, unemployment was higher than 35 percent. Suddenly 14 percent looks like extraordinary progress, doesn't it?
But there's another problem with Buchanan's use of the 14 percent figure, as Media Matters noted: It ignores public sector jobs. Given that a significant part of the New Deal consisted of jobs programs like the Works Progress Administration, which put millions of people to work doing things like building highways and bridges, excluding public-sector jobs in order to claim that the New Deal created few jobs is simply absurd, not to mention dishonest. It boils down to saying, "If you ignore all the jobs the New Deal created, the New Deal didn't create many jobs." Well, sure. Hard to argue with that.
In any case, even using Buchanan's 14 percent number, the unemployment rate dropped more than 60 percent during Roosevelt's New Deal. You might think that, given the soaring unemployment rate under fellow conservative George W. Bush -- from 4.2 percent when he took office to 7.2 percent today, a 70 percent increase -- right-wing pundits would avoid picking fights with FDR over how to reduce unemployment.
But that assumes a level of honesty that simply is not in evidence. This is a crowd that claims to be shocked when it snows in January so that they can argue that global warming is a myth. They think nothing of fudging a few numbers here and there.
(FDR's job creation record isn't the only aspect of his legacy taking a beating in the media. On CNN yesterday, anchor Tony Harris and correspondent Christine Romans described Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme.")
The reason for the conservative media's assault on FDR is clear: With a new president facing economic crisis, conservatives want to prevent him from stimulating the economy via government spending on things like unemployment benefits and infrastructure. Such spending would not only help people who need it most, it would also do more to stimulate the economy than would the tax cuts Republicans prefer. And that's according to Mark Zandi, who was economic adviser to John McCain.
So why don't conservatives want Obama to pursue such stimulus plans? Because they're rigidly opposed to government spending as a matter of ideology. Well, let me amend that: They're rigidly opposed to government spending by progressives. They're rigidly opposed to government spending on things like health care. They're wildly enthusiastic about government spending on things they like; government spending increased rapidly under Bush, just as it did under Ronald Reagan. (Just as their insistence that people have a right to be free from government interference goes by the wayside when it comes to reproductive rights or your ability to marry the person you love or to conduct telephone conversations without fear of Dick Cheney listening in via wiretap.)
So how do conservatives want to fix the economy? Must be tax cuts, right? They always think tax cuts are the solution, no matter what the problem.
And that's where things have gotten really strange.
For years -- no, decades -- conservatives have been repeating as a mantra their complaint that Americans are taxed too darn much. Not just too much, but too often. "We're taxed when we're born, when we work, when we get married, when we die," the right likes to remind us, as though the number of taxes we pay is more important than the amount.
But suddenly, many conservatives in the media seem to think there is only one kind of tax: federal income tax.
That's because President-elect Obama is considering as part of his stimulus package a $500 individual tax credit. You would think conservatives would be thrilled; instead, they denounce it. Fox anchors and Pat Buchanan and Don Lambro and countless other conservatives have attacked the tax credit as a giveaway to "people who don't pay taxes."
What they mean is that some people who would receive the tax credit effectively pay no federal income taxes because their income is too low. But it isn't the case that they "don't pay taxes." They pay payroll taxes and excise taxes (such as taxes on gasoline) and property taxes and sales taxes.
Conservatives used to delight in enumerating the ways in which Americans are taxed. Now, in order to oppose tax cuts for those who could most use the money, those same conservatives are pretending there is only one type of tax: federal income tax. For the sake of opposing Barack Obama, and in order to keep people who most need help from getting it, these conservative commentators are actually arguing against tax cuts, disregarding years of their own rhetoric in order to do so.
Set aside the inconsistency for a moment, though: The more important fact may be that in denouncing tax cuts for people who don't make enough money to pay federal income taxes, conservative commentators like Buchanan are opposing tax credits for the very people who would be most likely to spend that money, thus stimulating the economy.
The conservative pundits, then, don't want to deal with the economic crisis by spending money on things like unemployment benefits and much-needed infrastructure improvements. And they don't want to address the situation by giving tax credits to the people who most need them and would be most likely to spend them (the whole point of including tax cuts in a stimulus package in the first place).
So what does that leave us with? Oh, right: tax cuts for the rich.
