Assessment of Mr. Trump

[Starlight]

Which of course explains why from the very onset Obama sneered at any attempt from Republicans to negotiate with him.

I doubt that any of what you have been posting here is true. At most, Obama in his negotiations with Cantor may have used the argument that he won the election as a rationale for working out a deal that favored Obama's priorities over Cantor's.

The rest of your ramblings about Obama being the one not to negotiate are 100% opposite reality. Republican obstructionism during the Obama era pervasive and heavily documented. News reports on Republican obstructionism were a weekly feature - even in my country once they shut your government down with their refusals to compromise and when they looked like they would force a default on the US debt.

[carpedm9587]

The GDP doubling would indeed be one heck of a change in trajectory. Someone would have to call the Guinness Book of World Records because it would be historic.

Pretty sure you're talking about a tiny short term increase in the usually fluctuating GDP growth rate, not the GDP itself doubling which normally takes >20 years.

Wow - I missed that one completely...

[carpedm9587]

Which of course explains why from the very onset Obama sneered at any attempt from Republicans to negotiate with him.

I cannot substantiate the claims you make here, Rogue, so if you can help me with sources, I would appreciate it.

That being said, I DID run across one eye-opener for me. I have long believed the claim that the Republican party set out to obstruct Obama from day one, based on McConnell's quote (and other comments). In trying to verify what you posted above, I came across a WaPo fact check on that claim (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.32f7100532f5), and was surprised to find I had it wrong. McConnell made that statement on October 23, 2010 - midway into Obama's term - and in the context of a political event where it would have been very natural for the opposition party to wish the president have a single term. After all - I am wishing that for Trump today (though I am not exactly the "opposition party.")

I'm trying to confirm the dynamics of Republican exclusion, but I am unable to find sources I can trust with the straight scoop.

[carpedm9587]

Yeah, that seems to be one of the biggest problems with the US today.

Obama and his team when they were running in 2008 seem to have firmly believed that they would be able to break the climate of partisanship in D.C. by compromising more with the Republicans than Democrats had ever done before. In Obama's book Audacity of Hope he talks about how the Democrats need to be prepared to abandon their 'sacred cows' and give into Republican demands to cut medicare and social security etc in order to achieve bipartisan compromises. His whole political strategy was to offer the Republicans a better deal than they had ever been offered before and thus achieve a 'Grand Bargain'. Obama seems to have seen himself as a centrist who could work with both sides of the aisle and negotiate great compromises.

Unfortunately, the Republicans infamously had a big strategy meeting the night of Obama's inauguration and decided their strategy was to try and make him a 1-term president by stopping him from achieving anything at all. They agreed that no matter what Obama offered, they would never ever compromise or agree with him. While they failed at making him a 1 term president, they nonetheless broke nearly all records for obstructionism, ranging from breaking the filibuster record for legislation to the second-longest government shutdown in US history through to simply ignoring his Supreme Court nominee.

I am personally not a fan of Obama, and regard him as being extremely politically naive - he tried the same strategy of working towards compromise with the republicans and them refusing him for at least 6 years of his 8 year term before he eventually got it into his skull it wasn't going to work and finally started doing some helpful executive orders.

But the Republican inability to compromise has been causing pretty serious problems within their own party, with the particularly-insanely-uncompromising 'Freedom Caucus' causing such disunity among House Republicans that they seemed to have trouble even getting a House Speaker they could all agree on - after some pretty desperate seeming negotiations Paul Ryan was chosen as the only person all sides could agree on. Given he's apparently going to retire next year rather than lose his seat to the challenger who's beating him in the polls, it seems like the Republicans may have a problem even finding a Speaker of the House they can agree on. And earlier this year we saw their Healthcare bill fail because the sides within the Republican party couldn't compromise with each other enough to find a healthcare bill they could agree on.

I have long believed these things - but have recently run up against contradicting info I find compelling. Do you have any sources to confirm the things you ar esaying about the meeting that took place, and Obama's attempts at outreach?

[rogue06]

I doubt that any of what you have been posting here is true. At most, Obama in his negotiations with Cantor may have used the argument that he won the election as a rationale for working out a deal that favored Obama's priorities over Cantor's.

The rest of your ramblings about Obama being the one not to negotiate are 100% opposite reality. Republican obstructionism during the Obama era pervasive and heavily documented. News reports on Republican obstructionism were a weekly feature - even in my country once they shut your government down with their refusals to compromise and when they looked like they would force a default on the US debt.

I suggest you check out, for instance, The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward who documents this in great detail. Woodward is one of the great liberal heroes of journalism being part of the team (with Carl Bernstein) who's reporting on Watergate was largely responsible for taking down Nixon which garnered them a Pulitzer Prize. As Wikipedia puts it:

Woodward himself has been a recipient of nearly every major American journalism award, including the Heywood Broun award (1972), Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting (1972 and 1986), Sigma Delta Chi Award (1973), George Polk Award (1972), William Allen White Medal (2000), and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency (2002). In 2012, Colby College presented Woodward with the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism as well as an honorary doctorate.

He has also won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism as well.

The facts here are just not on your side.

