Time To Smear Kavanaugh's Good Name...

[JimL]

I'm sure, but it still shows a relativity to Obama's, so Jimmy's insistence that Democrats cut the deficit can be summarily dismissed.

No it doesn't BCT, but nice try anyway. Obama had to spend to get us out of the mess he inherited, Trump has no such problem and is outspending Obama anyway. Why aren't all you republicans complaining any more?

[Cow Poke]

Where is OBP with his irony meter when you need him.

He uses it when there's actual irony.

[Bill the Cat]

No it doesn't BCT, but nice try anyway. Obama had to spend to get us out of the mess he inherited,

And so does Trump... i.e. Obamacare, HARP,

Trump has no such problem

Yes he does. Our military is struggling with an aging fleet in each branch, sequestrations, people are living longer, public debt was much higher, etc.

and is outspending Obama anyway.

2/3rds goes to mandatory spending, like Social Security and Medicaid, which you idiots want to keep expanding.

Why aren't all you republicans complaining any more?

We actually are.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/cons...ing-binge.html

Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the network backed by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, described the recent spending from Trump and Congress "a far cry from the so-called fiscal responsibility Americans heard on the campaign trail."

[oxmixmudd]

I'm sure, but it still shows a relativity to Obama's, so Jimmy's insistence that Democrats cut the deficit can be summarily dismissed.

I don't think the numbers from 1970 to the present allow for finger pointing. Trump is no better than Obama. Obama no better than Bush etc etc. The only one that met the goal of spending less than was taken in since Nixon was Bill Clinton. The problems are intrinsic to both parties, they just have different things they want to buy with the money. The idea that the problem can be blamed on the 'other party' is in many ways a significant contributor to the problem - which is a lack of commitment to the county as a whole over the immediate needs or wants of the current power base.

Jim

[rogue06]

Not to mention the mess that Obama had to deal with, unnecessary expensive wars and a near depression, immediately upon taking office compared to the cleaned up mess Obama left for Trump.

Yup, Obama and the left spent $832,000,000,000 on a stimulus package (New York Times calculation) with little to show for it. Liberals explained that was because enough wasn't spent and they needed more, more, more. This admission of failure is confusing since liberal politicians and economists were simultaneously engaging in a game of one-upmanship, each trying top the other's claim for how many jobs it saved or created (it went from 1.6 to 1.8 to 2.1 to 2.5 to 2.8 then finally up to 3.6 million jobs). Moreover, even if you accept the higher numbers as real this means that somewhere between $185,000 and $278,000 was spent for each job saved or created. Talk about getting a poor return for your investment.

Others point to how the economy started turning around at the same time the stimulus package was signed into law as proof of its success but that reveals an abysmally poor understanding of things. In reality, this is evidence that the economy was turning around before the stimulus package not as a result of it since the money hadn't been allocated, nor spent much less had time to take effect. For instance, on the "shovel-ready" jobs that were hyped so much the states first had to advertise the project to allow contractors to submit bids, then the bids had to be reviewed and contracts had to be signed and finally they often needed to wait for federal approval from this or that department or agency after that.

Obama proclaimed that the stimulus would "immediately jumpstart job creation" with "shovel-ready" projects to rebuild "our crumbling infrastructure" but later he would admit, and laugh, that in reality there just weren't enough "shovel-ready jobs" out there even though the money was poured like water into them. It became increasingly obvious that what "shovel-ready" really meant was ready for politicians to pose with a shovel for a photo op.

Forbes magazine cited one example of just how wasteful the spending was that is eye-opening.

Source: How Effective Was The 2009 Stimulus Program?

Take stimulus funds for broadband. President Obama campaigned on expanding access to broadband Internet, and the stimulus afforded him an occasion for doling out federal dollars to that end.

No one is against expanded access to broadband. And in rural areas especially, where there might be less market incentive to provide access, maybe there's a role for government to play. The question for prudent policymakers is how much such a project should cost and who should bear the cost. Surely there is some price that's too high to justify expanding access.

In an important and eye-opening new paper, Jeffrey Eisenach and Kevin Caves of Navigant Economics, a consulting firm, recently examined ARRA's subsidization of rural broadband. The ARRA stimulus funds for broadband constitute "the largest Federal subsidies ever provided for broadband construction in the U.S." An explicit goal of the program was to extend broadband access to homes currently without it.

Eisenach and Caves looked at three areas that received stimulus funds, in the form of loans and direct grants, to expand broadband access in Southwestern Montana, Northwestern Kansas, and Northeastern Minnesota. The median household income in these areas is between $40,100 and $50,900. The median home prices are between $94,400 and $189,000.

So how much did it cost per unserved household to get them broadband access? A whopping $349,234, or many multiples of household income, and significantly more than the cost of a home itself.

Sadly, it's actually worse than that. Take the Montana project. The area is not in any meaningful sense unserved or even underserved. As many as seven broadband providers, including wireless, operate in the area. Only 1.5% of all households in the region had no wireline access. And if you include 3G wireless, there were only seven households in the Montana region that could be considered without access. So the cost of extending access in the Montana case comes to about $7 million for each additional household served.



Source

© Copyright Original Source

[One Bad Pig]

Where is OBP with his irony meter when you need him.

For Mr. Poke? This one works:

no irony.jpg

You're welcome.

