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Reader's forum: Letter: Obama's plans will fail

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right on the money | 12:05 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
We've become an economy of sellers, consumers, and spenders, not producers and savers. If that trend doesn't change, we face a disasterous future.

We export more than we import. Our three largest exports to China: Electrical equipment, nuclear equipment, metals -- oh, and jobs.

Create jobs through tax credits, don't give us money to spend on foreign goods.
Jason | 3:13 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
This is typical of conservatives. Businesses have been given tax credits after tax credits and they have done nothing to produce jobs or to help the economy. Besides, did you even listen to his speech. He is giving tax credits to businesses, just not in the way conservatives want him to. It's still the old "trickle down" attitude the conservatives still have that doesn't work. Tax credits to businesses where the rich in a second hand way benefit. I am with our new president elect. NO MORE! You conservatives have had your chance. It hasn't worked, it's gotten us into this mess. Besides, the analogy to Hitler is not only insulting it's downright disgusting! This letter writer should be ashamed of himself! Sour grapes is all it is!
Timj | 4:01 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Why does the DN print this drivel? DN editors, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Comments continue below
JMT | 5:29 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Two paths of capitalizing/investment. One is to conintue spending on credit. The other is to spend on savings.

Spending on credit is unsustainable. It will ultimately lead to complete collapse in the long run.

Spending on savings is sustainable and will ultimately lead to prosperity.

Spending on credit, while harmful in the long run is easy right now. It is the path of least resistance and makes us feel good today.

Spending on savings is a tough pill to swallow in the short term. It will ensure a contraction in the economy both in consumer spending and job growth.

So we can do what is easy now and ensure economic collapse in the long run. Or...

We can do what is tough now but ensure long term economic viability.

This is really easy. Of course, we do what is easy in the short term, devil may care about what happens to our future. That is the motto of Washington DC. We have officially adopted the motto of the 60's hippie generation: If it feels good, do it!

The most basic economic lessons tell us Obama's plan won't work, just like Bush's didn't.
JMT | 5:33 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
This is like the old story about the salesperson who is losing money on every sale but insists they will somehow miraculously make it up on volume!

Bush did his stimulous plan and here we are. Now if we will only spend more it will magically work this time.

The economy is wisely contracting as tens of millions of people are forced to live within their means. They are adjusting spending and in time will go back to the malls. This time more things will be bought with saved money, not money promised for the future.

We are watching reality tell us that Keynes was wrong. The hall mark of Keynesian economics is that of defecit spending. We hear this in the easier to understand version: Debt doesn't matter.

Tell that to the world right now!

The only people who really believe debt doesn't matter are either bankers who make money off of debt, or politicians at every level who get political clout off of debt.

Like a dog to its vomit!
yet again | 6:11 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
how can anyone continue to advocate for trickle down economics given it has failed complete time and again.how can anyone continue to advocate for trickle down economics given it has failed complete time and again.
liberal Larry | 7:13 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
The old trickle down theory is based on the notion that you must not tax or regulate the wealthy for fear it will inhibit job growth and largess by the rich. Mexico seems to have it's share of super wealthy people and they don't have all the dreaded regulations, and taxes, that conservatives love to wring their hands over. Check out how things are working out down south of the border!
KM | 7:37 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
I ask: can there be trickle up economics? No you can't get from those who don't have.

Businesses need to have incentives to continue to stay in business.

Example, I went in to purchase a new truck at the end of 2008, I was told that if I purchased said truck before the end of the year I would be able to write-off $20,000 in taxes for my business. But, if I waited to purchase in 2009 I could only write off $6000. Why the difference? is this what we can look foreward to in the comming Obama administration? I hope not.
Ernest T. Bass | 7:48 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Obama's plans will fail as opposed to Bush's plans. Bush's plan have been specatular successes. Nobodies been better than Bush and planning then implementing those plans. And the people he's had lead those plans: even better!
cbird | 7:51 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Why are people aleady blaming Obama? He hasn't even taken office yet, and he's getting the blame that they should be giving the current president.
Hypocrisy | 8:04 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
I understand that the DN is a conservative newspaper, but must we print these kind of articles nearly every day? By printing these articles it appears that the DN is trying to sabotage the new presidency. Honestly, no one knows whether he will fail. Quite frankly, I hope Obama doesn't.