[rogue06]

I cannot substantiate the claims you make here, Rogue, so if you can help me with sources, I would appreciate it.

See the post immediately above.

[JimL]

I suggest you check out, for instance, The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward who documents this in great detail. Woodward is one of the great liberal heroes of journalism being part of the team (with Carl Bernstein) who's reporting on Watergate was largely responsible for taking down Nixon which garnered them a Pulitzer Prize. As Wikipedia puts it:

Woodward himself has been a recipient of nearly every major American journalism award, including the Heywood Broun award (1972), Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting (1972 and 1986), Sigma Delta Chi Award (1973), George Polk Award (1972), William Allen White Medal (2000), and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency (2002). In 2012, Colby College presented Woodward with the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism as well as an honorary doctorate.

He has also won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism as well.

The facts here are just not on your side.

Ah, we lived through those eight years rogue, we don't need to read a book to tell us what we saw, a book in which all you give of it as evidence is its title and author.

[carpedm9587]

See the post immediately above.

OK - color me thick - but I'm not seeing it. Can you give me a post number?

[carpedm9587]

Ah, we lived through those eight years rogue, we don't need to read a book to tell us what we saw, a book in which all you give of it as evidence is its title and author.

Woodward was one of the principle agents in the documenting of Nixon's downfall - and has deep and credible roots. His journalisic credentials are as close to impecable as they come, AFAIK. I'm going to add that book to my reading list.

[rogue06]

The GDP doubling would indeed be one heck of a change in trajectory. Someone would have to call the Guinness Book of World Records because it would be historic.

Pretty sure you're talking about a tiny short term increase in the usually fluctuating GDP growth rate, not the GDP itself doubling which normally takes >20 years.

It is three straight quarters which so far is his entire term with the New York Federal Reserve Bank predicting that this quarter the GDP will be at 3.8%^[1] which would make it four. That is hardly "a tiny short term increase." Moreover, don't you find it a tad strange that under Obama's 8 years we didn't experience this short term fluctuation?








1. And now, according to Reuters, the New York Federal Reserve has raised their estimate of GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2017 to 3.98%. Again, we were repeatedly told for the last 8 years by the left that this sort of growth was no longer possible because world markets have changed so much, that we need to get used to the anemic growth we experienced under Obama (average of 1.5%) as representing the new norm and yet, here we are.

[rogue06]

OK - color me thick - but I'm not seeing it. Can you give me a post number?

post #95 -- the one "immediately above" #96.

[Cow Poke]

Ah, we lived through those eight years rogue, we don't need to read a book to tell us what we saw, a book in which all you give of it as evidence is its title and author.

Jim, it would be great if you EVER cited either an actual book or author.

[carpedm9587]

It is three straight quarters which so far is his entire term with the New York Federal Reserve Bank predicting that this quarter the GDP will be at 3.8%^[1] which would make it four. That is hardly "a tiny short term increase." Moreover, don't you find it a tad strange that under Obama's 8 years we didn't experience this short term fluctuation?








1. And now, according to Reuters, the New York Federal Reserve has raised their estimate of GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2017 to 3.98%. Again, we were repeatedly told for the last 8 years by the left that this sort of growth was no longer possible because world markets have changed so much, that we need to get used to the anemic growth we experienced under Obama (average of 1.5%) as representing the new norm and yet, here we are.

Rogue - you are cherry picking data. Please look at the history, and you will find several similar spikes. Specifically, look at 4Q11, 3Q13 and 4Q13, as well as 2Q14 and 3Q14 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/...gdp-in-the-us/). And those were achieved as we came out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Trump inhereted a comparatively healthy economy. Three quarters in a row would be a nice sign of good prospects, and may well be related to anticipation of tax cuts and business-friendly deregulation, which Trump has promised.

But, as I mentioned before, the economy is not everything. For some people, there are more important things than money. Personally, I would be perfectly satisfied with 2% growth if it meant I could keep intact some of the other things I value. There are a lot of people like me out there. I describe myself as a "slightly left of center" person on average, but I am not consistently there on each area of policy. On social issues, I lean much more strongly left. On fiscal issues, I lean much more strongly right. IMO, Republicans in Congress have abandoned their legislative priority of fiscal responsibility. With both houses of Congress and a Republican president, they could have worked to create a revenue-neutral tax plan, and look for ways to close the deficit gap. They didn't. They are pinning all of the hopes of making this balanced due to GDP growth, but apparently they were not as confident in that reality as they profess because they refused to add a rider to the tax bill that would roll back the cuts if that growth did not manifest. If they were so certain - that would have been a no-brainer, so there must be at least some doubt in their mind that it will actually occur that way.

Both Democrats and Republicans in our government are dropping the ball on fiscal responsibility, IMO.

[carpedm9587]

post #95 -- the one "immediately above" #96.

Sorry - I thought you meant there was another one. I have already purchased that one for my Kindle. Unfortunately, it's about 15th on the reading list.

[rogue06]

Jim, it would be great if you EVER cited either an actual book or author.

It is ironic that the person who steadfastly refuses to provide substantiation or cite sources mocks those who do.