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by Niall O'Dowd

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comment on article 27 Comments
Posted on Tuesday, September 07, 2010 at 03:32 PM


Is Barack Obama finally getting the message on jobs?


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Is Barack Obama finally getting the message?

His proposal for massive public works, rebuilding highways, train tracks and airport infrastructure may be too little too late.

I mean what took him so long?

This addresses the most vital need for so many -- a chance at a job.

Such jobs can also remove the huge negativity that the word 'government' carries around with it these days.

It is intriguing to note how government has become the fall guy in people's eyes, even though it was a lack of government oversight that led to the Wall Street excesses that caused this mess to begin with.

Fox News and Co. have been very effective in painting government as the problem not the solution.

And Obama has gone right along with that.

A massive jobs program on rebuilding the nation's infrastructure should have been the very first program announced in last year's stimulus package.

It is something people can see, feel, kick,, and understand what a regular pay check would do for thousands of unemployed in every state.

Alas, Obama listened to muddled financial advice that somehow put other projects, none of which has the clarity of the Labor Day announcement that he was putting people to work

'It's the unemployment stupid' is the reality of this election season and Obama has at last moved to address it.

Whether it is too late remains to be seen.


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Posted by maloney on Sep 13, 2010, 01:46 PM EDT
The dems were in power pretty much from 2006 on. They went along or were behind most of the trash happening. Freddie & Fannie were dems. 100%. yes you were right about one thing, the dems. have spent trillions & have accomplished absolutally nothing other than line the pockets of obummer & his supporters. Repubs. have some blame but they can't touch acorn & the rest for abuse & corruption.
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Posted by McNamara31 on Sep 13, 2010, 10:47 AM EDT
Maloney ....If a bunch of arsonists come in and burn down the city; do you blame the firemen who come in and put the fire out? It cost trillions to clean up the mess from the prior 8 years of Bush mismanagement and deregulation that was rolled forward onto this administration.
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Posted by maloney on Sep 12, 2010, 11:48 PM EDT
mc31...whip lash obummer has went through more money in less than 2 years than Bush did in 8. That's in NEW spending. Who knows what he has done to existing funding for bills, projects & other things that already existed b4 he came into office. He still want's to pass cap & tax & do immigration amnesty which will destroy America if passed.
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Posted by Monsoonman on Sep 11, 2010, 12:12 PM EDT
McNamara: Did you not understand the words coming out of my machine? NOTHING could be done by Bush without the support and acquiescence of the democrats. Of course 150K troops were needed in Iraq because saddam hussein had a massive army, Afghanistan had no army...Remember the leader of the democrats, John F. Kerry, who sat on the intelligence committee voted to put forces in Iraq, he saw everything Bush did...Hindsight is 20/20 when you remember what happened.
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Posted by McNamara31 on Sep 11, 2010, 09:19 AM EDT
Monsoonman....Only now (hindsight) do we actually know the factual stories of Iraq and Afghanistan. In years “directly after” the attack of 911, there were fewer than 10,000 troops on the ground in pursuit of Bin Laden the criminal who orchestrated 911, while there were over 150,000 on the ground in Iraq. Why? All Americans in the time after 911 could only form their opinions based on what was being “fed” from the Bush Whitehouse, including those in the house and senate. I’m not in any way glossing over the facts; I’m looking at them in their true context.
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Posted by IrishAndProud on Sep 10, 2010, 10:36 PM EDT
McNamara, what are you talking about? We've seen NO job growth over this past summer, and have only been losing tens of thousands of jobs every month! The unemployment rate (which you yourself mentioned) has been going up, up, up -- and it doesn't even count those who've ceased looking for work. Not a single, solitary net job has been produced under Obama...not one.
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Posted by Monsoonman on Sep 10, 2010, 08:54 PM EDT
McNamara: I think Maloney pretty much summed up what happened during the bush years, you seem to want to gloss over the fact that the democrats, if not in control of the house and senate during that time, had numbers close enough to stop/stifle/amend anything bush and the republicans wanted to do. Renmember they had the power of the filibuster during all of the time they were in the minority and used it.
