Income equality falls behind fixing a banking crisis. One step at a time bro. Stabilizing the entire banking system was waaassy more important at the time and he left office with a good unemployment rate
When obama came into office he was given the choice of bailing out homeowners directly instead of the banks. Nobody is claiming that the bank bailouts werent the right thing. Stabilizing the banking system was important but at the same time throwing homeowners under the bus wasnt the right move. Obama regulators were strictly against bailing out homeowners directly and thought it would create a massive welfare system for future borrower. He wanted people to suffer. Obama was given an option of sending direct checks out to everyone and he shot the idea down. He refused to spend more than a trillion on his stimulus and his stimulus was set up to help businesses write off deductions more than it was for helping workers. We're seeing a once in a lifetime job recovery because of policy decisons. The fed wanted to throw us into a recession and the obama policy folks have been begging for a recession since 2021. Biden on the other hand kept spending and his spending is what has helped keep us out of a recesssion. HIstory books will study what to do in a economic downturn and Obama decision to go small will be studied upon as a disaster. Obama was a great speaker and a good human but he was a god awful president who refused to think big on anything policy. Facts are facts. You cant blame the race thing when he personally choose the pathway he choose cuz neoliberal thinking.
I also explicitly said I thought Congress (GOP if it wasn’t clear) sabotaged the economy with austerity. Obama certainly made some major policy errors but I put more blame on anyone who thought “austerity” is how you get out of a economic downturn.
Whenever there's an incumbent Democrat the playbook is almost always the same. Immigrants Guns Moral panic dujour (it was 'CRT' but that flopped so now Trans is the current hotness) Terrorism had its day in the sun, now abortion is on the way out. The 'greatest hits' of American conservative socio-political theater are getting kinda thin in number. Edit: forgot to give a shoutout to the latest entrant into the mix, election denialism/voter fraud.
I don't know or really care what the right b****es about - the politicians on the right are largely worthless. Having said that -- there are a lot of problems in the USA right now. Housing is extremely expensive and hard to find - and the long held belief that Americans can own homes has been called into question. At this point, it has gotten even harder for a single earner household to avoid poverty in the USA. There are issues with food costs and production lines going forward. Inflation is still an issue and student debt remains. Young people are in large part very pessimistic in their outlook, and it is hard to argue with them. Homelessness is an issue in a number of major cities, fent. addiction is a problem, China and Mexico is easily flooding the USA with it, and it is deadly and destroying a lot of lives. We have a very divided a country and a system of government that doesn't call for large scale change, that is largely needed. The infrastructure is also in terrible shape. That isn't to say that China and Europe are in better shape - they are not - but relatively speaking, there are a lot of domestic issues.
Obama's biggest mistake was attempting to negotiate in good faith with bad faith actors. He was strangely hung up with being bi-partisan about everything. Almost like he was afraid of being perceived as what they characterized him as, which is silly, because those people were never going to be convinced otherwise either way.
This is 100% true. In a sane democracy, an opposition party would be addressing these things and pulling in new voters along the way. Instead, the GOP is going all-out on a personality cult and conjured grievance. The left continues to give them fuel for that fire while millions of people are one bad bill away from financial ruin.
It's not a shock that if you give people a binary choice that everything will start to gather towards the poles. Game theory 101 right there. Systems bend everyone to their will. There is no room for nuance and rational actors are chased out. This is what poor design does.
Yeah - right now the political climate and functioning in Washington is horrendous and there seems to be this passive approach to it all. These are major problems, and with our system requiring clear political majorities - nothing is getting done. With the current extreme composition of the SCOTUS, it is likely that they will block any meaningful reform as well. The institutions in the USA have not looked good lately.
