ABC's Stephanopoulos provides welcome forum for dubious GOP stimulus talking points
SUMMARY: George Stephanopoulos did not challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham's claim that "11 percent of the appropriated money in the [economic recovery] bill hits in 2009." In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, approximately 15 percent of the total spending in the bill and 23 percent of all spending and tax cuts included in the bill will take effect by September 30, 2009. Stephanopoulos also again advanced a discredited Republican calculation of the stimulus bill's job-creation costs.
During the February 15 broadcast of ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos did not challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) claim that "11 percent of the appropriated money in the [economic recovery] bill hits in 2009." Stephanopoulos did not ask Graham to support that claim or point out that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), approximately 15 percent of the total spending in the bill and 23 percent of all spending and tax cuts included in the bill will take effect by September 30, the end of fiscal year 2009. Stephanopoulos also uncritically quoted South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) claim that "For every job the bill creates, American taxpayers will spend $223,000"; Stephanopoulos has previously cited a similar cost per job figure. However, those figures discount tangible benefits of the stimulus package besides job creation -- such as infrastructure improvements and education, health, and public safety investments -- and economists have said that the actual cost per job will be far less than either figure Stephanopoulos mentioned.
According to a February 13 CBO report on the conference agreement for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the approximately $787 billion bill includes roughly $120 billion in outlays or spending projects that will take effect in fiscal year 2009 -- that is about 15 percent of the total cost of the bill. Further, when also accounting for approximately $65 billion in reduced revenues or tax cuts that will take effect in fiscal 2009, roughly $185 billion or 23 percent of the total stimulus package will take effect by September 30, 2009.
In addition to excluding other tangible benefits of the stimulus package, the cost-per-job figures Stephanopoulos cited are inflated for another reason, according to Center for Economic Policy Research co-director Dean Baker and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. As Media Matters has noted, both Baker and Krugman have pointed out that if the stimulus bill strengthens the economy as predicted, this will lead to higher tax receipts that should be accounted for in cost per job estimates, meaning that the true cost per job is less than $70,000.
From the February 15 broadcast of ABC's This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: And I'm going to begin with your governor, Mark Sanford, big opponent of the stimulus legislation, and I want to show everybody what he wrote in this morning's State newspaper in South Carolina. He says that, "For every job the bill creates, American taxpayers will spend $223,000. If we add the cost of this bill to the previous efforts of the federal government to deal with the financial crisis, the American taxpayer is on the hook for $9.7 trillion ... If the stimulus bill were a country, it would be the 15th-largest country in the world."
Senator Schumer, he says it's going to be a waste, it's not going to work, and we're going to be paying for it for generations.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Well, you know, it's easy to say no. This is the worst economy we've had since the Great Depression. Half a million people, more, losing jobs every month. The economy's hurtling southward. Yes, this is a big, strong, bold package. It's going to do three things. It's going to keep or create 3 or 4 million jobs. It's going to put money into the hands of the middle class so they spend it in the stores and restaurants and get the economy going. And it's going to create an infrastructure that not only puts people to work but leaves something after, God willing, we get out of this. To do nothing risks a depression.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So what's wrong with that?
GRAHAM: Well I wanted to do something. I think we do need a stimulus package with a focus, and that's to create jobs in the near-term. 11 percent of the appropriated money in this bill hits in 2009. Most of the money in this bill is in entitlement spending; it's not going to create jobs. Twenty-seven percent of the bill is now tax cuts. That's down significantly. And of those tax cuts, most of them -- only $3 billion goes to small business. Seventy-five percent of the people in this country work for small business. Of a $787 billion bill, $3 billion is directed towards small-business people. I think we missed the mark a long way. We increased new government. We did not increase new jobs.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Congressman Waters, when this bill came out of the Senate, at the end of the week, your speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had to quell a mini-revolt among House Democrats who actually take an opposite view from Senator Graham. They thought this bill wasn't big enough and they didn't like the cuts, particularly in state aid, education aid that came in the Senate.
Little George is either a spineless turncoat or a well-planted mole with “hunkered-down” microchip implant.
How can he be a turncoat when he and the other journalist are supposed to be neutral? So are you saying that George is not normally neutral?
I would guess that since GS worked on Democratic campaigns, promoting GOP talking points would qualify him as a turncoat. Of course, as a journalist supposedly loyal to the truth, promoting GOP ideas would qualify him as a turncoat as well.
Facts do have a liberal bias, but if a journalist reports facts, and those facts (as is often the case) are contradicted by the Republican position, that doesn't make that reporter biased to the left, only towards reality.
This is part of the whole Liberal Media myth that cons have such a tough time understanding.
Oh really, Col.? How about how he has daily phone conversations with Rahm Emanuel to help direct the Administration's image? (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18011.html) Where was your outrage over that? I missed that MediaMatters piece.