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Posted by McNamara31 on Sep 10, 2010, 08:39 PM EDT
Maloney....One was a war of "just" cause Afghanistan, and one was a war of Bush's "choice" Iraq, neither was paid for and rolled forward for future generations to pay. The SEC deregulation that fed and enabled the financial/CDO crisis was the greatest factor in the crash, and done during the Bush administration allowing the banks to increase their debt to capital ratio's up from the existing 12 to 1; up to 40 to 1, allowing the banks to take on massive amounts of debt then bundled into CDO's.The man who really caused America's hell, is sitting in some backyard in Texas and another man is being framed for it.
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Posted by maloney on Sep 10, 2010, 07:54 PM EDT
mc31...Yes Bush made several mistakes, had many in his own party mad as hell. But, when he took over it wasn't long & 9/11 happened. Only to find out our military had been stripped & gutted by the clinton admin, creating a huge surplus for the first time in year. The army had to be rebuilt whether he did anything or not. No one knew what was coming next. We needed a modern military. The dems. took over the house & senate in 2006 with dodd & barney frank leading fannie & freddy. Try as you may you can't put it all on bush. Yes he did do tarp, one last slap in the face to the American public.
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Posted by McNamara31 on Sep 10, 2010, 12:05 PM EDT
Monsoonman.....We know we both come at this issue from different political perspectives. Mine is based on the readily known fact that the previous administration accumulated debt so great it brought America to the brink of a "full out" depression, as great or greater than 1929 because of its global implications. I get sickened each day by the rhetoric that attempts to divert the American voter away from the very real problems and place their attention on the conjured up smear of the day. The facts are: when this president came into office “this country had bled 4 million jobs in the 6 months “prior” to him taking office.” That number then grew to 6 million, in the first few months. That is a Titanic amount of debt and job losses caused by the Bush policies. Yes, we have national unemployment of 9.7% however we have also seen positive job growth for the last 8 months. The opposition is doing nothing to help this situation than obstruct and undermine at every turn. We need steady long term planned growth....We do not need to return the reins in November to the “very people and policies who are to blame for our financial ruin” and are now planning to further increase the national debt by 700 billion dollars in tax breaks to those making more than$250.000 dollars.
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Posted by IrishAndProud on Sep 10, 2010, 01:28 AM EDT
That and his 'typical white person' remark (speaking of his own grandmother who only RAISED him, for crying out loud), and of course 'spread(ing) the wealth around', etc. He's let slip a lot of little things that reveal his inner man...few of them attractive. And even with the OVERT stuff, he's governing against the majority's will, day after day after day, nonstop, nonstop, nonstop. No wonder the more people are exposed to him, the less they like him -- and the more confused they get on certain things about just who he is and what he believes (hence the growing number of people who now think he's a Muslim and/or foreign-born. Those numbers haven't exactly been shrinking).
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Posted by Monsoonman on Sep 10, 2010, 12:35 AM EDT
I think obama pretty much summed up his feeling for the American hayseeds when he was caught in a non teleprompter moment, talking off the cuff to his fawning san francisco elite crowd that the dummies out here just want to cling to their religion and guns...
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Posted by IrishAndProud on Sep 09, 2010, 09:27 PM EDT
Well, Obama's getting the message -- but whether or not to an extent needed to rescue his sorry political hide is another story. He's already (all of a sudden, too) talking about extending the Bush tax cuts...talk about doing a 1-80 in an election year conversion. But he, and certain of his lackeys on this post, are grasping at air as they flail away in quicksand. The Dems are going down...and it goes way, WAY beyond America's most-watched network (Fox) or the GOP alone (vastly more people oppose the Democrats than are members of the GOP)...sorry, McNamara but facts are facts. You want Obama to succeed and be liked, just because he's a 'progressive' -- but it ain't happening. Not anymore. And treating the American majority as just a bunch of dumb-ss hayseed hicks who will believe anything they hear (never mind that they're the ones who actually do the working and paying in this country) is not a good way of countering their annoying little activism which threatens left-wing power. Just ask the Dems -- it's just one of the numerous major reasons they're in deep sheep dip, this year.