Matt Yglesias explains:
Jeremy Pelofsky and Richard Cowan report for Reuters that "Some Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have pushed for cutting the 25 percent middle-class tax rate as a way to get money into the hands of Americans quickly." But of course conservatives always say they want to help the middle class, but they always mean they want to help multi-millionaires. And as we had occasion to observe yesterday, this proposal is no exception.
Ben Furnas, Yglesias' colleague at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, offers more detail:
A new analysis from the Tax Policy Center finds that this tax change would lower taxes by less than $400 for average middle-class Americans, give a $4,000 tax break to those making over $2.8 million a year, and do nothing for households making less than $40,000.
For households with children the benefits are even more uneven. Families making less than $70,000 a year would see their taxes go down by an average of just $21 and those making between $70,000 and $140,000 would get even less. Households making over $600,000 with children, however, would get an average tax cut of $3,600.
In other words, conservatives don't want to return to Franklin Roosevelt's policies, they want to continue George W. Bush's.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
Oh come on MM!!!!!
In Brit Hume's defence his world only consists of two groups of people:
W.A.S.P Neo-cons who believe everything he does, &
Non-W.A.S.P Neo-cons who believe everything he does!!!
When you have a worldview like that then the spectrum your looking through only has two colours.
Hume is a brit ? bloody hellflush my loo.....
Shorter FauxCo version. "Tax breaks for the rich means more fun for us kids!"
I know what MM means. The neo clowns have suddenly been peddling this nonsense every where you go. Gotta wonder about just how mindless neo clowns and those who aupport them are that they think we will mindlessly believe what they are told.
Very pathetic.
The "anti-tax" wing of the modern Republican party does not care about the taxes that are paid by the average citizen. Think of the two taxes they stand most strongly against: The Federal Estate Tax and Capital Gains Taxes. The first has a threshold so high that less than 2% of the population of this country has to even calculate how to minimize what their payment will be. The second is currently lower than the tax rate on income derived through labor. "Joe the Plumber" is not the man that the Republicans are fighting for. they are fighting for "Joe the heir" and "Joe the Investment Banker."
Long term capital gains are manufactured through rules from the IRS that mandate depreciation on machinery, buildings, etc. In the days before I became middle class in my income, I was poor - and capital gains taxes very nearly bancrupted me.
Capital gains taxes, like the death tax, are a rip-off - it doesn't matter to me if a thug is robbing a rich man or a poor man - he's still a thug, and what he's doing is wrong. I don't care if the poor sucker who is paying capital gains is rich or poor - he's being ripped off, robbed, by the worst of thugs - his own government.
Capital gains are wrong and should not be legal.
i'm not an expert on depreciation, but i think that is a tax write off, not the other way around. you are writing down the value of the equipment for your business. nor am i sure how "mandatory" it is. once you start a depreciation it is, but i don't think it's required for you to start it. capital gains are generally on things like stocks and property so it's really hard to hear that you were poor if you owed capital gains taxes. maybe a specific example would help.
Yeah, I'm with mefirst and I'm calling balderdash. Your statements make no sense with reagard to tax law or accounting pricipals. Cap gains are made ( and taxed) based on GAINS, not losses. And "depreciation" REDUCES those gains, not increases. You're either lying, BS-ing us (in hopes that we don't know what we're talking about), or you don't know yourself.
If I'm wrong, please elaborate. I'll admit when I'm wrong (it happens) but you'll have to do better than that. Your post doesn't make any sense at all.
If capital gains taxes "nearly bankrupted" you, then you are extraordinarily bad at financial management. They tax INCREASES IN VALUE. They tax money that you have MADE. The only way they could "nearly bankrupt" you is if you forgot you had to pay them and therefore got stuck.
There is no "death tax." There is an inheritance tax, and only about 2% of the people in the country have to worry about it. Taxes are not theft, as you imply, and if you don't understand that, then you don't understand what taxes are.
Capital gains taxes, like inheritance taxes, are absolutely necessary.
Repugs will try and fail at trying to bash one of the best presidents the country ever had, FDR. Reagan, Bush .....well repugs all you have are piles of dung for presidents.