Oh really, Col.? How about how he has daily phone conversations with Rahm Emanuel to help direct the Administration's image? (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18011.html)
Carville calls White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Emanuel calls ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos.
A bit later, CNN commentator Paul Begala, who is not quite the early bird that his friends are, will complete the circle with a rapid set of calls to all three.
Different versions of this round-robin chatter have been taking place, with few interruptions, every workday for nearly a generation.
Mary Matalin, who as Carville’s wife has overheard probably thousands of the group’s calls, describes the conversation as more profane, more sports-centric versions of a knitting club.
“They talk like they are girls,” she said. “The conversations start in the middle and they end in the middle, and if they talk at night, they’ll start in the morning with no break in the flow.”
“To me, the first purpose is friendship,” said Matalin, “and the second purpose is information-sharing.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18011.html
Was that supposed to be some sort of dismissal? So they've been talking for a long time now; that would reaffirm the fact that as friends they share information. I mean, really, you see no conflict of interest at all?
So they've been talking for a long time now; that would reaffirm the fact that as friends they share information."
Your original post didn't say that they "share information", you said the daily phone calls were designed to "help direct the Administration's image" and you cited a Politico article as proof.
You FAILED to note that the calls were not only between Rahm and George, but include James Carville and Paul Begala. And while they all work in DC, even Mary Matlin, a staunch Republican conservative, describes the conversations as more of a " sports-centric versions of a knitting club".
THAT doesn't sound like they spend a lot of their time "directing the Administration's image", but more like old friends, who have stayed friends AND keep in touch with each other.
I mean, really, you see no conflict of interest at all?
The article describes the calls as "a street-corner bull session", between four old friends!
So begins another morning in what may count as Washington’s longest-running conversation — a street-corner bull session between four old friends who suddenly find themselves standing once more at the busiest intersection of politics and media in Washington
I'm sure their jobs come into the conversation, as it does with most friendships, but "directing the Administration's image" IS NOT the core of their "daily phone calls", which you implied.
I was debating whether or not to include Carville and Begala; the reason I did not was because I don't see the relevance (and I doubt you do either).
What is your point in continuing this line of thinking about them being friends? It doesn't disprove anything; it only condemns Stephanopoulos in another way. If they are that close, how can I trust him to give due criticism to decisions made by Emanuel or his staff?
I didn't imply anything, either; read my quote directly from the Politico right below this. It's their analysis, not mine. In your combing over of that article to special plead you seemed to have missed it.
It all depends on the level of professionalism. Remember that Bob Schieffer is a friend of the Bush family. He had his good moments and he had his bad moments in reporting on Bush. Sometimes he would forward misinformation, sometimes he would criticize him and his administration for their actions.
If Stephanopoulos is forwarding liberal misinformation, this circle of friends might be relevant to that. If he doesn't, then he's remaining objective, as is his job. To get back to what was being discussed earlier, I don't really care for the term "turncoat" because that suggests intent. We don't really know what his intent is here. What we do know is that he is not keeping the dialogue on an honest and informative level.
I was debating whether or not to include Carville and Begala; the reason I did not was because I don't see the relevance (and I doubt you do either).
Look back at your first post.
You mention the "daily phone calls" between Stephanopoulos and Emanuel and conclude that their phone calls are about "directing the Administration's image". You also thought it was relevant to mention the Politico article as your proof.
You however failed to mention that the "daily phone calls" also include both Begala and Carville. And when the article references the "daily phone calls" it appears that no matter what job each man holds or who they work for, they talk and have been talking for years. Those seem like some pretty important details to the "daily phone calls".
The truth is most folks in DC political circles and DC media know each other and some are close friends. Stephanopoulos's friendship alone shouldn't be the reason to question if you can trust him or not.
I forgot to give you my own quote: “… in any given news cycle, it is quite likely that Washington’s prevailing political and media interpretation — at least on the Democratic side — is being hatched on these calls.”
Turncoat Huh? I guess anytime something does not fit into your "little box of values" you automatically go into discredit mode
Again, these republicans make any assertions without proof...they state it as many times as possible...even those that have been proven to be lies and they defy you to say otherwise....in the end...they LOSE! They are all in total DENIAL! Let Bush, do whatever and NOW, they want to watch the publics' pocket...PHONIES!
Since no one has really read the bill, I am sure he is like all other reps, and have no clue what really is in the bill. I am sure Obama will not read it before he signs as well.
You mean no republicans read the bill. They never had any intention of reading the bill, they had planned from the beginning to obstruct it because their fuehrer, Rush Limbaugh, told them he wanted Obama to fail. So y'all should really stop whining about something your elected representatives never intended to do in the first place.
No Snoopy, Dems and Repub have not read the bill. You can even look online in public records and read what bills your local rep has read or not read before signing.