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Posted by Monsoonman on Sep 09, 2010, 07:50 PM EDT
I think the GOP can easily win on the facts: 9.7% national unemployment rate..Some states are 14%. Record deficits. Far left agenda, totally out of synch with main stream America. Over regulation and cap and trade a very unpopular socialist health care plan, passed in a most unscrupulous manner....Yes these are just a few of the facts that are going to be the democrats coffin nails.
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Posted by McNamara31 on Sep 09, 2010, 12:08 PM EDT
pflynn70.... "communists in the White House" The ones who really want you to believe the stuff in your post are the GOP, who fully know, they can't win on facts, so they attempt to win with smear. And sadly, many will follow the “pied pipers” of Fox News to the ballot box in November and America will be set back again.
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Posted by maireadinmelb on Sep 09, 2010, 06:05 AM EDT
What about American muslims those who exercise the constitutional right of freedom of religious practice!!
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Posted by maireadinmelb on Sep 09, 2010, 06:05 AM EDT
Your economy was destroyed by the billions of dollars a day committed to unnecessary wars accross the globe and the largesse and lack of responsiblity for decisions on wall street!! Obama inherited a country that resembled a train wreck! he is just trying to get the economy moving you need to spend money to make money!! At least Obama is spending it in AMERICA!! And Bush and his patriot act and illegal prisons are what destroyed your constitution!!!
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Posted by maloney on Sep 08, 2010, 10:05 PM EDT
Maggie...everyone will pay for heroin addiction & colonostopys whether you have or need it or not, along with tons of other things. Think how happy you will be after Fox helps wax the dems. out of Washington in Nov. Then HOLY obama in 2012. Jobs or no, we may be able to save the country after all hopefully. Then work on running the muslims & below the border trash out of the country.
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Posted by maggiemccarthy on Sep 08, 2010, 09:31 PM EDT
Congratulations to Fox News and its owner,Rupert Murdoch, for the fantastic job they are doing in the media for the naive and uninformed!
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Posted by maggiemccarthy on Sep 08, 2010, 09:28 PM EDT
Although Barack Obama should have been more proactive than reactive in his 19 months in office, the majority of American corporations in this country moved their production to offshore locations. Most corporations do not pay U.S. income tax either, so with nearly 15 million jobs moved to other countries and no tax income collected for corporations, tax cuts for the top 15% of the population, and two wars going on, I feel Obama thought he would start with health care as so many in this country needed it at the time. Apparently the 43 million who need it, will probably not get it. If/When the Republicans win,I am sure the Republicans will come up with great jobs immediately.
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Posted by pflynn70 on Sep 08, 2010, 11:14 AM EDT
Just look at what Obama has accomplished. Un-employment @9.6% He has dis-mantled our Constitution He has aligniated all our Allies like UK & Israel He jammed Health Care down our throats Brought our country to it's kneee's financially Has communists in the White House.The list goes on& on.
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Posted by jamieLM on Sep 08, 2010, 09:12 AM EDT
Lots of construction jobs for the union guys who vote Democratic and that's about it.
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Posted by maireadinmelb on Sep 08, 2010, 08:46 AM EDT
It worked in Australia and at least if people are getting a wage they will spend money - Get people spending and you will get money moving through the economy!
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Posted by Monsoonman on Sep 08, 2010, 01:18 AM EDT
public sector
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Posted by Monsoonman on Sep 08, 2010, 12:16 AM EDT
obama took care of his union buddies in the private sector that's where most of the "stimulus" taxpayer money went to make sure the union dues were paid so it could go directly into democrat campaign coffers.
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Posted by emer333 on Sep 07, 2010, 10:04 PM EDT
Pennsylvania is very hard hit in need of jobs. Locally, the large transportation grant "putting ppl to work" employees many ppl from several states more south. You can hear the southern accents when they speak. We are still in trouble.
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Posted by maloney on Sep 07, 2010, 07:45 PM EDT
O'Dowd... I got 2 words for ya. Hell no.
 




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