You're just wrong, Marker. The country will remember your heroes - Clinton, the impeached one. They will remember your hero - LBJ - the one who commited 50,000 troops into Viet Nam to give himself a landslide victory over Goldwater. The world will remember your hero- the president of malaise - Jimmy Carter and his 19% interest rates.
Nixon was a slime, but at least he had enough sense to resign. Clinton is just hillbilly trash. FDR was just a 'half-baked' socialist (remember 'pinko?'), or as the Russians called them, a 'fellow-traveler.' And it was the Second World War that ended the depression, not FDR's programs. Kennedy, like his two younger brothers, was a womanizing slug (he and Bobby apparently both slept with Marilyn Monroe), apparently addicted to pain killer drugs. Truman, a local 'machine pol' like Obama, was about the only authentic person in that slimy pantheon. Proud group, the Democratic presidents of the 20th Century.
Edross... thanks for sharing. Get some help.
I was poor - and capital gains taxes very nearly bancrupted me.
Possibly the most insane thing I've ever seen posted here. Unless you can provide some numbers to persuade me otherwise, you're just nuts.
"or as the russians called them, a 'fellow traveler' ". no, that term was generally used in the west to describe those who were not members of the communist party but supposedly sympathized with their beliefs. j. edgar hoover used it and was not russian to my knowledge. maybe in your world.
If these people insist on going back to the thirties and forties to tear down FDR as they paint Bush's legacy, it's appropriate to ask what the Walker and the Bush families were doing during those times.
I know this is off topic, but is there something that sounds awkward with this article?
January 9, 2009 - TRN's The Michael Savage Show To Provide New Pre-Feed in O'Reilly's Time Slot, Against Rush"Our Savage pre-feed in O'Reilly's live radio slot should prove this point yet again," says Masters. The pre-feed of The Michael Savage Show will be available starting January 12, 2009 and will provide another programming option for stations hard hit by the current economy. Michael Savage, the third largest syndicated host in the nation according to TALKERS Magazine, airs on over 300 stations nationwide, and in 43 of the top 50 markets.
Michael Savage and Talk Radio Network also recently announced a multi-year extension of their radio syndication, continuing their nine-year long business relationship. Mark Masters CEO of TRN says, "By continuing to syndicate The Michael Savage Show, Talk Radio Network is proud to lead arm and arm with one of the greatest national talk personalities on the air today. Michael is a true original - he is one in a million, and we are honored for this opportunity."
"Mark Masters knows syndication. I know Talk. It's a perfect marriage", says Savage.
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In other words, conservatives don't want to return to Franklin Roosevelt's policies, they want to continue George W. Bush's.
Liberals want FDR's policies, conservatives want GWB's policies, the rest of us want the FairTax
The Fair Tax simply isn't what it calls itself. Most of those for it are libertarians and conservatives, not independents.
It relies on a mathematical trick to appear "fair." Ten percent of a dollar will always be ten cents no matter how many dollars you have. However the impact of the loss of that dime per dollar in spending power after accounting for the "Fair Tax" is much greater to those at the lower ends of the economic scale. Further the "Fair Tax" breaks down quite badly when one considers that it only taxes money that is used in consumption. In the lower and middle classes, virtually all income is used for consumer spending which would be taxed. At the higher levels of income, large amounts of that money is not spent in ways that would be subject to the "Fair Tax," effectively removing it from the taxation system without nit ecessarily contributing to the economy in any productive fashion.
Like the Laffer Curve, the theory that lower taxes will always produce economic upswings, the conept that lower capital gains taxes will produce economic investment and growth and many other conservative economic theories, the Fair Tax makes sense on a superficial gut feeling level but shows large weaknesses the deeper one looks at it.
Excellent post!
#1, stop listening to Boortz.
#2, the so called "Fair Tax" is almost anything but that, as Moodbat explains below...
What other alternatives are there during the morning slots?
Let's see... there's Glenn Beck 9-12 (nat'l synd.)
Joe (Scarborough) and Mika 10-11:45 (WABC)
Greg Garrison 8:30-11 (WIBC)
Abdul Hakeem-Shabazz 6-10 (WXNT)
All of them MMFA has deemed/would deem conservative misinformers
You want alternatives? You have a computer, you can listen to whatever you want at any time. You're so dense sometimes.
