Gaffe-Prone Campaign Does It Again (Twice)

(The picture above is from the photostream of the prolific DonkeyHotey.)

Old Wall Street Willie (aka Willard Mitt Romney) sometimes acts like he doesn't have a clue as to what's important to the average voter (or even the base GOP voter). It's not that he doesn't try to make himself look like an ordinary American -- but somehow, when he tries it just seems to emphasize the fact that he has spent his whole life as a rich man with special privileges.

For example, he tried to tell a Florida crowd that he understood what they felt being unemployed because he was also unemployed. It didn't register on him that he was still making over $21 million a year while not working, while they were worrying about how they would pay their bills and put food on the table for their families. His situation and that of most unemployed people are certainly far from comparable.

Then he comes up with the statement that he "likes to fire people". he was trying to make a point about insurance companies and choice, but it was an extremely stupid statement to make in a country where 13 to 20 million people are either unemployed or underemployed (and with little prospect to improve their situation anytime soon). The statement also seemed to highlight his actions at Bain Capital (when he destroyed many jobs) and made him look like a hard-hearted person.

Those are just a couple of examples of Romney campaign gaffes, and they should have been enough to convince him (and his campaign aides) that talking without thinking through what was being said was a problem that they needed to address. But evidently it wasn't. Just this last week the campaign did it again -- twice.

First it was Romney himself, as he told a crowd that it was George Bush (not Barack Obama) who prevented a depression with his actions in 2008. This fails on a couple of levels. First, a large majority of Americans still justifiably blame Bush for creating the recession. Second, the only thing Bush did was spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street banks. Romney may think that bailout was great, but that's not a statement that will help him with the teabaggers in the GOP base (who were passionately opposed to the bailout).

They are still mad at Bush for bailing out Wall Street while millions of jobs were being lost (and ordinary Americans got nothing). With that statement, he also ties himself even closer the failed economic policies of George Bush and Wall Street. That's a move guaranteed to drive away Independents, who are looking for solutions -- not a return to the policies of the past.

Then Romney's advisor, Eric Fehrnstrom, goes on CNN and assures Americans that Romney is indeed a flip-flopper. When asked if Romney had moved too far to the right to appeal to most voters in the coming general election, Fehrnstrom said, "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

It's my understanding that one of the major reasons the Republican base has not climbed on the Romney bandwagon is because they consider him a flip-flopper (who is just acting like a conservative to get the nomination, and will dump those conservative beliefs once he gets it). Fehrnstrom just told them their worst fears were true -- not smart with Romney only having half the delegates he needs to be nominated. The statement can also be taken by Independents to mean Romney is a candidate without any real views, who will say whatever he thinks will get him votes.

It was bad enough when it was just Romney saying stupid things. He certainly didn't need his campaign advisors to join him in that.

Poor Short-Term Memory Or Stupidity ?

Sometimes I have to wonder about the American public. Either they have a very short memory span, they believe what they want to believe or there's just a lot of plain old stupidity. I say this because it seems that nearly half of the American public thinks the $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bailout of the giant financial institutions on Wall Street was done by President Obama.

I guess I should be thankful that they at least place the blame for the recession exactly where it belongs -- on the shoulders of George Bush. Poll after poll show that a majority of the people know Bush's policies brought on the recession (and twice as many blame Bush as blame Obama). That makes it even more puzzling that many people think Obama was responsible for the bailout, which was signed into law by George Bush in 2008.

According to a News IQ Quiz done by the Pew Research Center conducted July 1st through July 5th of 1007 adults, a full 47% thought the TARP bailout had been signed into law by President Obama. And strangely, this political ignorance seems to cross all political lines. I would have thought that Democrats would know better than to blame someone from their own party for this very unpopular bailout, but it seems that a lot of them don't. Here's how it breaks down by party:

% BELIEVING OBAMA SIGNED TARP INTO LAW

Democrats..........46%

Republicans..........50%

Independents..........44%

Frankly I don't know what to make of this. After all, it has been less than two years ago since the bailout was signed into law (October 3, 2008 by BUSH). As unpopular as TARP has proven to be and as much news coverage as it has gotten, it is simply amazing that people are now blaming the wrong president in such a short period of time. Maybe they are confusing Bush's TARP program with President Obama's stimulus program (which, by the way, gave all working people making under $250,000 a minimum of at least a $400 tax cut).