We have seen times in the past where the government has stepped in and made the necessary adjustments needed. The last major one was after the Great Depression and WWII
Mind telling me how many civil rights lawyers obama nominated as judges? How many public defenders did he nominate as judges? How many pro union nlrb commissioners did he nominate? How many anti business pro worker ftc commissioners did obama nominate? Its always funny how the obama defenders are quick to blame congresss when every single one of obama nominees to power were pro business neo liberals. Its funny how obama sold himself as a victim
You literally always make this same bullshit talking point over and over in every thread which is utterly full of lies. This whole notion that both parties are usless and arent doing anything is such bullshit. Democrats literally just passed 4 trillion dollars of spending with a 50/50 senate. You love painting this bs picture that both parties are useless. This "both sides" bs is what has brought us trump. Democrats are governoring as much as they can. They are delivering on a massive scale
The problem is a lack of incentive. "The government" is effectively composed of two companies. Company D and Company R. And for those companies, business is very good and life is easy. Counting on the government to change itself to make business harder for the two companies that run it is.. a long shot. We either end up with a very painful sudden change (aka calamity) or we wait and hope for that immaculate conception of a solution from within.
It's truly fascinating how easy the republican playbook is. It's to obstruct and deny any progress so normie Americans who don't pay attention to the news will quickly blame both parties for not having incentive or not trying. Why in the world would you not obstruct progress when you know automatically Americans will blame both parties. Americans are not very smart people
I think Obama did his best to reduce spending in the face lowered tax receipts during the Great Recession. Love it or hate it, his % of GPD/deficit is lower than Trump or Biden's. I do acknowledge the folks he picked or retained were Wall St. favorites (Geithner, Bernanke, Summers). Once Trump took over the Tea Party, one with origins for federal debt reduction, and exploded the national debt like a drunken sailor, all bets were off. Republicans don't like austerity when they're in charge. They waste it on lopsided tax cuts and if we're unlucky, a couple of trillion dollar+ wars. So yeah, we're spending ourselves into oblivion with an out of control interest payment burden, but the nature of politics means the responsible one "punishes" their voters while the short term minded folks wins by "rewarding their loyal followers."
What did I say that isn't truthful? Provide a quote of what I said that isn't accurate. The reality is that we have a large number of very serious problems right now - that I listed out, that are not being properly addressed or solved. You can champion the Democratic party if you wish - but I am concerned about actual solutions and an admission in Washington that the problems exist. What has Washington done to stop the flow of fentanyl from Mexico and China into the USA? What has Washington done to address the large number of homeless and functional homeless in the USA - and the intersection between homelessness and the cheap availability of fentanyl on the streets? What has Washington done to limit corporations, foreigners and multi unit ownership of houses in the USA? What has Washington done to address the large cost of healthcare in the USA? What has Washington done to address the lack of equity in the USA? Championed increasing the minimum wage, when the cost has just been passed onto the middle class and not the top 2 percent? What has Washington done to punish Supreme Court Justices that act inapropriately? What has the US done for the cost of consumer prescription drugs? Address the problems - be proactive and solve problems, that is what an effective government is supposed to do - not have endless hearings on Donald Trump or Hunter Biden. The leadership is Washington is horrendous - the worst in my lifetime.
The leadership in the Republican party is terrible - they currently are the most useless party in the 40 years I have been on this planet. They do not attempt to provide answers or any solutions - they simply pander.
Two thoughts. Our system is designed for gridlock. That was not such a big deal in the middle of the last century and beyond, back when party affiliation was not hyper correlated to liberal vs. conservative attitudes. However, it becomes disastrous in the present day, now that we have gamed all of this out and realize now that duopoly breeds extremism and partisanship. Congress has slowed down over the years and become less and less effectual for this exact reason. This current SCOTUS could create a very, very long winter. McConnell played the long game. He knows that the judges are the #1 best return-for-cost political investment. This court could engender some seriously lopsided rulings that enshrine conservative electoral advantages (beyond what already exist) into law for generations. The farther we go down this road of un-representative government, the more dangerous of a game we're playing. You can't have elections with margins like 60/40 where the minority ends up winning more seats, it's just not sustainable.
There's a Doomer mindset among them that probably started with expected demographic shifts away from the white Middle American base. Their minority status solidified since GW Bush...WTF happened to Compassionate Conservatism? The last 2 years of Trump's term had some of the most disgusting and blatant looting imaginable. They weren't content with the lopsided tax cuts that middle-lower class Americans will directly pay for soon. It just seemed like they're beyond power sharing because each term might be their last.