Listen to music. You'll probably get more out of that.
i'm not sure that we can just say forget deficits and cut taxes and spend our way out of what we are in. at some point we have to stop accumulating debt. after all, clinton's tax increases on the wealthy were followed by an economic boom. this is also not the depression. a very serious recession yes, but there are programs in place, unemployment payments for one, food stamps for another, that were not available when the depression started. we are not at the levels of unemployment then.
the fact is that year after year we have been starving government of more tax money. the estate tax, as someone else noted, and one thing that most people don't think of, but retirement programs have increased greatly in the last few years. up to certain income levels, you can put as much as 16,000 dollars of salary, tax deferred, into plans at your workplace and then on top of that, fund another individual retirement account, an ira also tax deferred, up to 5 to 6 thousand dollars. and that is not the only example. and the people most able to get those tax deductions are not spending that money at this time, it's simply being put aside and not circulated into the economy. ira-s were a good idea, to get people saving for retirement, but they are now letting too much income be protected from tax.
i'm not saying we can balance the budget in the next few years, or that we won't need to have some government spending to provide stimulus to the economy. i am saying that we cannot just sit back and say we are going to have trillion dollar deficits for years into the future, and there is no alternative to that. somewhere, reality is going to bite us in the backside. the dollar, once the "gold standard" of money, is now just another currency.
It's not popular to say this, but it's true. The rich have an astronomical amount of money, so much that it defies comprehension. They can lose 80% of it and it would literally have no effect at all on the economy. Anyone who disagrees can check out the tax rate during the excellent economy of the 1950s, or look at how investment and job creation didn't suffer in the tiniest way when Clinton raised taxes.
If Obama would raise the top tax rate to 50%, he could probably balance the budget at the same time as the massive stimulus. Hard to believe? That's how much money the rich has.
The only counterargument to this is some abstract plea to fairness or to punishing achievement. Enter the Fundamental Theorem of Liberalism: a rich person is still rich after taxes.
never knew it but media matters existed in prehistoric days. from the brilliant comic strip "non sequitur" by wiley, titled the "the invention of ideology".
caveman 1: "um,why you stand in rain?" caveman 2: "it not raining". 1: "yes, it is". 2: "no it not". 1: "huh? water fall from sky. that rain". 2: "that your opinion". 1: "not opinion, fact. see? raindrops". 2: "don't need to look. already know it not rain". 1: "if it not rain, then why you wet and me dry?" 2: "define wet". 1: "oww, brain hurt".
any similarity between posters living or dead is purely coincidental.
Republicans don't like Bush any more, but it's easy to miss that they don't like him for only a single reason -- government spending increased under his watch. They're still 100% behind his economics, foreign policy, and everything else, which are such obvious and enduring failures.
The republican party, today and tomorrow as well as yesterday, is still the party of the 28%ers. Reality is pounding ferociously on their heads, but they still won't let it modify their theories.
Not even really that. For 75% of his time in office they approved his spending and encouraged it. It is only now that his career is effectively over and they need to save their own that they suddenly care about Bush's spending habits.
They also dislike Bush because he didn't want to shoot illegal immigrants on sight.
Massive government spending was one of the foundational bricks of the neocon governmental edifice. Massive government spending allowed the neocons to not only continue increasing military spending, but allowed them to keep in place popular liberal programs (SS, Medicade, unemployment insurance, etc) so as not to suffer any serious electoral setbacks, and... and this is a key point... to permit large corporations to skim off huge amounts of governmental funds under their money-hoovering principles of 'privatization.' Combined with their massive tax cuts aimed at wealthiest stratum, it allowed the nation's power elite to concentrate the country's wealth into fewer and fewer hand.
Make no mistake... class warfare IS being fought in this country, and has been at an accelerated rate for the last 28 years.
That the neocon philosphy has been pretty thoroughly repudiated by the American electorate over the last couple of election cycles hardly gives the neocons a moment's pause. They aren't going to let a little thing like democracy screw up the sweet deal that they've been blessed with since the onset of the so-called Reagan Revolution. Progessives frequently denounce the neocons as idealogues who are blind to concepts that fail to support their political philosophy. I know I often do. But the truth is that they're not really all that shackled to the concept of priciples, folks... not even in a wild-eyed, fanatical, Orwellian sense. It's not even remotely about principles.
