Economy vs. Killing Bin Laden: Which wa/is more important?

4Horsemen said:

I thought the WOT was all about OIL , not ousting dictators?

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I thought it was about neither, that it was to remove states that supported terrorism and to hunt down terrorist/terrorist groups. If it was/is about oil, then they are doing a damned terrible job of it. It has definitely helped keep terrorist infiltration into the US down and their resources focused on our forces instead of our civilians, but longterm change in the region and oil? Not so good of a job. Hell, if oil was the only reason, just the capacity in Iraq should of been able to forces prices far below what we see now.

Helix said:

the best thing for the economy would have been to bring back the WPA and to pay for it with taxes, in my opinion. there's plenty of infrastructure to fix, and we need a massively expanded electrical grid. that would have been a bottom-up fix, and everyone would have benefited from it. if we hadn't done the REA the first time around, there might not have been electricity in many rural areas until many decades later, if ever.

instead, we got a stimulus that wasn't big enough. it was far better than nothing, though.

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I agree with most of what you say. But when Texas tried to institute Workfare to replace welfare in the state, someone decided it was "indentured servitude" and got it killed off. Think those same welfarist are going to support a new Conservation Corp or WPA structure that requires the welfare recipients to get off their asses and actually work? I don't.

4Horsemen said:

IYO, which was more important? and why?


IMO, Barack's failure to tackle the economy FIRST and get that fixed and back running properly. what he did was put a band aid on a bullet wound(stimulus/obamacare,etc..), and spent his chips on killing bin laden, which if you ask me, bin laden been dead since 2007, but that's another topic.

sound offeace

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The OP, another Fallacious post/abuse of 'Polls'.
Similar to False Choice/False Dichotomy but worse/Goofier.

As if one can't do both at the same time, or as if the cost of getting Bin Laden significantly effected the economy.

The poll section remains the forum of choice/abuse for the worst partisan nonsense.

disneydude said:

Actually....Obama TRIED to focus on the economy much more than he was able to....but if you go back and look at his first year, it was the "Party of NO" that rejected and blocked every effort he made to do so. If he hadn't been obstructed at every level, the economy would have rebounded more than it has. That said....we have now had 40 interrupted months of job growth. The stock markets have doubled since Obama took office and we are on the right path. That certainly beats the hundreds of thousands of jobs which we were hemorraghing when Obama took office, at least in my opinion

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You do know that the democrats held both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the first 2years... so the party of "no" is the democrats I gather?

DVSentinel said:

I agree with most of what you say. But when Texas tried to institute Workfare to replace welfare in the state, someone decided it was "indentured servitude" and got it killed off. Think those same welfarist are going to support a new Conservation Corp or WPA structure that requires the welfare recipients to get off their asses and actually work? I don't.

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i'd say that there would be a lot of support for a renewed WPA from the left, and it doesn't mean that safety nets have to be entirely eliminated. i would guess that a lot of people would take the better paying jobs, though, so there would be significantly fewer people on public assistance. i've heard the "lazy welfare recipients won't work no matter what" meme, and it's basically bunk. those who argue this can generally find a couple inflammatory examples of people who cheat the system, but i've yet to see any evidence that this represents the majority of people on assistance. people will do whatever can make them the most money. if it's a good job, they'll take it.

the sticking point would be the taxes. to fund a program big enough to fix our infrastructure and to make a real dent, taxes would have to go up. under Roosevelt, the top marginal rate was much higher. we wouldn't have to raise it that much, but there is fierce opposition to even returning to the historically low rates of the 1990s.

my guess is that there is almost no chance of a meaningful work program being enacted. our basic choice is to hire people to do essential work or pay them not to. i'd prefer the former, even if it costs me more in taxes. that money will trickle up big time, and i'll benefit from it, as will everyone else.

Rainman05 said:

You do know that the democrats held both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the first 2years... so the party of "no" is the democrats I gather?

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Yes, however, what prevented everything from happening was the refusal of every single Republican to even come to the table and a handful of bluedogs that allowed the Party of No to obstruct everything that Obama tried to do.
Look....that's politics...I understand that. But what is completely dishonest is criticizing Obama for not being able to do anything, when you supported every effort to obstruct.

Its like Chris Rock said: "You criticize Obama for not being able to cure cancer and then you say....so I'm voting for cancer."

disneydude said:

Yes, however, what prevented everything from happening was the refusal of every single Republican to even come to the table and a handful of bluedogs that allowed the Party of No to obstruct everything that Obama tried to do.
Look....that's politics...I understand that. But what is completely dishonest is criticizing Obama for not being able to do anything, when you supported every effort to obstruct.