No, anyone who helped create the bill read it. Only the obstructionist republicans who never had any intention of voting for it haven't read it. I can understand how you are making that mistake though. We all know now that Limbaugh, Maulkin, Hannity, Coulter and O'Reilly develop the republican platform and then just tell republicans what to do. See, Democrats don't have that problem. They actually craft their own legislation. And if there is a part they personally didn't work on, they have interns who will read it or get the information and update their assigned legislature with the missing info. So on the democratic side, we have collective information about the bill, and on the republican side, with the exception of tree senators who stepped up to the plate and participated, we have a bunch of whiney babies who purposely didn't read the bill and are now throwing a temper tantrum about not reading the bill.
It's come to my attention you may not know how government works. I thought I'd try to help you understand, I've attached a few items for you to review. I believe they may be quite helpful in your quest to understand the government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5I2KFENjS8
Snoopy, so your telling me every Dem read the final bill before they voted yes? One of the most important bills (what the Dems are saying) and you are ok with it not being read by all? Oh, but if a Intern who may be right out of college reads this important bill, then just gives the Rep the cliff notes, your cool with that process? Well, I am not, and I think before someone goes off and spends my childrens future income they would take the time and read it. That is what they are paid to do, if they do not like it, then get a new job.
I'm telling you anyone who worked on the bill definitely read the part they worked on, and through networking, intern help, etc. were bought up to speed on the parts they didn't directly influence. I'm telling you there are subject matter experts on all parts of the bill who can collectively come to agreement and provide you any info you want on the bill. That's how the process works, and if you don't like it, then tomorrow morning walk into your boss's office and tell him the way he's been conducting business is a bunch of crap and you demand he make sure every single person working on a project be thouroughly versed on every single aspect of said project before they proceed to the next milestone. Let me know how that works for you, OK?
I have been accused of harboring a "conspiracy theory". Well? Is THIS just a theory, now? I am not accusing little Georgie of being in bed with the GOP; I think he is just another uninformed and clueless talking head who really doesn't have the brains to ask the right questions, much less challenge his guests. The only solution to this mess is to replace George and his fellow anchors with extremely qualified men and women who are deeply conversant with the facts.
Don't hold your breath.
So Donald where would you find these individuals? What would you considered as a qualification for these roles?
To markbfoot199,
I have to get back to you. Errands and such, but I want to try to answer your question. In the meantime, maybe someone else can jump in.
Hi, markbfoot199,
I am so swamped right now, but did not want to leave your question hanging. Might I suggest you think of some of the "guests" you've seen and admired on various legitimate news programs (I can't regard Fox as "legit"), and take it from there.
Donald, I like Fox News, they do bring some very smart folks onto their network. I am not a fan of CNN, but I do not get on here and rant and rave how I think they are a fake, or not real. We can always find what we like and not like about a show, but if you do not like them, do not watch them. Remember, in T.V. and Radio it is about ratings, and if the ratings are good they stay on, if the ratings are bad they are gone. Example Obama 1060 am in D.C., they were on the air for a couple of month and the ratings were so bad they are not off the air. Simple concept.
if the ratings are bad they are gone.
I think you're confusing entertainment with NEWS.
The stimulus bill is 787 billion dollars (0.78 trillion), but according to Stephanopoulos
9.7 trillion minus 0.79 trillion = 8.91 trillion spent by the previous administration. Republicans spent more than ten times what the Democratic administration is spending, but they get to yell about waste!
I don't hear you complaining about the 1.5 trillion in tax credit checks sent out, or the 750 billion to bail out the banks to stop the fall out of Barney Frank and administrations previous to Bush.
Oh yea, I'm ready to provide the PROOF. MM has provided part of it on another thread. MM didn't research their proof link.
Barney Frank eh? ummmm lets see......who controlled the House from 1994- 2006....oh wait it was the republicans thats right....... see Barney has only been in charge for two years.......and this has been long in coming since id say at least 2000. so to place the blameon him is WRONG. but then i forget that you are the TRUE republican who condones torture and invading soverign nations just because GOD told you to do so. you have hijacked my party so please give it back
There's plenty of blame to go around but you're right, Bush, once again is blameless.
Do they still come in with the Thorazine around 9 PM?
Don't know what happened but this was supposed to be a reply to kno-bll6010.
maybe I should try some Thorazine myself. sorry thejbomb65.
lol. wow saying i need thorazine is a pretty big leap, just like saying bush is blamess
Last time I checked, this mess really started around 2006, mmmmm who was it that took control around that time? Who was it in 2006 that said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not in trouble? I am sure this is a tough question for you, so I will help you out, Frank and Dodd. Who in 2008 became the biggest housing financial institution to fail, and start this down turn? Freddie and Fannie
Last time I checked, this mess really started around 2006
Wrong again. The house of cards was being built for 5+ years. It just happened to come crashing down in 2006. Bush's economic model was based on the fraudulent premise that less oversight would lead to prosperity. No the adults have to fix the problem.