It's about the MONEY!
That's the literal bottom-line with these people. They're not going to suddenly join in with the reality-based community, and try and come to a common understanding and course of action about what will be in the best interests of the majority of Americans. They're not going to suddenly just up and join the reality-based community, simply because that is what will give us the best chance at riding out of this looming economic tsunami.
After all, where's the profit in that?
I've thought about this a bit, and its my opinion that Republicans don't like Bush simply because he was symbolic President during the period in which their irrational policies ran the show, and inevitably failed. In this regard Bush is the Scapegoat protecting the memory of their sainted moron Reagan.
Brit Puke...
Rupert must have got after him.
This attack on FDR is so prevalent that it must have been a commonly circulated talking point a few weeks back. Or perhaps Fox & Associates merely think they hit pay dirt by interviewing Amity Shlaes, economics reporter (not an economist) whose recent writings minimize effects of the New Deal.
To discredit FDR, and Barack Obama by inference, the conservative canon emphasizes the "slow" rate of economic growth in the mid-to-late 1930s -- 8 to 10 percent each year except '37 and '38 (a slowdown marked by FDR's pulling back in deference to conservative critics). Yet in 2007 and 2008, the same pundits seized upon microscopic quarterly "growth" as proof that Bush kept the country out of recession. "All right," let's ask these yo-yo's, "since when is 10 percent growth slow and 1 percent growth not?"
This rewriting of history would be hilarious if it weren't for its outrageous goal: sidetracking Obama's stimulus strategy.
It is hard to believe these revisionists would prolong a recession just to pump up Republicans' chances in the 2010 elections. Have they no portfolios? But, then, they embraced Bush's war-making because of its short-term political potential.
In that light, what WOULDN'T they try?
Jerry Elsea
how silly. mmfa totally distorts the present calamity by blaming it on bush, when we all know it's the dems in congress that cooked up the whole thing so they could get the whitehouse again. and you knuckelheaded knownothings go along with the narrative and spout your foolish stuff. fdr was a great leader, to be sure, but terrible for the economy.
What the hell did they do within the last two years to create the recession, while Republicans were obstructing them with alarming frequency?
Did you even read the article before posting your kneejerk reactionary drivel?
It's not just W. Every single lock step conservative market fundie, sadistic war loving, moron with their block and blame, hyperventilating nuclear option, nitwit strategy, bent on doing exactly as they please, country be damned, Republican who churned up this crisis who gets the blame. May fate smile kindly on your ignorant soul if you believe conservatism has been failed, rather than understanding conservatism has failed miserably.
You are right on one count, FDR was a great leader, but you go astray by saying he was bad for the economy. That he cobbled together a bold economic plan and led us to recovery is exactly why he was a great leader. He cast off the, "just leave well enough alone," shackles of that stale old conservative thinking and progressed to recovery by trying anything that could work. He applied pragmatism to problem solving and what did he get for it? As is custom with the authoritarian right, the conservative masters of industry tried to kill him. You must be so proud of your right wing heritage, with its history of cruelty, secrecy and domination.
At any rate, you can shove your Heritage Foundation talking points where the sun don't shine. And don't call people knownothings until you come back here with something more than a cute little think tank script written to fill your own intellectual void. Punk.
Now Roundhouse, don't beat around the bush, tell us how you really feel ;-)
Love ya, Mary. :)
....and don't forget OVERSIGHT and REGULATION, roundhouse. FDRs wartime economy was watched vigorously, and shennanigans of the sort that defines the existence of the Bush Administration were sternly dealt with.
Interesting how with 12 years of a Republican Congressional majority (1994-2006) and eight years of a Republican Presdency (2000-2008) it's only taken the Democrats two years to have "cooked up the whole thing". Republicans must be amazingly weak to have allowed this to happen while they were the majority party.
Usually Snoopy posts This Modern World before i do, but just in case, this should explain everything---
That looks really bed-- how about this--
link
as i noted in another thread, the conservatives want to make hoover "disappear". they don't want to acknowledge the fact that he handed fdr a huge unemployment rate. it wasn't as if fdr came into office and the rate of unemployment shot up. that was hoover after his first year in office. so it's relative. if fdr was "terrible for the economy", then hoover was extra, extra terrible.
