Our approval rating

So I was just watching tonight's episode of The Daily Show, and I thought Jon Stewart made a good point during his interview with Austan Goolsbee, chief economist of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He asked Goolsbee if he knew whether, when President Obama watched the town hall meeting coverage, etc. if there were a lot of heavy sighs. In his tongue-in-cheek style, Jon Stewart mused that perhaps our approval rating was going down in the President's eyes. Stewart lamented that Obama expects so much of us, and asked whether we were going to be impeached as a nation.

Comedy aside, I think, as usual, Mr. Stewart has nailed it right on the head. A President who consistently appeals to our higher nature, who calls upon us to contribute positive service to the nation without militaristic populism, is under extreme attack based on little more than patently absurd, paranoid fears that his agenda will create some nightmarish dystopia, that a government health care option would be nothing less than a death sentence to our most vulnerable citizens, that his policies are "socialist" (which they aren't, though personally I'd be happy if they were).

The President should never be exempt from criticism if it is warranted, but what does it say about our national character if this is the level of discourse that is tolerated? Were I Obama, I would be disappointed in the lack of critical thinking expressed by the vociferous members of his opposition, both public and private. To me, that is the real conspiracy here. Our approval rating must surely be low.

reply to post by CrowServo


Last time I looked we didnt have to worry about our approval rating because Obama works for us, just like every President before him.

Also, I dont think that we are running around having some psychotic, unfounded fears. The truth is our nation is near bankruptcy and we got this jackass running around trying to spend even more money on healthcare and go even a step further and demolish what is left of our job base and personal incomes by his cap and trade legislation.

Now if you want to show me how those are some sort of unreal or imaginary fears, they you are welcome to try.

reply to post by CrowServo




Maybe people should begin looking at it from a different perspective, as your post suggests ?

Otherwise, Americans might be suspected of giving the high-five to a president who wages wars on entire populations, yet turn rabid when the next president attempts to lift Americans' game ?

reply to post by St Vaast


Well if you consider it upping our game to make us more Socialist and to further increase government intereference into every aspect of our personal lives and private business then I guess you would see it as a positive.

Originally posted by HotDogNoBun
reply to post by CrowServo

 

Last time I looked we didnt have to worry about our approval rating because Obama works for us, just like every President before him.

Also, I dont think that we are running around having some psychotic, unfounded fears. The truth is our nation is near bankruptcy and we got this jackass running around trying to spend even more money on healthcare and go even a step further and demolish what is left of our job base and personal incomes by his cap and trade legislation.

Now if you want to show me how those are some sort of unreal or imaginary fears, they you are welcome to try.

I'd submit that it is a mutual relationship. We should be able to work together. I'd hoped this would happen after Obama was elected. As a symbol, Obama seemed to represent a healing force in this nation. But old cancers are hard to destroy.

Money needs to be spent to get us out of the mess which was created due to the excesses of previous administrations. The fear that is out there seems nothing short of psychotic, quite frankly, at least at the extreme ends you see represented at these town halls on healthcare reform and the pundits on Fox News. And that very same fear is all over these boards, but since conspiracy theories are fundamentally based upon fear, that is perhaps not surprising.

It is particularly sad to me to see the first President we have had in a long time who actually seems to have positive intentions and the energy and commitment to achieve them attacked based on mythical assumptions about the effects of policies which have not even been given a fair shake. Everywhere I look, I see infantile fears about a healthcare plan which doesn't even exist in a final form yet, and has nothing within it to support the wild and sensationalistic claims of "death panels" and the like.

Do I blindly follow Obama in everything he does? No. For example, I do not think he is as supportive of gay rights as he could be. And I think he would do well to be even more "liberal." I'd prefer a true socialist, quite honestly, but Obama is no socialist.

reply to post by CrowServo

Money needs to be spent to get us out of the mess which was created due to the excesses of previous administrations.

Really? Have you ever heard of any family or business getting themselves out of a financial mess by spending more money and getting further and further in debt.

What needs to happen is a massive pearing down of government and government spending. Then maybe after we paid the debt down a bit, they could reduce taxes so that we could actually compete in a global market.

Originally posted by CrowServo
Money needs to be spent to get us out of the mess which was created due to the excesses of previous administrations.