Marky Mark is just using basic Republican Economics 101. If its bad, Democrats did it. If its good, Republicans did it.
See, the current economic problem occurred instantly upon the Democrats taking over in 2006. But, the boom of the 90s was a delayed reaction to Reagan's tax cuts in the previous decade, and the "recovery" that came after 2001 was the instant result of Bush's tax cuts.
See how it works? Any policy can have instant results, or results delayed by 15 years, depending on whom they're trying to smear and to whom they're trying to give credit.
Nerzog, about time you understand.
That y'all can't take responsibility for anything you've done? We knew that a long time ago.
and who was in power when the deregulation train had left the station why that would be the republicans again!
Frank and Dodd recieved a ticking time bomb from the neo cons and the timer was tinkered with to show more time than there really was.
so dont come to me saying that it was Frank's and Dodd's fault, they just had it blow up on them when the bomb was built by Bush and his idiot show
Bomb, the actual law you are referring was signed in the Billy Boy years in office, they Bush Administration just continued to let the law continue. Yes I agree, the Bush Administration should have gone back in and changed the law.
What law are you referring to?
Are you really saying that Frank and Dodd, as minority members of the House and Senate, were so powerful that something they said could bring down the entire United States economy? Please, explain!
But yet you think that the President of the United States controls all? I am glad you think that one man in the White Houseis powerful enough do that but Frank and Dodd are just complete idiots.
Please show me where I said that the "President of the United States controls all."
well when the president of one party is in power and has strong majorities in congress and uses the terror card to bend everyone to his will....yeah id say the president, in this case W. did control all.
Bill Clinton did take part of the blame in this interview:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/16/bill.clinton.qanda/
There should have been more regulation of Wall Street. They created a 62 trillion dollar market around the risky loans.
Loonz, that is what I was saying, Bill got it going, and the Republicans should have stopped it.
The republicans would never regulate Wall Street.
If you read the article, it doesn't say anything about Clinton getting it started. The CDS market was a product of Wall Street and he should have regulated it better. The CDS market exploded under Bush's presidency and no one was looking at Wall Street. The republicans were busy blaming poor people.
That is only partially correct. The Grahm Leach Bailey Act was republican legislation that unfortunately got bipartisan support and was signed into law by Pres. Clinton. It was however the brain child of Mccains top economic advisor that called Americans a bunch of whiners and the recession imaginary. Thanks Phil Grahm.
oh yes the neo cons actually do something that would bring oversight to those making lots of money that will bankroll their elections right. your living in a fantasy
well that shows that he is at least a bit better than georgie boy who could never be wrong.
ha. the bush administration actually doing something to help people at the expense of the rich? lol thats a good one
Once again the flase Repub talking points. Barney Frank said that Fannie & Freddie needed to be reorganized and monitered by a different oversight board. He coauthored a bipartisan bill in 05 to do so. Major changes were made to the bill and he voted against it and the bill failed. In 2007 he tried again to reform Fannie & Freddie but the legislation was blocked because Bush was going to veto. As every credible person knows, Fannie & Freddie are not at the root of the housing problem. It was the creation of the CDOs by wall street investment banks who had no regulation. Take a look at CNBC's "House of Cards".
If you were informed on the topic , you would know that Frank and Chris Dodd have been resisting the reregulation of Fannie and Freddie for years. Bush called for it upon taking office , he failed . Alan Greenspan also warned of it but kept interest rates too low. http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=5122 Check out this article if you want to know the truth, it was written by a democrat.
hahaha you trot out an article from a realator website....lol thats a real good response......
ok so ill buy your premise for a second that Bush called for reform.....ok, ummm Frank and Dodd were in the minority at that time and were not chairmen of their respective committees so they had little power to bring about the reform. but Mike Oxley was the Chairman in the House from 01-07, and Richard Shelby the Senate counterpart. guess what part these two chuckleheads belong to...yeah thats right. and of course like good soldiers of Karl Rove they took their marching orders and ensured that reform was not passed.
come up with some more credable evidence than a realators blog and i might take you more seriously
If you're ready, quit threatening to show it and just show it. I think you're bluffing. I call your bid and raise you $100...
MM provided this: "In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA,"
Goto secton: SEC. 138. DUTY TO SERVE UNDERSERVED MARKETS.
Prior to 2007 Frank was pursuing this.
When I have more time, I'll link you to the Youtube vidieo of Clintons Press Sec about the 1990's Housing reform.
These actions when linked together force banks to create alternative loans, of which many whom didn't qualify for a conventioal loan should NOT have entered into.