Perfect! You sound like exactly like the neocons with no connection to reality!
This is counter to everything I ever learned growing up. They attack Krugman all the time too.
Free country? Free speech? Ugh.
It is little more than fascist propaganda.
The unfortuante thing is that they keep pushing their agenda and people listen.....and some start to believe... Their primary news comes from Fox and conservative radio and they get few alternative viewpoints.
One of the great ironies here is that the Fox Network airs some of the most sleazy, certainly unconservative, shows on television.
Hoover made the mistake of signing Smoot Hawley, and then raising taxes. FDR raised taxes even more, there was senseless regulation, and the fed restricted the money supply. Unemployment got much worse under fdr, and it wasn't until full mobilization for wwii that things improved.
And a cookie for you. I don't think you missed any major talking point on this. As we ask so often arround here, you got proof, show it.
"Unemployment got much worse under fdr" -- I'd laugh at you for that, but the Heritage Foundation can't do any better. Check out the chart MMFA linked to (http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/newdealunemploy.jpg) and compare the words on the chart with the blue bars.
Fmbanker87 looks like some random loser, but (s)he's representing the zenith of conservative thought.
Funny how the zenith of conservative thought is precisely the nadir of rational thought.
How many copies of "Victim" did you get as the free gift for purchasing so much stupid?
among roosevelt's "senseless regulation" was federal deposit insurance for individual bank deposits. hoover absolutely refused to do it, and banks kept failing by the hundreds and individuals were losing savings, and eventually no one was putting money in banks. it was one of the first things roosevelt did, and it gave people confidence to put their money back in banks and therefore banks could also lend money. if that's "senseless", it must have a different meaning on your planet.
there was no lending because the fed was restrictive.
also, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was personally opposed to insurance because he thought it would protect irresponsible bankers, but yielded when he saw Congressional support was overwhelming.[ so why do you give him credit for it.
You really will just make up any old thing, won't you? From the FDIC's own brief history of themselves:
"Within the Roosevelt Administration, the Secretary of the Treasury Woodin was
strongly opposed to the idea of federal deposit insurance. While historians have asserted that the Secretary’s views were partially responsible for President Roosevelt’s opposition to deposit insurance, accounts differ regarding the nature and extent of Roosevelt’s opposition. However, the Administration was not of one mind on the issue. Support was voiced by Vice President John Nance Garner and Jesse H. Jones of the RFC, among others. Prior to Roosevelt’s inauguration, Garner, then-Speaker of the House, had appealed to the President-elect to support deposit insurance. When Roosevelt declined, stating that it would never work, Garner predicted that deposit insurance legislation eventually would be passed."
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/brief/brhist.pdf Page 24
fdr did have qualms about deposit insurance, but in the end he supported it with proper safeguards. hoover opposed it and it did not happen during his administration. and after the program went into effect, bank failures dropped dramatically. when it comes down to it, the fact is that republicans think that government is an impediment to business and investment, and if we just let business police itself then everything will turn out fine. reagan considered government the enemy. ask yourself why the three biggest financial fiascos of the last hundred years happened after long years of republican rule. the depression, the savings and loan debacle under reagan, and the present situation under bush.
also, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was personally opposed to insurance because he thought it would protect irresponsible bankers, but yielded when he saw Congressional support was overwhelming.[ so why do you give him credit for it.
Of course, by your logic, Bush should get no credit for the 9/11 Commission or the Department of Homeland Security. Fine with me.
also fdr made war on wealth. companies stopped paying dividends because marginal tax rates were so high. so, fdr imposed and undistributed income tax. he was taking reserves from companies that could actually use them to reinvest in their companies and grow the economy. but that old crip didn't care.
On the planet you come from is the sky made of LSD?
Today's statistics unfairly favor these conservative arguments. Today's unemployment statistics now exclude people whose benefits have expired or have accepted employment substantially below their skill level. The REAL unemployment rate would certainly be higher if this marginalized class of people were included. It is terrible enough to run out of benefits with no hope of employment but to be uncounted at all is the ultimate in government indifference.