Please explain how spending money you don't have somehow lessens your debt. If I tried that with my credit cards, I would soon find my limit maxed out and my credit cut off. Yet somehow it's supposed to work for the government?

Maybe it's just my horrible math, but excess spending cannot be fixed by excess spending. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that.

Did you guys forget already? Geesh!

Lib's have a special calulator just for them.

No matter what numbers they add or subtract, it always just gives them a thumbs up.

reply to post by j2000


LOL, that is strange. I have a different calculator that whenever I use it to calculate their numbers it causes two different fingers of mine to raise and face them.

Well, Goolsbee seemed pretty optimistic. We can't just shut down spending - nothing will be accomplished then. "Two wrongs don't make a right," well, I've got another cliche for you - "You've got to spend money to make money." This is an investment in our future. Healthcare costs have risen so sharply over the past decade, and will only continue to do so if we keep going along this path. Obama is not looking at next year, or two years from now, or even at his second term - he is looking 10 or 15 years down the line and how our healthcare costs will kill the economy just as they will kill us unless we make sure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable coverage.

This is why he is pushing so aggressively to get this done now. It will be far less costly in the long run. The full results may take time to show up, but from what I have seen, the President and his administration are doing everything they can to heal these crises.

reply to post by CrowServo


I have an older cliche for you...
You got to have money
To spend money
To make money.

How exactly do you think this government run healthcare is going to save a dime? So you are going to give millions of people coverage that dont have coverage and its going to be cheaper?

AND

I guess when you say they have done everything they can to heal the crisis that you are assuming they are illiterate and so reading their own legislation would not be included in doing everything THEY CAN.

[edit on 12-8-2009 by HotDogNoBun]

Originally posted by HotDogNoBun
reply to post by CrowServo

 

I have an older cliche for you...
You got to have money
To spend money
To make money.

How exactly do you think this government run healthcare is going to save a dime? So you are going to give millions of people coverage that dont have coverage and its going to be cheaper?

AND

I guess when you say they have done everything they can to heal the crisis that you are assuming they are illiterate and so reading their own legislation would not be included in doing everything THEY CAN.

[edit on 12-8-2009 by HotDogNoBun]

I didn't say they have done everything - I said they ARE doing everything they can. Btw, I am not including Congress in this, which is the real problem.

We DO have money. It's all illusory anyway. Money is nothing more than energy, and debt is not the same thing as being broke. If that were true, my entire paycheck would be going to my student loans.

It will be cheaper in the long run to have a government option for healthcare, because people are spending ever greater percentages of their income on healthcare. That, in turn, is money not fueling the economy in productive ways. And when people are dead because their insurance company dropped them due to "pre-existing conditions," they are not exactly good consumers.

What is the alternative? Continue with private insurance companies which have no loyalty to anyone or anything except their profits? And in any event, they're not going away, so what is the big deal? It's a boogeyman, nothing more.

Our approval rating?

Let me see.

Did 8 years serving my country voluntarily with an unblemished record...check

Have been paying taxes since I started working nearly 30 years ago.....check.

Have obeyed the law and never been a burden to society or the taxpayers...check.

Have exercised my right to vote........check.

Have always paid my debts and kept my spending in check......check.

Have never asked anyone else to pay for my bills, healthcare, mortgage, food, education, transportation or personal belongings......check.

Have donated money time and effort to charity, government service and community.....check

Yeah, I'm obviously not going to be high up on a politicians approval list.

We've got nothing in common.

Originally posted by CrowServo
It will be far less costly in the long run.

How? How will adding more debt to the debt we already have somehow save us money? I know the government's been printing it like it grows on trees, but it really doesn't work that way. If it did I'd have a money tree farm in my back yard and I'd be paying someone else doing my typing right now.

You really want to see health-care costs decreased? Tort reform. Less costs for doctors and insurance companies over petty and frivolous lawsuits means lower costs for consumers. Open up competition for insurance companies. If people in New York could purchase the same policy as someone in a state that pays less per year for insurance, insurance companies will be forced to lower their prices or go out of business.

The government can't even control excess spending and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, and they somehow think they're going to keep costs down with universal health-care? The thought would make me laugh if it wasn't so sad.