I go into a lot of foreclosed homes and you can tell how the people lived just by looking around. 1 out of 10 homes are still in good shape. The other 9 need major repair work done as nothing was taken care of. Some are destroyed on the inside as the people felt it was the banks fault they couldn't make the payment.
I'm sorry if it sickens me to got to tax payer funded properties to do work and see the destruction the tenants do to the inside. I'm Sorry if it sickens me to make $75 to $4,000 repairs indirectly paid by the tax payers money, when this damage was caused by the tenant. I'm Sorry if it sickens me to see these tenants refuse to spend .75 cents a month that would inturn reduce their electric bill by $10 dollars a month. I'm Sorry if it sickens me to see the children of these parents live in conditions where you can't even determine what color the carpet is, but thay have a 48 inch flat screen tv, a play station 3 and stacks of movies and games. I'm Sorry it sickens me to see Illegals finding jobs (And are able to send money back home to their families) that these people won't even try to do. Before you jump, All races are included.
I'm also Sorry that it sickens me to hear you people spout about entitlements to and us not caring about the poor. While the Illegals risk everything to come here to better not only themselves but their families they left behind as well.
By the way, I did not agree with Bush all the time, He did make mistakes. One of many was signing an extention of the Clinton's era Heath care bill, that not only allowed choice of doctor it allowed premiums to sky rocket. My parents premium cost went from 400 a month to 1200 a month in 8 weeks.
As you note, HR 1427 and other bills similar to it applied ONLY to banks and savings and loans. The vast majority of alternative loans (by some estimates up to 85%) were made by mortgage companies that were under no legal requirement to do so.
The wingnut attempt to paint Frank as the main cause of the current financial crisis is nonsensical.
Exactly. Furthermore, the mortgage companies were freewheeling with little or no regulation. What created the problem as it is today was Wall Street's feeding frenzy on Subprime Mortgage Backed Securities. Before that happened, it was a manageable problem.
The Republicans can try to pin the whole thing on Liberal Political Correctness, but they're just lying. The real pressure to make these loans was coming from Wall Street, not Washington.
As Paul Krugman has pointed out, much of the wealth created by Wall Street over the past 8 years was artificial, but the debt people were running up was real. A huge chunk of the consumer spending in recent years was on credit. Now that the collateral for much of that credit has dropped in value, the bill is due and we can't pay it.
The "recovery" for which the Republicans want to take credit after 2001 was not really a recovery, but a spending spree financed by credit, collateralized by an inflated housing market. All the tax cuts did was increase the debt.
I wish YOU were one of the t.v. commentators, instead of the dopes on there now.
was not really a recovery, but a spending spree financed by credit
Exactly. One cannot forget how Bush told everyone to simply go shopping as your shared sacrifice in the "War on Terror".
Just whom do you think owns the Mortgage companies???
There were NO laws requiring mortgage companies, even if owned by banks, to make "alternative" loans. So I have no idea what your point is.
Republicans.
Karl Rove and the his Sith Lords
and various other conservatives who would pinch a nickle so hard that the buffalo farts.
Not to mention that HR1427 was never passed. You are trying to blame the housing crisis on a ghost. Section 138 was just a revision to the CRA that is still in place.
The point in the MM article about HR1427 is that Frank was taking steps to rain in Fannie & Freddie. Fannie & Freddie were overseen by OFHEO which was a tiny agency that had very little power. HR1427 wanted to putter tighter caps on the leverage that Fannie & Freddie could use and create the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Bush and the Republicans did not like this regulation.
It appears that the media doesn't feel it's their job to call these people out.
Without access to politicians they're out of a job
George Stephanopoulos is a member of the rotting Beltway press. Not the most egregious member by far. But still part of the rot. Glen Greenwald of Salon.com has a good article on the seemingly collective thinking of this group.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Which may answer the question of why Jon Stewart can nail a John Sununu on his program, when GS can't/won't challenge a Lindsey Graham on his.
Great article julia, thanks. One paragraph that caught my eye in Greenwald's excellent piece:
"I think that the ideology of the press is not so much liberal or conservative. They think themselves the keepers of realism, of savviness. I think the real religion of the American press is savviness. And in their view, it isn't savvy to say you're going to mobilize the anger and frustration of the American people and bring that power to Washington to change it."
That pretty much sums up the beltway press group-think: protect the politicians from the unwashed masses, so the same crooked game can go on, which they are a part of.
That pretty much sums up the beltway press group-think: protect the politicians from the unwashed masses, so the same crooked game can go on, which they are a part of.
That's part of why you almost never see non insular people like Amy Goodman on these shows. God forbid somebody tells the truth. Or holds up a mirror to the intransigent group think that permeates these types of programs.
maybe george is still harboring anger over the clintons' and are willing to burn anyone in his path.