This is something the Democratic Party needs to straighten out. The TARP program is still extremely unpopular with rank-and-file voters in all parties (and among independents), and the Democrats need to continuously pound it into people's brains between now and November that TARP was a REPUBLICAN program signed into law by a REPUBLICAN president. Just straightening this one thing out could be worth thousands of votes in November.

These people may not be the brightest bulbs on America's tree but Democrats cannot continue to let them blame President Obama for something done by his Republican predecessor.

Obama Cracks Down

A couple of years ago, many of the giant financial institutions in this country were in trouble. Their greed and mismanagement had put them in the position of possibly failing, and destroying the American economy. Even though the government bailed them out with the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), their greedy actions were one of the major causes of the serious recession still affecting this country.

It was hoped that once these financial institutions were on firmer ground they would once again begin making low-interest loans to small businesses (and large) and help the country to pull itself out of the recession. In fact, President Obama begged them to do that. It would not only have been a good way for them to repay the American taxpayers for saving them, but they could have made a profit.

But that didn't happen. The government had underestimated the greed of those in charge of those financial institutions. Instead, they once again began paying themselves massive bonus -- bonuses like they had received before the financial troubles. The bonuses averaged well over a half-million dollars and for some even amounted to an eight-figure amount.

Frankly, there is no legitimate excuse for their return to their old greedy behavior, especially in light of the fact that American taxpayers (who are still hurting) had saved their asses. Fortunately, President Obama agrees and is willing to act in behalf of the American people.

President Obama said, "My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. We want our money back and we're going to get it. If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers." He went on to tell the banks, "I'd urge you to cover the costs of the rescue not by sticking it to your shareholders or customers or fellow citizens with the bill, but by rolling back bonuses for top earners and executives."

Since it has become obvious that these companies will not be responsible citizens on their own, the President is proposing a new fee (tax) to curb the greed. The fee would last for a minimum of 10 years and is expected to raise at least $90 billion. If the fee raises more than needed to repay the bailout, the extra would be used to help balance the government's budget. This is how CNN says the proposed fee would work:

The fee would be assessed on an institution's liabilities minus its domestic deposits and core capital, which is the firm's cushion against possible losses. It's designed to tax firms with the greatest leverage, which is a proxy for how much risk the firm is taking in the markets.

The fee would be approximately 0.15% of a firm's covered liabilities. So, for example, a firm with $1 trillion in assets minus $100 billion in core capital and $500 billion in deposits, would leave it with $400 billion in covered liabilities. Consequently the firm would be charged approximately $600 million for the fee. (0.15% x $400 billion).

The administration estimates that roughly 50 companies will have to pay the fee, of which 20 to 27 would be banking institutions, according to the official. Roughly 35 would be U.S. companies and the rest would be the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies.

Of course the greedmongers are already whining about the proposed fee. President of the Financial Roundtable Steve Bartlett said, "This proposed tax will do nothing more than stifle economic recovery and encumber more pressing concerns, such as covering new regulatory costs." But that argument simply won't wash. They aren't using this money to help the economy or saving it to help cover regulatory costs. They are just greedily stuffing it into their own pockets.

I support the president's new proposal. I just hope that Congressional Democrats have the political will and courage to actually get it passed.

The New Welfare Line

Political Cartoon is by R. J. Matson in The New York Observer.

No Bitterness Here !

Picture is from Dependable Renegade via Wild Chihuahuas.

Bail-Out Could Be A Trap For Democrats

The biggest news happening right now is the president's proposed $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street. I don't like the bail-out and consider it to be a bad idea, but I'm smart enough to know that it's probably going to happen. Furthermore, it may even be true that this horrible idea is necessary to keep the American economy from spiraling downward into a deeper recession (or even a depression).