It's funny how conservatives like to blame Congress for the state that we're in. They completely ignore that it was Bush's policies that got us here.
Why is Obama's policies supposedly more important or influential than Bush's now? If Obama fails, can we just blame Congress as Conservatives do?

People I guess forget, for 6 out of 8 years, Bush had a Conservative controlled Congress. He passed through whatever he wanted. Including tax cuts, which HAVE NOT benefited "Joe Sixpack" and "Hockey Mom."

We've had 8 years of proven FAILED policy. Allow now, Obama do try and fix the blunders and mistakes of the President that clearly deserves such a low approval rating.
RedShirt | 8:07 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
The funny thing is that many liberals complain about the $500 billion spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, those same liberals are telling us that we are going to have multi year trillion dollar deficits.

The letter writer is wrong, Obama's plan is not like Hitler's (at least not yet). Obama is following FDR's plans, which, depending on what you read, lengthened the Great Depression by 7 years.
uncannygunman | 8:07 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Given the choice between something that might work (Obama's plan) and something I know doesn't work (failed Republican policies), I'll take the possibility of success over the guarantee of failure every time.
Forget the economists | 8:24 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Glad we have the drolls of highly educated on this paper and blog contributing to their own dismay. What would any President do without the throng of Nobel Prize economists at their sides. If I were President, I would definitely check here first, just in case the 180 IQs haven't thought of something.

jce0609 | 8:30 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Giving more taxe credits to business is like giving 250 billion dollars to the banks to make loans, no loans were made and business has not created new jobs. Teh government needs to put money directly into the economy. Government spending is what brought us out of the great deppression unfortunatly it was spent on armaments not infrastructure.
Captain Obvious | 9:07 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Yes! We need _more_ tax cuts for corporations because the government has such a huge unspent surplus, all of our nation's highways, waterways, seaports, airports and bridges are in tip-top condition, and because cutting corporate taxes has worked out so well for this country during the last eight years.

Oh... wait a minute...

Never mind.
Cora | 9:16 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Gee, its to bad the letter writter did not use his powers of looking into the future eight years ago.
Look what his ideas have done to America.
Summary of this letter | 9:19 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Obama's plan will fail, but I cannot relate a better plan. I am just a grumpy old man.
glendenb | 9:38 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
the analysis in the letter is flawed.

Sending stimulus checks to taxpayers won't work - because most taxpayers will use them to pay existing debts and bills rather than spending them to create demand. The bailout of the banking industry might have worked if our economy wasn't in a liquidity trap where interest rates are at or near 0%. Banks have money - they aren't loaning it out since there's no money to be made at 0%.

Tax cuts and other incentives for businesses to invest won't work since demand is insufficient to purchase the products businesses are already making. Put it another way: the inventory of unsold new cars sitting on lots is already huge, so why add more new cars no one is going to buy? Automakers aren't going to build new plants to build new cars when they can't sell the cars they've already built. It's the same for every industry.

Obama's plan may not work | 9:39 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Obama's plan may not work. If it doesn't, though, it's not because he's moving away from the disastrous trickle-down theories that have characterized conservatism since Reagan. It's because Bush and Paulsen have finally done the job Bush was elected to do, and destroyed our economy permanently.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's what we're going to find out over the next few years.
Oh Please | 9:46 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
In West Jordan, Obama = Hitler.
Oh pleeeeaaaase.............
right-wing freaks | 9:48 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
David West's comparison of our president elect to Hitler is the best example yet of how insane the right-wing Limbaughites have become in their non-acceptance of how America voted last November.

At at time when we should be pulling together these divisive right-wing freaks continue to try to polarize us even further than usual.
Lionheart | 10:20 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
The better plan is to let a nominal recession work it's way through. But no, the politicians must use this standard downturn to increase and secure their power. It doesn't take 180 IQ to figure the math out. Apparently it does take a higher intelligent quotient than 100 (the average) to get it. Banks didn't loan money when it was forced on them by the Treasury, because, credit worthy borrowers did not think it was a good time to increase debt ( a clue to the government?) and the fudiciary responsiblity of bankers can land them in jail if they knowingly make irresponsible loans. There is only three ways for government to get funds to spend, (1)raise taxes, thereby taking money out of the dynamic economy, with a 5 to 1 ratio of negative effect(velocity of money), (2)or get Americans and foreigners to buy treasuries, (borrow), (3)or print checks from treasury without having the capital or even the pretense of capital behind the checks thereby causing inflation. Here comes Obama Carter, STAGFLATION! Does anyone understand math, history or economics? Apparently not, people seem to think there are lollipop and money trees.
RedShirt | 10:18 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
To "Hypocrisy | 8:04 a.m." you are wrong when you say that "Bush had a Conservative controlled Congress". Bush had a Republican controlled congress that spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. We haven't had a conservative or conservative leaning congres since Bill Clinton was in office.