The ever popular "everybody agrees" routine. As in "everybody agrees that Saddam had WMDs" and "everybody agrees that the second ammendment has nothing to do with militias or regulation". The right sells unpopular ideas by manufacturing a conventional wisdom that isn't there.
...we all know it's the dems in congress that cooked up the whole thing...
This is something that DonaldMadDog was mentioning the other day.It's a standard trick on righty radio and tv,prefacing the BS with "we all know" or "it's obvious" or "there's no denying". The wingnuts try to use it here, and I'm not sure if it's deliberate (They think people here will fall for it) or if it's subconscious ( they fall for that authoritarian stuff and try to pull it off in place of "facts" or "logic"), but it is pretty amusing.
Sorry, Dittoheads. Just because Rush told you it's a fact doesn't mean adult humans accept it as a fact. We need some backup.
Yes, when history is against you, revise it. That's what the GOP does. The New Deal was a failure. The Nazis were left-leaning. Reagan was a saint. Clinton's economy wasn't that good. Bush was fed bad intelligence on Saddam. Blah blah blah. Like a parrot without a head that still won't shut up.
Randy
Don't forget, Randy--- Saint Ronnie defeated communism, a completely flawed system that was only beaten by a brilliant and powerful 3rd rate actor.
One sentence:
Conservatives take all your tax money and give it to their friends on Wall Street who gamble it all on the stock market that is what they don't spend on jewelry and and hookers and all along they keep talking about how great the free market is and how government should stay the hell out of their business until the whole scam blows up in their face and they have to go crawling back to the government like teenagers who got drunk and drove the family car over a cliff and they still have the nerve to say that working people need to take salary cuts so we can pay for the bailout and they can keep buying jewelry and hookers while the rest of us have to scrape for a living and hope we still have a job so we can pay for the house and the car and the gas for the car and the food and the bills and God forbid any executives have to be held accountable for screwing things up by stealing our money because that you know wouldn't be America land of opportunity unless of course you work for a living then it's all screw you and shut the hell up and be thankful you're not out on the street like all those homeless people and I guarantee you if a working person screws up they're not gonna get ten million dollars as severance pay and if that's what you want and you think it's a good thing you better be careful because sooner or later that's gonna be you on the street and if things really get bad we'll just throw you up against the wall and that'll be the end of it and I guarantee that you'll have no one to blame but yourself because you're an idiot and we're sick of you screwing with our lives.
Cup-O-Joe posted:
Conservatives take all your tax money and give it to their friends on Wall Street who gamble it all on the stock market that is what they don't spend on jewelry and and hookers
Yeah, like that that arch conservative Elliot Spitzer did!
Nice tome...
One sentence:
Liberals take all your tax money and give it to anyone as long as they will vote Dem who claim it isn't enough and what they don't spend on jewelry and and hookers and all along they keep talking about how terrible the free market is despite it being the source of all their funding and how government should get larger and larger until the whole scam blows up in their face and they have to go crawling back to the government like teenagers who got drunk and drove the family car off Dike Bridge into Poucha Pond at Chappaquiddick Island and they still have the nerve to say that working people need to support those too stupid to take advantage of free education or too lazy to work and they can keep buying jewelry and hookers while the rest of us have to scrape for a living and hope we still have a job so we can pay for the house and the car and the gas for the car and the food and the bills and God forbid any executives have to be held accountable for screwing things up by stealing our money because that you know wouldn't be America land of opportunity unless of course you work for a living then it's all screw you and shut the hell up and be thankful you're not out on the street like all those homeless people and I guarantee you if a working person screws up they're not gonna get ten million dollars as severance pay and if that's what you want and you think it's a good thing you better be careful because sooner or later that's gonna be you on the street and if things really get bad we'll just throw more money at you because if all the money thrown at you before didn't help then it must be the fault of conservatives so I guarantee that we'll take even more away from those who create until we milk the cash cow dry and everyone is equally on the street excepting of course the wealthy Dems in power.
So the answer is "Yes, on my world the sky is made of LSD. How could you tell?"
Funny how the lame mind allows CupOJoe to make wild assertions and not be questioned, while someone making the same assertions with minor wording changes must be on hallucinogens.