Right now, it looks like most Democrats and a few Republicans have agreed to approve the bail-out with some changes to protect the American people. These changes were needed, and make the bail-out barely palatable. There is probably enough of Congress on board to approve it, but that should not happen.

Currently, a majority of House Republicans oppose the plan. This opposition is laying a trap for Democrats. A clear majority of Americans either oppose or don't understand the bail-out and why it needs to happen.

The Republicans are the ones who sold out to Wall Street. They are the ones who removed regulations and refused to allow oversight. The Republicans have the primary responsibility for creating the current economic crises, and Democrats should not let them off the hook.

If the Democrats pass this huge bail-out without at least a majority of Republicans supporting it, the Republicans will just go to the electorate and use this as an example of Democrats being "big spenders". That must not happen. The Republicans created the problem and they must participate in the solution -- especially since the solution is so unpopular.

There is only one way for Democrats to avoid this electoral trap. They must stick together and refuse to approve the bail-out until the Republicans are on board. If the Republicans continue their opposition, then the bail-out should not be approved before the election.

Since the Republicans screwed up the economy, they must either join Democrats in fixing it or take the blame for further economic troubles. Anything less lets them off the hook and makes the Democrats look like the bad guys.

With the election only a little over a month away, we cannot let that happen.

(The political cartoon above is by Daryl Cagle at MSNBC.com)

Is The Bailout A Good Deal ?

I have put off writing this for several days, because I wanted to see if I could come up with any kind of justification for Bush's plan to bail out Wall Street. But I can't. I don't replace the losses of Las Vegas gamblers with my own hard-earned money, and I can see no reason why I would want to bail out the Wall Street gamblers (just because they like to call themselves "businessmen").

These are today's "robber barons". They have made it their mission to pay off this Republican administration to remove the rules and regulations that were put in place to protect investors. Then they made a series of bad decisions designed to do only one thing -- push up the value of stock and fatten their own pocketbooks with no thought given to tomorrow.

The short-term profit was everything and the long-term be damned. Although they kept telling the small investor to leave their money in the market and think long-term, the rich didn't think that axiom applied to them.

Well, those deregulation mistakes and bad decisions have now come home to roost. Many of the big banking, investment, mortgage and insurance companies are looking bankruptcy squarely in the face, and they want the government (American people) to bail them out by giving them enormous sums of money.

I think they have a lot of gall to think they deserve this money, especially since they don't want to have to give up anything to get it. These are the same people who oppose unions, the minimum wage, universal healthcare, social security and help for the poor.

They're unwilling to pay their fair share of taxes and help out the millions of Americans who are having a hard time making ends meet, but they think they deserve $700 billion to $1 trillion of taxpayer money. Well, I don't think they deserve it!

The bail-out program Bush is asking for is outrageous. He wants the government to hand over $700 billion to the Treasury Secretary to use as he sees fit with no supervision. Theoretically, he would use the money to purchase the bad debts these companies have created for themselves, but without oversight from courts, Congress or any administrative agency.

Outrageous! We've known Bush was incompetent for a while now, but this exceeds incompetence. I think he's progressed to full-blown insanity. In his desire to bail out his rich buddies, Bush is ready to give them the keys to the United States Treasury.

But while I oppose the bail-out, it looks like many members of both political parties are buying into it. They have fallen for the line that these companies are "too big" to allow them to go under. I would like for Congress to kill this ridiculous program, but I think the best we can hope for is that Congress puts some conditions on the money.

If we're going to buy up the bad debt, we should get a controlling interest in the companies. The current management should be fired (without any golden parachutes), and government regulators should run the companies until they can be sold.

The money given out should be subject to oversight from Congress, appropriate administrave agencies and the court system. New regulations should be written that will prevent this from happening in the future. And personally, I would like to see corporations banned from lobbying the federal government.

Even if all that was accomplished, it's still a bad deal for taxpayers, but I have little faith in the good sense of Congress and none in the Bush administration. It will probably be approved without nearly enough oversight.

(Political Cartoon above is by Patrick Chappatte.)