Thanks, mary59 and juliajayne. Good observations. Think on this. The politicians are, in fact, being protected from the unwashed masses, but they are not the only ones. Read some history of the French Revolution and what led up to it. The results of the rage and frustration of the masses are too horrible to contemplate. I hope the modern law enforcement now in place will protect our politicians as well as the obscenely wealthy and that the same Amish craftsmen who make those fireplaces advertised on TV are not hired to make guillotines.
Don, there used to be a great show called Junk Yard wars, where teams of clever craftspeople would compete to build the fastest boat or what have you from scavenged materials in a junk yard. From what I saw, there are more than enough people and materials to fabricate guillotines, trebechets (?) and various seige machines once the revolution starts.
this isnt The Last Castle, tough you are right it could be done.
That would be interesting, watching the press say "if there were a republican in office, this is what they would be voting against".
f the Republicans. f the gop, f graham and f the media.
Above group collectively got us into the mess we are in.
Was not long ago Karl " traitor " Rove called for a one party system in the US. Looks like he might have achieved his goal albeit the other party. It appears the " tough as nails NAVY fighter pilot has fallen victim to the whiner's club, also attended by the other veteran Lindsay Graham in a concerted effort to bring Obama's governance to a halt. That is what the once mighty Republican party has dwindled to. They might be successful but what a record to bring to in 2012.
Rove isnt a traitor.....he is a Sith Lord, consistent in his principles to install his party and his buddies in absolute and permenant power. so it should not be a surprise what he says and does, cause that is what he has consistently done
No, what got us into this problem were individuals taking out loans they could not pay back. You and everyone else can blame Washington, but it comes down to the person who the document to pay back the loan. IF you do not know what is in the loan papers, then do not sign them until you learn more about the loan. On 60 mins they were talking about a women that refinanced her home 4 times in 4 years, one time using the income off her dead husband. YET she still signed the loan papers. Yes the bank was wrong to do it, but why would she sign of a loan off your dead husbands income? We must take responsibility for our own actions; stop blaming everyone else around us. Yes I may point fingers back, but I do take responsibility for my own actions.
No, what got us into this problem were individuals taking out loans they could not pay back
Duh! But what kind of loans were they? Do you know what ARMs are? People were sold those in the short term, and then the loan officers would thell people that they could simply refinance into a fixed rate loan the next year. Well guess what. Rates went up, mortgage payments went up, and people were turned down when they tried to refinance.
And why did they refinance in the first place? Was it to buy the big-screen teevee or take a vacation. NO! It was to keep the car running, to pay a health care bill, to pay for their child's tuition.
My lion's share of the blame goes to the bankers/financiers who thought up the "creative" loan products that hurt homeowners who never should have been approved in the first place. Did you also see the guy on 60 Minutes who warned World Bank what was going on? He was ignored, the owner cashed in, and this led to the downfall of Wells Fargo.
Fog, it is still the person responsibilty to learn what is in that loan. They signed the loan papers, PERIOD. Yes I saw that, but again the women that took a loan out on her dead husband, she should have know that was wrong. I think she is smart enough to get a lawyer now, but not smart enough to hire one during her loan meeting?
"Fog, it is still the person responsibilty to learn what is in that loan. They signed the loan papers, PERIOD"
Oh sure...but if you lend me 2 million dollars and I'm not credit worthy for that amount it is YOU who failed to do due diligence and who failed to MAKE sure you were lending that money to someone whom you would be reasonably sure would be able to pay it back.
And if you then sell that loan, bundled with a bunch of others that you failed to do due diligence on, it is YOUR FAULT if the money is not paid back. Because the bottom line is YOU let that money go without being sure it went to someone who could pay it back.
And if you LIE TO ME about the terms of the loan, and if you tell me I can do things in the future that I can't do ... then YOU are to blame if you lose the money you lent me.
It's a 2 way street. Yes, borrowers should be sure they understand the terms of a loan...but as a lender YOU also have the responsiblity to ensure that the borrower you deal with is "good" for the loan. And if you sell that loan to someone else, you have then lied to yet another person.
Well said. In their haste to blame Liberals and poor people, the Conservatives are ignoring the other parts of the equation. Yes, a lot of people took out loans they couldn't afford, and many lied on their applications. However, before this mess started, lenders verified incomes before making loans.
I've bought two houses, and both times the motgage company called my employer to verify my income. During this Subprime frenzy, it became common practice NOT to verify income. According to people in the industry interviewed for "House of Cards" on CNBC, loan applications were being processed over the phone in about 20 minutes.
Once Wall Street started piecing together these Mortgage Backed Securities and pushing them as AAA investments, the demand for these investments increased to the point that they were pressuring mortgage lenders to send them more. In response to the pressure, and greed, they lowered their lending standards to keep up with demand.