Its like Chris Rock said: "You criticize Obama for not being able to cure cancer and then you say....so I'm voting for cancer."

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According to your statement, lets see, he was not given a Trillion dollars at the beginning to stimulate job growth? He was not given Billions for investment in Green Energy? He did not get Congress to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall street reform and consumer protection act? He did not get Congress to pass "Obama-care"?

The jobs bills that you are apparently referring to, was he actually told no, or was he told no unless he and the Dems made cuts elsewhere to pay for it? On the debt ceiling, was he actually told no, or was the answer no, unless you make some changes to cut spending?

I would have to say that if the Reps, as you refer to them, are the party of No, they are the party of no, not unless you change something else. Damn them for not letting him have unlimited spending and credit and actually wanting his side to make concession if the Reps were to make some. How utterly terrible of them.

disneydude said:

Yes, however, what prevented everything from happening was the refusal of every single Republican to even come to the table and a handful of bluedogs that allowed the Party of No to obstruct everything that Obama tried to do.
Look....that's politics...I understand that. But what is completely dishonest is criticizing Obama for not being able to do anything, when you supported every effort to obstruct.

Its like Chris Rock said: "You criticize Obama for not being able to cure cancer and then you say....so I'm voting for cancer."

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Dude. There was no needs for the republicans to come to the table in the first 2 years because they weren't needed to pass any law they wanted. And because of that, Obama didn't call them to the table. He only started making real efforts to bring people together after the republicans won the 2010 elections and took more seats in Congress... and then they were needed. I do grant you this... I don't think the leaders of the republican party could have been swayed either way. But there are a whole lot of republicans who aren't unreasonable and who are occupying seats in Congress and there was little effort to try and coop them. Obama dealt with the big boys and the big boys didn't play along... and then he kept on doing the same thing. It was either lack of imagination on his part, or lack of desire. It's easier in election cycle to say: I couldn't do it because of them... and to have ammunition to slurr people... and then use the few great public victories he made to hype the **** out of them and make them seem huge. For a 3.9 tril budget/year, they aren't huge.

He has had other accomplishments. He kept his promises about the Great lakes. He kept his promises about making green jobs. He did those things. But the problem is that some of the promises he kept are also smeared with failures. Like the billions he gave to companies like solyndra and others... companies who were lead by friends of influential democrats... and then those companies went bankrupt a few months later.

DVSentinel said:

According to your statement, lets see, he was not given a Trillion dollars at the beginning to stimulate job growth? He was not given Billions for investment in Green Energy? He did not get Congress to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall street reform and consumer protection act? He did not get Congress to pass "Obama-care"?

The jobs bills that you are apparently referring to, was he actually told no, or was he told no unless he and the Dems made cuts elsewhere to pay for it? On the debt ceiling, was he actually told no, or was the answer no, unless you make some changes to cut spending?

I would have to say that if the Reps, as you refer to them, are the party of No, they are the party of no, not unless you change something else. Damn them for not letting him have unlimited spending and credit and actually wanting his side to make concession if the Reps were to make some. How utterly terrible of them.

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This. Thanks, I waiting on somebody else to explain it to him

mbig said:

The OP, another Fallacious post/abuse of 'Polls'.
Similar to False Choice/False Dichotomy but worse/Goofier.

As if one can't do both at the same time, or as if the cost of getting Bin Laden significantly effected the economy.

The poll section remains the forum of choice/abuse for the worst partisan nonsense.

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thanks for playing.

4Horsemen said:

IYO, which was more important? and why?


IMO, Barack's failure to tackle the economy FIRST and get that fixed and back running properly. what he did was put a band aid on a bullet wound(stimulus/obamacare,etc..), and spent his chips on killing bin laden, which if you ask me, bin laden been dead since 2007, but that's another topic.

sound offeace

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We hired him to fix the economy.
He said he could do it.
Now he is saying it was too hard.
Do we want four more years of excuses?

I don't know if the body of the old man they threw in the ocean before any independent examination was Bin Ladin or not. But if it was Bin Ladin, Obama didn't kill him. Its not an issue to me either way.

It's more an issue of his boasting of killing AL-Qs #2 man, when he was previously in Gitmo and Obama let him go. Then bragged of the military finally re-tracking him down and this time killing him - probably so Obama wouldn't cut him loose again.