Pelosi Briefs Bloggers on Jobs and War
By Don | November 27, 2009
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi briefed lefty bloggers on the need for job creation and war funding.
From the Politico
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s weekly tele-chat with liberal bloggers is usually a low-news affair, but Tuesday’s pre-Thanksgiving installment had the speaker throwing down the gauntlet all over the place — especially on the need for job creation.
The speaker — beset by nasty poll data showing congressional Democrats 7 points down in the generic midterm ballot — is acutely aware of the need to turn the economy around, even if it means punting on deficit reduction, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s post-health-reform agenda.
And she claims the economy can “absorb” a larger deficit if it means more jobs — a turn of phrase coming to a GOP attack ad near you.
IT’S THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE, STUPID. Unveiling a strategy likely to define the Democratic ’10 agenda, Pelosi evoked the specter of the 1937-1938 “Roosevelt Recession,” which many historians believe resulted from too quick a pullback in New Deal spending. The speaker, via Think Progress:
“We’re never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth. We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we’d be labeled not sensitive to the deficit. … The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it. … So if somebody has the idea that the percentage of GDP of what or national debt is will go up a bit, but they will now — and their neighbors and their children — will have jobs, I think they could absorb that.”
She added: “If we pull our punch, as they did in the mid-'30s, we shouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself.”
PAY-FOR WAR. Pelosi was far more fiscally conservative when it came to Afghanistan, expressing sympathy with congressional liberals, including Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who thinks war funding should be subject to Blue Doggish “pay-for” rules.
"I think we have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on," Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the lefty bloggers, according to HuffPo’s Ryan Grim. "There is unrest in our caucus about: Can we afford this war?"
Pelosi qualified her remarks by noting that cost is not the top concern. "I think the American people believe that if it's something that's in our national security interest," she said, the investment is worth it.
But it still has to be paid for, she said. "Everything else has to be paid for. It must be fiscally sound. We have to hold it to the same standard, as well."
Despite Pelosi's statements on job creation all the Democrats have managed to do so far is spend billions on job creation with no improvement in the unemployment rate while increasing the deficit. In the early stages of the Obama administration it was fashionable to blame president Bush for our economic situation but the blame must clearly lie at the feet of the Democrats who have done nothing but throw money at the problem to no avail.
In the meantime they are still spending money like mad on earmarks despite the president's pledge to eliminate them and haggling over how to fund our war efforts.
The hope now is that there will be a change in 2010.
Post #2481
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I would dearly love to know what planet this woman is from? She is part of why the Jobs are not coming, nor will they until Obama and his Administration makes it viable to companies to hire again…they can start by removing the Capital Gains Tax, and putting it back where it was, then give them some tax relief. Befor that happens, their will be very, very little jobs available.
She had the gall to invoke FDR, due to his policies, he extended the Great Deppressison by almost 10 years. This county would have been in worse shape than ever due to out of control spending, and blowing money of worthless projects (sound familure?). The “ONLY” thing that saved this Country during FDR’s reign, was WWII.
The Progressives such as FDR and Obama is not limited to Democrats, but there are more of them throughout history.
Other than this President actually attempting to bring us to a One World Government began with this…
About four months a meeting Obama had with Goldman Sachs’ CEO in Atlanta at the beginning of the year. Someone asked the CEO what he thought of the new Obama administration. The CEO admitted he voted for Obama, but then said how stunned he was at lack of advisors surrounding Obama who had come from the private sector.
In fact, a new study shows Obama has fewer advisors who’ve made a living in the private sector than any other American President in the last 108 years — since the turn of the 20th century when the business of America became business.
This is not to say that the Chief Executive should have private sector experience. And this is not to say that the Chief Executive should employ only people from the private sector. But it is to say that we should not trust a Chief Executive to know how to fix the private sector or “create competition” in health care when there is hardly a person near him who knows anything about job creation.
That is the key. More Americans than every before are on government handouts and the Democrats intend to take over 1/6th of the American economy — health care. This is an administration that has no understanding of and no commitment to the free market and the private sector, both of which are, at best, academic studies to ninety percent of Obama’s top advisors.
The Republican Party should be able to exploit this issue. The American people, at the end of the day, believe in, work in, and want to support the private sector. Contrary to the Obama and New York Times spin that there is no stigma attached to food stamps, the American people do not want to be dependent on the government for their food, health care, or income.
But that is Obama’s solution. To every problem, Obama offers government. He can offer no other because he has surrounded himself with no job creators, no producers, no captains of industry, and no free market champions. That’s not the change the American people were hoping for.
November 28 at 3:06 pm | #1 | Link
I am old enough to remember “Where’s the beef”. I think “Where’s the jobs” is one of those one liners that is coming and which will be impossible to defend against the simple truth in it. Where are the jobs indeed? Suddenly, Pelosi realizes that people working pay the taxes that fund her spending habits. I guess there is nothing like Carternomics to make even the biggest spender a “supply sider”. Which brings us to the other one liner looming out there just waiting it’s turn… “Welcome back Carter”. What goes around comes around.