It was all based on the premise that housing values would continue to rise, but they didn't. "Flipping" houses became a common practice, and a lot of "flippers" got caught holding houses they couldn't flip.
If anyone is criminally liable in this scenario, it will probably be the bond-rating companies. They lowered their standards in order to rate these Subprime CDOs as AAA, when they clearly weren't.
We'll see how, and if, it shakes out.
it became common practice NOT to verify income.
Exactly. And there was also a period of time where some lengers had no in-house appraisal reviews. This allowed criminals to rig the process by creating false equity.
I did not blame a liberal, right-winger, demo, repub, or independents. I blame the person that signed the loan papers. Last time I checked, it was happening to all political backgrounds and races. Example – I bought a new house just over 3 years ago, they offered me a ARM and other new mortgages and I read the information on them all. After reading I stayed with a 30yr fixed mortgage. Today, I am still in my house, still making my payments and last I checked I have 6 months of payments set aside just in case something were to go wrong. Why could I do this, I bought a house I can afford and a mortgage I can maintain. Now, here is the fun part, because I did what was right like many other individuals, we are not having to run to the government to bail us out. Just never understand, when you do the right thing in the eyes of liberal you are an evil rich person.
You're still blaming poor people. People foreclosing on their homes could never do this much damage without the recklessness and piggishness of Wall Street.
"when you do the right thing in the eyes of liberal you are an evil rich person"
Really? That chapter must be missing from my Socialist Marxist Pointy Headed Liberal rule book.
In any case, I assume you think the Mortgage lenders who sold these bad loans bear no responsibility, even though they didn't bother to verify the applicants' employment, or follow guidelines for the size of loan relative to income? Is it smart business to give a $500,000 loan to a man who makes $900 a month?
Do the ratings companies bear no responsibility for giving these CDOs a AAA rating, even though they had to lower the standards to do so?
In your mind, this all falls on the shoulders of the homeowners? It is true, as Conservatives like to say, that nobody held a gun to their heads and made them take out the loan. It is equally true that nobody held a gun to the lenders' heads.
Congratulations for being a financially savvy buyer. No one is blaming you because you are not part of the problem. You should be mad at Wall Street because undoubtedly you have lost atleast 20% of the value of your home because they let these lax rules go that allowed people to buy homes that they could not afford(many probably in your neighborhood) which artificialy inflated the value of your home. With the banks having to foreclose on those properties, it is bringing the home prices dowqn and dragging yours with it. We need to stop trying to assign blame and figure out how to put an end to these foreclosures. No one wins in foreclosure except for the vultures buying up the properties at a steep discount/
The loan officer has can not legally do a loan with a dead person. I am a loan officer and yes you can put blame on people for trusting or being Niave, but the really problem is the greed. There are a lot of lenders out there that did not knwo what they were selling and what the ramifications were. Loan officers would like and say you have a fixed rate of 1.5% when it was reallya Neg/AM loan. Have you ever read loan docs by the way? They are by no means simple. Blaming the homeowner is like blaming the raoe victim for wearing a short dress in a bad neighborhood.
Blaming the homeowner is like blaming the raoe victim for wearing a short dress in a bad neighborhood.
Steve, I am a real estate appraiser. I've seen the bad apples in my industry and in the lending industry. I've had my signature stolen and applied to fraudulent reports. I've seen appraisers get kick-backs for inflated values. I've seen loan officers fudge or create income history/verification to get a loan approved in order to get a fee.
Blaming the homeowner is basically ignorant and shortsighted. Especially when most of the foreclosures are the result of people losing their jobs, not from buying homes they couldn't afford. (The #1 lie on this site).
Lets see.....15 percent of 787 billin is about 118.5 billion, can someone check my math?
Anywho that still quite a chuck of change, at first i thought that Sen. Graham had a point, but a hundred 120 billion being thrown around might do something, but will it create jobs, will it open up all th closed auto plants around Flint Mich. will it begain mail delivers on saturdays, will it open up general labor jobs that require only a strong back, will it create an infastructor that supports electric or hydrogen cars?
We need both long term and short term solutions, i work as a sercurity guard for a state university but i only get about 8 to 12 hours a week and forces me to still live with my mother, will this bill get me a job that about 20 to 30 hrs a week?
BG - How do you think we get Electricity? Some is created from Oil, Gas and Coal. Yes we are using the wind, but think of how much money is spent on that windmills to be created, trucked, and assembled. If the government did not give these companies money for setting them up, they would never invest into wind. Yes I agree we need to get our own resources but the environmentalist are doing everything they can to keep Energy companies from getting domestic energy. Just wait till birds start showing up dead on the ground from windmills, then they will stop those. Second, if we were to get domestic energy we could create local jobs, local money.
I keep hearing this "dead bird" argument, but only from Conservative chowder heads. How long have we been using these windmills? Surely, by now, we've had a number of birds killed by them. Have the environmentalists stopped the windmills yet?
