Sen. Lindsey Graham: Sacrifice Obamacare To Avoid Sequester

He's not my messiah. There have been a number of things I have disagreed with him on. I didn't like him signing the defense bill that affirmed parts of the patriot act. I disagreed with him on tax policy, I've always thought we need to repeal the Bush tax completely (and then some) and not just partially (and supported Clinton for that reason). The health care reform should have had a single payor component. He didn't follow through on Guantanamo. The stimulus package was too loaded with tax cuts for the wealthy and not enough spending. I disagree with his energy policy; IMO we should artificially raise gas prices with a tax and let the free market decide how to best invest in and develop alternatives and efficiencies instead of direct lending/investment. We should cut FICA tax rates and remove the income cap. We should raise the top income tax rate on millionaires to pay for the additional debt we've run up.

Just a few things off the top of my head.

Do you ever blame the Republicans? Or do you just assume that because Obama took office during a full on raging recession it is all his fault? The Republicans have passed and pushed for and defended tax cuts that have cost the Govt trillions in revenues as well increases in military spending that is now proportionately $250 billion a year more than it was in 2000.

Will you ever blame the Republicans for the skyrocketing debt or are you going to find blame elsewhere each time?

 

I'm sure no less than your baseless blather convinced me.

 

No less pathetic than your constant attempts to blame Obama for the recession he inherited.

 

Nope the recession was all about obama, hes the reason we're double dipping. We gave a trillion dollars to fix the recession, did he fix the recession? nope.... His moronic policies are preventing the economy from recovery. Green energy, High Gas Prices, High utility bills, High Taxes.... Then we get morons crying cause theres not enough "revenue" after they (*)(*)(*)(*) on the economy....

You know that Tortured logic you spoke of...

 

l you do is blame obama for the Great Recession he inherited.

Its not funny anymore, its getting pretty pathetic

 

You said "Clinton did not say that" and I agreed with you.

I did no such thing.

The height of partisanship is pretending like Bush's policies were radically different from Clinton's. Unlike you, I fault both for these programs, but it started with Clinton. You, on the other hand, pretend that when a Democrat influences homeownership and sparks sharp increases in prices and equity borrowing, it's a good thing, but when a Republican does it, it's a bad thing.

Where was Clinton bragging about homeownership?

 

Nope, Its all his baby, now.

 

You've blamed Bush for the mortgage collapse on numerous occasions. Are you really denying that?

I believe there is a very logical nexus between lowering credit ratings and throwing millions of previously unqualified borrowers into the market all at the same time, spiking housing prices and kicking off the first round of equity borrowing, with the linear price trend that continued on into the next administration.

 

Another great Iriemon strategy that supposedly will help the poor and middle class retain more of their income to "fuel our economy", his stated goal.

 

Which is what I'm doing, I'm trying to get you to show some intelligence.
Clinton promotes home ownership and in your mind that caused the housing bubble.
All I need from you is the connection, HOW did that happen?
Can you understand that?

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Tortured logic is blaming Bush who wasn't even in office for an event that occurred while Obama and the Democrats controlled the Government.[/QUOTE]
No it's blaming Clinton for something happened 7 YEARS after he left office.

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How do you figure?
He didn't cause it, it didn't happen under his watch and he has worked hard to turn it around, which he has done.
So how does he own it when the conservatives caused it?
More partisanship?

 

Read the articles. Beyond that, you're hopelessly clueless.

 

And you whine about other peoples responses!

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Dude I have read them and they DO NOT make your case!
Are YOU hopelessly clueless or did YOU read them?

You can't just say 2+2= Clinton did it!, you have SHOW it does.
You have not done that and everyone knows it including YOU, which is why you go to the name calling.

 

I don't recall anytime I've just blamed Bush. Can you cite to the post of mine you are referring to? I've certainly pointed out that he was president at the time, and pushed and promoted programs to expand home ownership at the same time housing prices were bubbling to ridiculous level, that he blocked the only bill ever passed a chamber of the Republican Congress to increase Fannie and Freddie regulation, and had a general "hands off" attitude towards regulation common amongst conservatives and Republicans, and that for those things he deserves some of the blame.

I'm not sure what you mean by lowering credit ratings, but I certainly agree that the rampant practices of making no income verification no money down "teaser rate" and ARM loans that lenders and brokers used to get people into houses which they had no business being in, so the banks and brokers could rank in gigantic fees profits and bonuses, was certainly a contributing cause to the bubble.

But industry can regulate itself, right?

 

That is true, I believe the market is better enabled to direct resources and investment which it will do in an environment of higher fuel prices; as opposed to government directed investment as the Obama administration is pursuing.

 

You have not read them. If you did, you must be severely ignorant on basic concepts like supply and demand.

Try this on for size: what happens to the price of something when the number of people who want to buy it jumps from 100 to 1,000?