[Bill the Cat]

I don't think the numbers from 1970 to the present allow for finger pointing. Trump is no better than Obama. Obama no better than Bush etc etc. The only one that met the goal of spending less than was taken in since Nixon was Bill Clinton. The problems are intrinsic to both parties, they just have different things they want to buy with the money. The idea that the problem can be blamed on the 'other party' is in many ways a significant contributor to the problem - which is a lack of commitment to the county as a whole over the immediate needs or wants of the current power base.

Jim

The problem is that we have too many obligations. That is a party-independent problem. We got here as a country, and we all have to suffer for it. Government obligations eat up a majority of the income, and once you give it to people, it's exceedingly hard to take it back. The choices are 1) cut the safety nets a bit which hurts the elderly and depressed or 2) raise taxes which hurts the working class and business.

[NorrinRadd]

What the tax cuts "cost."

[oxmixmudd]

What the tax cuts "cost."

Interesting. Thanks NR.

Jim

[carpedm9587]

What the tax cuts "cost."

So, what the article does not appear to address (and I have to admit I only had time to skim it) is what percentage of this increase is due to an expanding workforce as unemployment continued to drop. It also does not address where this increased income resides. After all, we knew that the top 1% were going to see a significant increase in their earnings as a result of the tax cut, given that most of the business surplus went to buy back stocks and pay dividends. We also know that more bonuses were issued than actual salary increases. That would have the effect of temporarily inflating income, without any long-term sustainability. This too was also predicted by economists.

The 9% is not a surprise. But before folks crow about the "Republicans being right," let's see how sustainable it is, and let's see data as to where the increases are coming from. Meanwhile, the deficit IS actually increasing - and at a time when the economy is healthy and growing. The GOP controls all three branches of the federal government. "It's the Democrat's fault" is more than a bit of a stretch.

[Mountain Man]

Source: Swetnick, Avenatti Referred for Criminal Investigation

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today referred Julie Swetnick and her attorney Michael Avenatti to the Justice Department for criminal investigation relating to a potential conspiracy to provide materially false statements to Congress and obstruct a congressional committee investigation, three separate crimes, in the course of considering Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pre...-investigation

© Copyright Original Source

Ford must be breathing a big sigh of relief that she wasn't in the referral.

[JimL]

Source: Swetnick, Avenatti Referred for Criminal Investigation

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today referred Julie Swetnick and her attorney Michael Avenatti to the Justice Department for criminal investigation relating to a potential conspiracy to provide materially false statements to Congress and obstruct a congressional committee investigation, three separate crimes, in the course of considering Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pre...-investigation

© Copyright Original Source

Ford must be breathing a big sigh of relief that she wasn't in the referral.

Can't recognize a political hack job when you see one can you MM? Republicans just want to waste your tax dollars on another Benghazzi scam to take your mind off of important issues like healthcare prior to the election. Trump has shown you to be stupid, and now your congressmen have picked up on it. It's just like how, now that they are running for office, they are all running on how much they love and support making insurance companies cover preexisting conditions. Bet you believe that one as well.

[Cow Poke]

Nolte: NBC News Hid Information that Would Have Cleared Kavanaugh of Avenatti Rape Allegations

NBC News and Avenatti played a huge role in this obscene smear campaign. One notable example was NBC breathlessly publishing and airing an assault allegation against Kavanaugh that was quickly exposed as a hoax. NBC did not even bother to independently corroborate this allegation prior to airing it. A Democrat handed NBC the smear, and NBC ran with it.

To make matters worse, we now know NBC News withheld crucial information that undermined the allegations made by Swetnick, the Avenatti client who accused a high school-aged Kavanaugh of spiking punch bowls at house parties so he and his buddies could engage in serial rapes.

And we know NBC deliberately withheld this crucial information because NBC is now admitting it had this information all the way back on September 30.

On September 30, a week prior to Kavanaugh’s confirmation, during the most intense days of this scandal, when Kavanaugh’s confirmation was still very much in doubt, here is what NBC did not want the public to know…

If you recall, although he withheld the name, Avenatti tweeted out a sworn statement from a woman who backed up Swetnick’s outrageous rape allegations. In her statement, this second woman swore that she, too, had witnessed Kavanaugh spike punch bowls and take sexual advantage of girls.

Well, unbeknownst to us, NBC interviewed this anonymous witness on September 30, and she recanted!

But only now is NBC News bothering to report this bombshell:

[insert] Referring to Kavanaugh spiking the punch, “I didn’t ever think it was Brett,” the woman said to reporters in a phone interview arranged by Avenatti on Sept. 30 after repeated requests to speak with other witnesses who might corroborate Swetnick’s claims.

…

When asked in the phone interview if she ever witnessed Kavanaugh act inappropriately towards girls, the woman replied, “no.”[/insert]

Wait, it gets worse…

I know.... Breitbart!!!!!

[KingsGambit]

A man that I grew up in church with and who is now a pastor reported that one of his seminary professors was Kavanaugh's suitemate in college and was aware of a rape allegation against him at the time. That's the one thing I've heard that has actually given me pause on the specific allegations, since I trust this man's judgment. However, it must have been secondhand knowledge; else presumably he would have been available to testify if he knew anything firsthand, so it's definitely not a slam dunk.

[Cow Poke]

For those who tend to hyperventilate at the mention of Breitbart, here's the story from NBC's own website.