Better check with Al Gore first, you may be adding Green House Gases to the environment.
Groan... Al Gore, a favorite faux conservative punch line. As if he deserved this kind of treatment, which he doesn't. If you can't make a decent argument, throw in someone's name that you've demonized for no good reason.
Recently our local school district wanted to install a windmill at one school located out in the country, at a cost of about $50,000 They estimated the payback to be over 60 years. I do believe the lifetime of the windmill was expected to be a lot less than 60 years but I could be wrong.
I've also talked to people, who happened to be from Kansas, who have said that the cost of putting windmills "on the grid" is prohibitive. In other words, the added costs of bringing the power generated by those windmills to the power companies were way to expensive.
Of course these are anecdotal, but they illustrate that windpower has some verious serious drawbacks.
From Kansas? Yeah, there's a good source of info. When a middle school kid can find errors on a test created by the right wing school boards you know you've hit a goldmine of information...
And Snoopy, AA's vision quite possibly doesn't go much further than down his street. There are wind farms all over the place in Europe. Would they be doing that if it was a losing proposition?
Kansas, the only state in the union to suspend income tax refunds because republicans who lost would rather blackmail the people who voted them out rather than bend to the will of the masses who determine if they want republicans to lead them...
Hi all,
I've not read every post after reading the MMFA report so forgive me if I am repeating earlier discussions.
Why does MMFA say that 15% of the total spending in the bill will take place in 2009 when looking at the pdf link provided by MMFA, the CBO report says $85.3 billion in direct spending will take place in 2009.
Divide $85.3 billion by $787 billion and you get 10.8%.
Looks to me that Graham is correct and MMFA is misleading.
It looks like they're also including the figure from the "Appropriations".
Right, Nerz, it's 120b in spending ÷ 787b.
Dividing $787B by $85.3B is not accurate. The $787B is a combination of spending and tax cuts.
That should be "$85.3B by $787B".
There are good /bad points to both sides. One could argue that high taxes and lots of spending are good. Except for CA and KS witch have susended tax refunds back to the people of their State and are in enormous dept wanting to raise taxes again. Entitlements to the poor are ok as long as you draw morality line to stop abuse of the system, using the Octo mom as my case point. I'm not for abortion (3 exceptions having to to with morality and mom/childs life at birth), I'm not for population control either, but this case is an abuse of the tax payer funded system and other cases not this extravigant happen all over this Country.
Our number one goal at this moment should be to create JOBS. We need to stop funding the bail out of the failing conmpanies, banks and ect. Pouring monies into these is a waste when that money could be going 100% to creating JOBS, not pet projects. Think about it: If we create JOBS and bring manufaturing back the housing, auto and bank situations will stabilize due to people actually having the monies needed to spend with these entities. With out JOBS those entities will still fail no matter how much money is used to bail them out.
All this time arguing and name calling could be better spent trying to find GOOD solutions to the problems at hand. Both sides have good ideas, yet we continue to argue and point fingers at what happened with past situations. We need to get past that and develop better straight foward solutions, NOT; over the deep end, extreme or down the road catastophy solutions.
Fact is that every Country has the poor, middle class and rich. GET over it, it will always be that way no matter what is done. Enjoy that extra $13/$8 a week and those temporary extra food stamps.
Free health care to every one sounds good, but in reality requires vast amounts of capital and you can't provid it without that capital, We don't have the capital and medical proffessionals are not going to work for FREE. Would you?
This will be my last post (for a LONG while) as my company is busier than ever, and I have to provide for my family and employees future and don't have time for any more of this arguing.
Actually, FROM THE HEART regardless of your political view. I wish each and eveyone of you (family included) here on this site the best. I SINCERELY hope you get through any tuff times you are experiencing and get back on the road to success.
well. i must say well done. you right, but the problem is your idealistic, like myself. and maybe your are right that we should let the bad companies fall, but then maybe your wrong. you and i and everyone who posts here is not in congress and can do little than argue and pray and hope.
i do hope that jobs are saved and created whatever way as long as it is done. end of story.
We don't have the capital and medical proffessionals are not going to work for FREE.
Liar. No one is going to make them work for free.
This will be my last post (for a LONG while)...
Hopefully not. You're always good for a laugh.
...as my company is busier than ever,
What are you, a military contractor?
To: thejbomb65: Thank you and GOD bless.
To: foghornleghorn I work Here in the USA and provide something in homes/othe businesses that you can't live without. How's the following for a laugh??
TO Col. Harlan Sanders KISS my (_!_) !
And till we meet again, GOD BLESS to ALL.
Fact is that every Country has the poor, middle class and rich. GET over it, it will always be that way no matter what is done (Knob)
Quitter talk. Defeatist mentality. Get out of the way, Loser.