 

That's the best you can come up with for your argument that Clinton is to blame for the housing bubble?

Craftsman has a point. You've simply cited a couple articles and programs and claimed that proves Clinton was at fault with no prove or evidence that those programs played any role in the housing bubble.

 

But blaming Clinton and Carter is still ok even though there is not a shred of evidence to back it up?
Is that 'pathetic'?
Considering that there IS evidence to blame bush the failure for many of our current problems why shouldn't he be blamed?
Is the right really that partisan? Are they that weak they can't own up to their own failures?

 

Wow, deflection?
thats you tactic now?
Man that is grade school, but expected.

Face it you can't back up your made up claim. You bought into another right wing media lie and you tried to sell it to people that can think.
You got busted on it.
Admit it and move on.

You can't back up your claims.
You very rarely do.

 

I agree Bush deserves some of the blame. Do you believe Clinton deserves some of the blame?

As for regulating Fannie and Freddie, I will point you again to Professor Peabody's post. It doesn't sound like your side was too interested in regulating that Government program. I can't imagine why.

Clinton lowered borrowing standards for home buyers in his second term. He pressured banks to loan more of their funds to "underrepresented borrowers" because one of his goals was to increase minority home ownership. Millions of people who were not eligible for a home loan in his 1st term were suddenly eligible. Many more buyers hit the housing market and the increased competition increased housing prices by nearly 25% in a few short years.

Clinton seems to think so. He has defended the repeal of Glass Steagall several times, even after the housing bubble burst.

 

Obviously not, as I've had this conversation with you numerous times.

He has no point. The articles describe at length the actions Bill Clinton took to rapidly increase homeownership, including the signing of deregulation of the housing market into law. Unless you suddenly want to argue that rapidly expanding homeownership and deregulation had no effect on the creation of the housing bubble.

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Wow, you can't even answer a simple question. Your debating skills are worse than I thought they were, and that's surprising.

 

Not hard to figure. He was president during the time, pushed and promoted programs to expand home ownership at the same time housing prices were bubbling to ridiculous level, that he blocked the only bill ever passed a chamber of the Republican Congress to increase Fannie and Freddie regulation, and had a general "hands off" attitude towards regulation common amongst conservatives and Republicans.

Very little. To find him at blame you'd have to attribute to him the foresight that his programs (to the extent they contributed to the housing bubble, which appears dubious) would contribute (if they did) to an environment in which mortgage brokers, bankers, derivative sellers, home speculators, additional government sponsored home purchasing programs, and an unregulated environment would combine to combust into the unregulated feeding frenzy of home speculation that it did, and that the Govt would basically sit on its hands and do nothing, or worse, contribute to making it worse.

So I suppose you could say he should have had some foresight back in the mid 1990s that this would all happen in a decade and so should have been more cautious, but its a stretch.

I've responded to his posts innumerable times.

Including the fact that over 60% of the Democrats voted along with over 90% of the Republicans in the House in 2005 to increase regulation on Fannie and Freddie, which the Bush administration killed.

Banks had a long history of discrimination and Clinton was right to pressure them to stop discrimination.

Can you cite to his quotes?

In hindsight, I agree with you that we can say that Clinton signing this Republican bill was a mistake. But whether that really had any significant effect is questionable.

Starting in the early 1960s federal banking regulators interpreted provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act to permit commercial banks and especially commercial bank affiliates to engage in an expanding list and volume of securities activities.[3] By the time the affiliation restrictions in the Glass–Steagall Act were repealed through the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA), many commentators argued Glass–Steagall was already “dead.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act

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Then let's see it.

 

obama has been president for over 4 years.
obama told us if we gave him a trillion dollars in stimulus money, he could keep unemployment below 8%
The "Summer of Revcovery" was 3 years ago.

He isnt fixing it, he hasnt fixed it, all he does is tell lies.

Thats how I figure it.

 

Obama never told you that. You've just been tricked and deceived by the RW propaganda media.

 

I'm not a republican ... And I do blame them for a lot of the mess especially in war and police spending ... I think our war on drugs is a huge republican fail ... And I think republicans focus on stuff that doesn't matter ..ie abortion , gay marriage , etc.

I think both parties have a HUGE spending problem , it's just Obama is now in charge and he will bear the blame ... Or if things get better he will get a lot of credit . I don't think he is doing anything to help solve this crazy debt we have .

 

Good for you.

I agree spending spiked too high during the Great Recession. But over the past three years, spending has barely budged (and actually decreased two years for the first time in decades) and so today we are spending less, proportionately, than we did in some of the Reagan years. We need to continue to hold the line on spending so it continues to decline as a percentage of GDP as it has the last three years.

But the bigger problem is the relative size of revenues, which are still stuck in the 1950s levels.

Every year the Govt is giving up proportionately about $7-800 billion a year compared to what was collected in tax revenues in 2000.

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A strawman, why is it a strawman? wtf?