Had there been a conservative controlled congres, we would not have the mess of Prescription Drugs being added to medicare. We would have had some regulations put on Freddie and Fannie to reign them in. Government would have shrunk in size rather than grown.

Please don't get conservative confused with Republican.
Anonymous | 11:01 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
We have people who bought in to failed trickle down economics preaching to us about economics. This is like taking a advice of a ditch digger on structural engineering. The people who have ruined America fail to see their culpability in their quest to escape personal accountability. Constructing a fantasy world where they are victims of liberalism created a logic where their escapism can thrive.
Anonymous | 11:06 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
"Banks didn't loan money when it was forced on them by the Treasury." This is a bold faced lie. Washinton mutual had a policy of not checking income. They wanted to sell as many loans as they could. They encouraged their loan officers to show their customers how to lie on the loan application.

Interest rates were keep low. Alan Greenspan has said he keep interest rates too low to keep our economy from tanking during Bush's rein. Cheapo money fueled scams.

Why become informed? Be lazy. Only listen to Talk radio and Fox. All the time you were casting stones at us liberals conservatives were stealing us blind.
Gus Talwynd | 11:52 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Wishful thinking on the part of the letter writer. It appears never to disappoint that when McCain/Palin lost the 2008 election, the losers began to hope for Obama's failure as verification that the wrong person was elected.

Saying that a program will fail, prior to program even being implemented, is like telling a child will fail regardless of how that child is doing. This only plants the seed so that if failure occurs, the speaker (parent, relative, or acquaintance saying the child will fail) can say: "See, I told you. That child is a failure and won't amount to anything."

This is simply a complete lack of self-image or self-confidence on the part of the speaker. Since the speaker is afraid of failure, he/she trys to place that burden on the child or object of their criticism.

Supporters of the current administration (the few that remain, anyway) secretly want Obama to fail to draw attention away from their own favorite's (i.e. Bush's) failures. This is infantile, of course, and is in the same vein as cutting off one's nose to spite their face. Somehow their self-respect finds renewal in criticism others before there is really anything substantive to criticize.
Anonymous | 11:56 a.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Hard to believe there are STILL neocon ideological supporters out there who insist Sarah Palin would be a great president.
How incredibly stupid!
Just what have the neocons won?
They lost public prayer in school.
They lost censorship of ... everything.
They lost overturing Roe v Wade.
And these losers congregate around the far-right talk radio shows believing they have some sort of power over America.
LOL!
conservatives | 12:09 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
don't want Obama to fail because that would be bad for conservatives and their families.

On the other hand, Liberals always wanted Bush to fail despite the suffering that would cause to their families. liberalism is a mental disorder! MS

You libs don't understand that Bush was just a lib in sheeps clothing. Now we have Bush and Obama both promoting the same idea, that being the urgency to spend taxpayer money they don't have, and don't have the right to spend liberally, like they do. They are crying about the URGENCY to spend the bail out (politico power grab) NOW!!!
Anonymous | 12:26 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
The conservatives posting on this subject voted for the worst president ever but will never admit to it.
We tried to warn them 8 and 4 years ago but their weird alliance with Rush O'Hannity told them what to do.

And now they are whining like babies refusing to accept any responsibility for the sad situation America is now in.
well david | 1:25 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Glad to see your magical ability to predict the future has once again proved completely useless.
Guess what?? You better HOPE Obama's plan works. Why on earth would you want him to fail? Just so you and your radical repub friends can be right? Sounds an awful lot like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Hypocrisy | 1:29 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
@ Redshirt 10:18

You are absolutely correct. I should have written a Republican controlled Congress and not a Conservative.