Wake up to reality! You have been duped by the media you are supposedly watching! Big dollars are made by creating a divide in this country that makes the Grand Canyon appear to be a typical New Jersey pothole. Liberals enjoy conveying the idea that they are the "little guys" and conservatives are the "fat cats." Take a look around; the Democrat bigwigs are some of the wealthiest Americans. Are the Kennedy's destitute? Is Bill Clinton giving speeches for free? How about the websites such as this one or even MoveOn, is George Soros one of the "little people" too? George W. Bush is not the polarizer, the media who profit from polarization did this deed. In the meantime, those of weak mind have licked at the chasm salt and call anyone with a grasp on reality an "idiot" and often threaten violence when they are supposedly non-violent people.
The "problems we're in" are the culmination of the last 60 years of gimme gimme mindset on BOTH sides. Yes, there is a divide in this country. It is between the citizens and the current form of government, not between the left and right. This divide is publicized and pushed daily to keep the populace from realizing they are being taken for a ride. ALL the D.C. denizen are the "fat cats" at the expense of the people. Even, dare I mention the holiest of saviors this country has witnessed, Obama lives in an upscale neighborhood in a $6M home. I don't nor do most of you reading this. It is all a game; one that we cannot win.
Actually I didn't much care for Cup's rant either. Kind of a wild eyed, crazy on a soapbox downtown thing short on substance and filled with anger. But it didn't attack or lie about anything I care about so why would I say anything about it?
You, on the other hand, are one of those "Both sides are terrible" people who nevertheless always seems to find no fault in the Republicans and conservatives when it really matters (like Savage) but will happily blame the "liberals" for every terrible thing that has ever happened in the history of ever.
So yeah, enjoy your hallucination and have a nice day.
Proof that the anger on the left clouds the eyes of recognition of satire. I took CupOJoe's rant and altered the nouns to place the "wild eyed, crazy on a soapbox" thing on display.
Deepfelt sadness that reality escapes you, and most of the others on this site. It is just a sounding board for all on the far left to support each other in their blindness. If one cannot see that Savage is sometimes right, just as Hilary can be right at times, then you have no balance. To blindly follow any one person or any one party is idiocy.
I'll take "Thinks he's Faulkner" for $1000, Alex.
Discovered this site today. An old Michael Savage quote comes to mind: "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder"
How can the individuals with the "Hatred is not a family value" bumper sticker on their gasoline burning, internal combustion, global warming contributing vehicle spew the hatred of more than half this good country and not realize the hypocrasy? Any therapist will tell you; it is a mental disorder.
Those of you who are so far left that reality is no longer in sight, please grab a handle. Settle down and rejoin the real world.
under, pull your head out of your back end and look at reality , the CONS had control of congress from 1994 to 2006 and the presidency from 2000 to 08. the trouble we are in now is a direct result of their polocies.
You're quoting Michael Savage, a raving lunatic, and you tell US to rejoin the real world? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thanks for solidifying my point, historygeek. Hatred seething from your teeth, yet you claim to be a peace loving, tree hugging, kind person.
I suppose someone with a even keel does confuse you.
1. I've made no claims; you are putting words in my mouth.
2. Savage has absolutely no credibility; look, for example, at what he said about autism and his contant comparisons of anybody he doesn't like with Hitler. If you honestly believe that Savage, who spews hatred in every single broadcast, is accurate about anything, then you're not paying attention.
You don't invoke confusion; you're amusing.
Amusement abounds.
You have an odd stereotypical view of liberals. I have never in my life claimed to be a peace loving, tree hugging person. I'm sure I've claimed to be kind, so I'll let that go. Most people on this site, if they claim anything, claim to be fact-based realists. And pretty much everyone agrees that there is no need for kindness when responding to mean-spirited, lying bigots like Michael Savage.
I discovered this site several weeks ago and at first, I thought it was just a liberal echo chamber, so I proceeded withouy caution on that premise. You'll find the gambit of people here, many of whom rely on expletives to bolster their keyboard, but you will also find thoughtful lefties who know their stuff. Take your time and be sure of what you say, but please shy away from name calling and shoddy language. It'll get ya nowhere. BTW, I'm a conservative. Just trying to help.
---without---
These guys have never heard of John Maynard Keynes.