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2/25/2009 3:20:55 AM
2/25/2009 3:28:44 AM
As usual with any politician's speech, Obama's was full of errors and misleadings...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090225/ap_on_go_pr_wh/fact_check_obamaOBAMA: "We have launched a housing plan.... It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, THE FACTS: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said it's important to save those who made bad calls, for the greater good. OBAMA: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."THE FACTS: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining slightly since. OBAMA: "We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade." THE FACTS: Although 10-year projections are common in government, they don't mean much. And at times, they are a way for a president to pass on the most painful steps to his successor, by putting off big tax increases or spending cuts until someone else is in the White House. Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now. OBAMA: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day." THE FACTS: This may be so, but it isn't only Republicans who pushed for deregulation of the financial industries. The Clinton administration championed an easing of banking regulations, including legislation that ended the barrier between regular banks and Wall Street banks. That led to a deregulation that kept regular banks under tight federal regulation but extended lax regulation of Wall Street banks. OBAMA: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them....THE FACTS: First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do, because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list
2/25/2009 10:57:21 AM
2/25/2009 3:53:07 PM
2/25/2009 4:04:11 PM
2/25/2009 4:37:53 PM
2/25/2009 7:23:25 PM
2/25/2009 8:01:41 PM
2/25/2009 8:10:40 PM
2/25/2009 8:55:38 PM
2/25/2009 8:58:16 PM
Speech last night showed how elitist Jindal is. He thinks the average american is so stupid that he put on this ridiculous act that treated us like retards.
2/25/2009 9:39:06 PM
anybody got a good streaming link to that speech???
2/25/2009 10:54:24 PM
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/best_of_youtube/2009/02/video_bobby_jindal_speech_resp.htmlJust listened to the first half of it, and I don't think he did badly. His voice sounds like the narrator to a children's cartoon, and I think he framed himself too much as an immigrant, but I think his speech will resonate well in a genuine way with the existing Republican base.[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 11:07 PM. Reason : ]
2/25/2009 10:56:58 PM
2/28/2009 1:37:19 PM
2/28/2009 3:11:53 PM
2/28/2009 3:42:16 PM
yes, aaronburro is clearly the choir
2/28/2009 3:59:22 PM
2/28/2009 4:10:14 PM
CAPITALIST ANARCHY
2/28/2009 4:26:31 PM
what am I talking about? Well, mainly Fannie, Freddie, and company. Gotta love em
3/1/2009 12:22:13 PM
I've never watched a state of the union response before, but does it always sound like such a campaign? I felt like he should have been wearing a button saying "Vote for me, 2012!!!" in large print.
3/1/2009 6:13:05 PM
3/1/2009 7:33:39 PM
Fannie and Freddie are a conservative talking point and scapegoat. There is plenty of blame to go around, and Fannie and Freddie deserve their fair share of it, but their share is overstated by Republicans simply trying to blame everything on the government. After all, Fannie/Freddie were not on the front lines and never sold a single mortgage to anybody in the country.
3/1/2009 7:47:13 PM
yes, but they sure as hell bought up a ton of them. You don't that if they weren't around to buy up those bad mortgages that people would have thought twice about making them in the first place?
3/1/2009 7:56:50 PM
Fannie and Freddie were late to the game in consuming CDOs. This has been rehashed and put to bed on this site already, only late to the party ignorants like burro don't know it.
3/1/2009 9:13:19 PM
ummm. It's common knowledge that Fannie and Freddie bought mortgages from other companies. thx for playing
3/1/2009 9:21:13 PM
This section was smarter collectively when you weren't posting in it.
3/1/2009 10:02:45 PM