I'm interested to understand as to why some people feel that by giving businesses tax cuts, that "trickle down" effect will actually happen.

It seems to me, while under so many economic problems right now, that many businesses horde the money and it stays at the top. For example, if we give AIG 10 billion dollars in tax cuts, what guarantee will us, the tax payers have, that the 10 billion will be used for:

A. Job Creation
B. Cheaper Prices for us
C. Better service

And not just used to fatten the already overflowing wallet of some CEO?

Until we find a way to manage the money we give out to corporations, we shouldn't give them additional tax breaks at all. Sorry Cooperate America, but you've lost our trust with your foolishness. Until you gain the confidence of the Consumers back, I want all tax breaks to be kept with the working class of this country, which is what truly drives this country.
We don't need anymore rich CEOs to rip us off even more.
Lionheart | 2:10 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
@Anonymous: 11:06: The money forced on the banks by the treasury was in October 2007. It completely failed as a stimulus for the reasons I stated in addition to the market participants reading of the government intervention as a danger to their assets. A far bigger danger than any Maddoff ripoff.

@ Anonymous: 12:26: The fact that Bush double-crossed the conservatives just as his Dad did, is not a surprise, as another poster said, Bush is a lib in sheep's clothing. Conservatives have never agreed with Bush II economics other than tax cuts. Government perscription, deficit spending, and the baloney bailout, are all Democrat lite. The Republican party sold it's soul after Gringrich. That doesn't mean that a conservative is going to go for the socialist agenda of the demos. We haven't had a candidate in years. I'll accept responsibility for a great deal of economic success over the past 8 years, and a win in Iraq, now will you step up to the plate when the government coffers are bare and we have rampant inflation, or will you blame that on conservatives?
KM | 2:37 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
This economy is run on oil. Our new administration has decided we don't need that much oil. Watch this year when oil gets to record high levels and see how our jobs and economy react.

If I were president I would let the free market take care of this recession, lower tax rates across the board, level the playing field with partners around the globe. But, we now have a true socialist in charge of the executive, legislative and soon to be judicial branches of our govt. Welcome to the soon to be third world country of the USA.
GWB | 2:35 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Interesting comments.

Obama being compared to Hitler now. That is a new one.

The need for new tax credits to create jobs. Same old Republican drivel we have heard since 1980 when Reagan took over. What has 28 years of Republican deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy gotten us? A huge debt and the highest unemployment since Reagans time.

Last weeks numbers said the unemployment rate was the same now as 1993 when we finished the Reagan Bush years.

And to KM, when you say "Businesses need to have incentives to continue to stay in business" isn't making money to support the owners incentive?

I thought Conservatives liked the free market? Why should anyone need an incentive to stay in business?

If IBM doesn't want to do something because they cant make enough, there will be small business who will do it.

If a business owner can't make enough to do something, perhaps we shouldn't be doing that in the first place.

That is what the free market is all about.





peperlake | 2:37 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
David you are brainwashed from listening to hannity and limbaugh if you think Obama sounded like Hitler.

oh by the way, Bush is the one who wanted to just give the money away to corporations without any oversight.

now that is facsist like Hitler.

of course if you are a limbaugh and hannity fan you don't really know for yourself what Fascism means, or you wouldn't be so prone to buying into one side of the propaganda wheel.
Anonymous | 4:36 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
When are our members of the modern American conservative movement going to realize that America at large soundly rejected their BS last November?
S H | 5:39 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
I found it so interesting that here in this state an "R" next to someone' name means that they are good and that an "D" means that they are evil. I was laughing out loud on Friday when I read that Cheney said that he and President Bush never saw this economic crisis coming. Anyone with any common sense could have seen this crisis coming 2 years ago with the meltdown of the housing market. Most of what this letter writer said was down right laughable since all of it pertained to President Bush and his lack of leadership. Obama at least has a plan which is far more than can be said for President Bush. Allow Obama to implement his plan and see what happens as to whether or not it will succeed. He is at least allowed that much before we write him off and toss him out with the bath water.
Anonymous | 5:46 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
The writer is form our domestic terrorist group: conservatives. These terrorist hate so much they would rather see Obama fail, even if it ruins America more than Bush and a conservative congress did.
Anonymous | 6:06 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
The psychological profile of those from the modern American conservative movement is war-mongering.
These pathetically angry souls are mad at the entire world.

When they run out of enemies to direct their hatred towards they even turn on themselves.

And now Bush is a liberal to them. LOL!
Anonymous | 6:20 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Sick to death of conservatives?
Sick to death of Limbaughites?
Sick to death of the polarization caused by them?
Don't worry.
Remember how they got their butts thumped in November?
Agki | 6:30 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
Glendenb: "Tax cuts and other incentives for businesses to invest won't work since demand is insufficient to purchase the products businesses are already making."

Glen, you are on the right track! It is buying products that is the dynamo that makes any economy work! The problem is that the policies of the period from Reagan to now has been aimed at neutralizing or destroying the very people who drive the process. The middle and lower classes have experienced a stagnation and then a decline in the growth of their disposable incomes and it is their spending that drove the economy. Particularly without a middle class, there can be only minimal purchasing and most of that for essentials (like food and toilet paper) so there will be little left to buy new cars or stereos or computers or anything else. To continue to expect more tax breaks for investors and corporate businesses will change anything is absurd. We've been doing that since Reagan. They can invest all they want but it goes into a black hole unless someone is buying stuff. And I wonder where these guys took their economics classes... never mind, I know, the ninth grade.
@Agki | 9:10 p.m. Jan. 12, 2009
What are you proposing? That the lower classes start taking some iniciative and aquire some form of entreprenurial spirit. Then start a business, take great personal risk, hire some employees and wait for the stupid libs to regulate and tax them back out of business?
I thought thats what you are proposing.

Strange, very strange!
Agki | 6:02 a.m. Jan. 13, 2009
No! You don't get it. This is the worst time to open a business of any kind excepy maybe a budget counseling business. No one can afford to buy anything at the middle and lower end. It's not the number of businesses or new ones. It's the fact that no one is buying from the businesses that already exist because they don't have enough disposable income. Cut taxes on the middle and working classes as Obama has proposed. Increase their disposable income (or let them have one) so they can buy stuff. When investors see the dynamo restarting and humming along, they'll start opening new businesses and investing in old ones.
@agki | 7:09 a.m. Jan. 13, 2009
The middle and lower classes already don't pay taxes! So, how can we cut anymore taxes from them?
Wait a few months until the gas prices soar again. Then just set up a few wind mills and see how that helps the lower and middle classes.
I'm tired of the Bush-Bashing liberals telling the conservatives to "give Obamas plans a chance to work." Well, he has no plans other than to spend more than his liberal friend, Bush, has spent. Its financial fiscal restraint that is warented! Not the socialistic utopia that the red-diaper-doper-babies are proposing.
Mike R. | 8:43 a.m. Jan. 13, 2009
Remember what happened last time a President promised a chicken in every pot. We got Roosevelt instead. Who extended the Great Depression into the beginnings of World War II by his "economic" policies.
Donovan | 9:11 a.m. Jan. 13, 2009
To @agki

Thank you Mike Savage. Your thinking has been done for you.
RangerGordon | 11:45 a.m. Jan. 13, 2009
LOL--Tax cuts for corporations! Yep, we've heard that one before, David West. And it's that failed trickle-down policy that has resulted in the current mess.
All Fail | 11:47 a.m. Jan. 13, 2009
Every one's plan will fail, I don't care who gets in the presidency. The system is setup so the rich can protect the rich and the congressmen can protect their own personal interests. It's been a while since people in charge actually give half a fig about the average working american. We've been demoted from voting public to pawn pieces in a game we can't get out of.
Agki | 3:21 p.m. Jan. 13, 2009
Gee, what happened to my last comment?

Anyway, Mike R said, "We got Roosevelt instead. Who extended the Great Depression into the beginnings of World War II by his "economic" policies."

Ah, yes, another revisionist historian-standup comedian! It is only in the last few years that this interprettaion has been offered. And it was started by the Conservative Nanny staters who just want people to believe it. If you tell a lie big enough, often enough, some of the people will believe some of it and that's enough. All we need is a crack in the truth for more lies to find a way in.

Or, more artfully (and by an unsuccessful Roosevelt competitor), "By the clever and continued use of propaganda, a people can even be made to mistake heaven for hell and vice versa, the most miserable life for Paradise. What luck for the rulers than men do not think."

Sieg! Heil!

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