Just What Are The "Failed Policies Of Harry Reid And President Obama That The Rethugs Cite?....

[global1]

I keep hearing the Rethugs using that line that they will change the failed policies of Harry Reid and President Obama - but I never hear them say what those failed policies are. It's just a neat talking point and a sound bite for them - and the American People bought it.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. PLEASE answer that. I wonder the same thing. "Reid = obstruction" WTF?

[ChisolmTrailDem]

2. That's the thing, they only have to SAY something and, for their base, it's automatically

true, even if it isn't. The base gets fired up and circles for blood and BAM!, we lose.

Meantime, we tremble like a beaten dog.

[justiceischeap]

3. This is an obvious PR/marketing tactic

It doesn't matter if you can state what the failed policies are only that you repeat with consistency that there are failed policies. When most people here a meme often enough they'll believe it whether or not it's true.

[dawg]

4. We're the only first world economy that has recovered (albeit slowly) from the economic crisis.

Europe looks to be double-dipping toward recession, and Japan is still a mess.

Our moderate stimulus package in 2008, coupled with dovish policies from the Fed, has put us atop the world in terms of economic performance. But does anyone other than economics nerds like me realize that? Of course not.

Things haven't gotten better fast enough, which is not surprising since any hope of further fiscal stimulus died when voters slashed their own economic throats in 2010. But they're too dumb to realize that, and so now they vote to send Obama a message.

[Man from Pickens]

11. BS

There has been no recovery at all, and claiming there has been has probably been the #1 reason why the electorate doesn't trust Democrats right now.

People can see with their own eyes and their own jobs and their own bank accounts that there's no recovery. And people who claim that there has been a recovery are not be trusted by voters.

Claims of recovery go back to early 2009 and it's now almost 2015. At a certain point it became a sick joke and that point is long past.

[dawg]

13. So, do you think the employment reports are all lies?

Do you see everyone's bank account? You sure as heck don't see mine, because things have gotten better for me.

No, the recovery isn't complete. But compared to the rest of the world, we have done very well. And it is precisely because we did not pursue Republican policies of economic austerity.

[Man from Pickens]

17. This is what a recovery looks like

1) Real (not nominal) wages go up
2) The number of new jobs created exceed the number of new entrants into the labor force

Until both of those things are happening at the same time, there is no recovery. A recovery means more jobs and higher wages. Any sort of "recovery" that doesn't include both those things is representative only of the elites pulling more and more money out of the system and piling more and more debt on the poor and middle class.

[dawg]

18. We've had one of those two things for quite some time now.

Job growth has been significantly higher than growth in the number of people in the work force. Hence the reduction in the unemployment rate.

Too many of those jobs don't come with wages that are as high as the jobs that were lost during the Bush recession. But the answer isn't to double back and put the guys in charge that set the house on fire in the first place.

Obama's economic policies have been blocked since 2010. We are lucky to have gotten enough done in those two years to accomplish the mild recovery that has taken place. Europe didn't manage it. The U.K. didn't manage it. They are now below where they were at a similar point during the Great Depression. Austerity is the opposite of what should be done in the face of a slowdown.

Had Obama been able to push liberal, or even centrist, economic policies into law from 2010-2014, you just might have had that robust recovery that you long for (including rising wages).

But voters cut our recovery off at the knees in 2010. And now they want to blame the party that has been unable to implement it's agenda for four years running.

[Man from Pickens]

19. One alone doesn't make a recovery

People taking low-wage jobs because that is all they are qualified to do is not the same economic condition as people taking low-wage jobs because the higher wage jobs for which they are qualified aren't there. The first represents a raise in the standard of living (from no job to having a job) and the latter represents a reduction (from having a good job to having a shitty one).

What has been happening is a LOT of the latter and not so much of the former. That's what happens when a robust economy is being strip-mined by elites - everyone else gets to work harder and harder for less and less and less.

This country is having a standard-of-living crash and boosting profits and asset values for the extremely wealthy does absolutely nothing to offset the real suffering that the vast majority of this country is experiencing.

The questions this country needs to ask are how is the middle class doing, how are the poor doing - not what is the average performance when you include the runaway wealth of the tiniest definable economic demographic at the extreme end of the wealth distribution curve.

[dawg]

20. I don't think anyone was campaigning on "Happy Days Are Here Again".

But economic conditions are unquestionably better than they were when the President first took office - by any reasonable measure of economic well-being.

In addition to that, the American recovery has been superior to that of every other large first-world economy.

Nothing that the Republicans have proposed would do anything other than make things worse. In fact, they are responsible for halting our recovery by kneecapping the President's initiatives since 2010.

I *do* understand why people still aren't satisfied. But with this election, along with the election of 2010, voters have only managed to make things worse for themselves.

[Man from Pickens]

21. No?

When your average voter hears "recovery", they do think "happy days are here again" or something close to that. That's what economic recovery is.

And when we campaign on a non-existent recovery, people ARE hearing "happy days are here again" and they feel left out of it.

Voters hear "recovery" and their next thought is "Candidate doesn't understand how bad it is" followed shortly by "Candidate isn't going to fix a problem he claims doesn't exist".

By the way, labor force participation rate is a pretty reasonable measure of economic well-being, as is real (not nominal) wages. You might want to see how well we are doing with those - it ain't good.

[dawg]

22. Labor force participation rate is also affected by demographic trends, such as ...

the aging of the baby boomers, retirements, and, in recent years, pre-retirement though access of Social Security disability benefits.

Real wages have declined; and they have been declining since the mid-1970's. I have lots of ideas about why that is the case, but it has little to do with the Obama administration's economic policies. (Although that may change if he goes along with the TPP)

But again, I ask you: How does voting for Republicans possibly help with any these problems?

More importantly, how can any reasonably informed person believe that voting for Republicans could possibly help with any of these problems?

[Man from Pickens]

23. it's a desperation play

Voting for Democrats didn't help them, now they're trying to vote Republican to see if it's any different. This is exactly what happened in 2006 but in the other direction.

The bottom line is that the status quo was unacceptable and that Obama didn't deliver on his promises of recovery. He set expectations very high and against a so-so performance, those expectations were not met. With no Democrat challenging that failure to meet expectations, all Democrats were vulnerable to being tagged as Obama proxies, and the party paid dearly for it.

There's a reason Bill Clinton is still the most popular Democrat in the nation - he gets it, and he didn't lose touch with the average Joe when he went to D.C.

When was the last time Obama spent 5 minutes talking to an average Joe, when not on the campaign trail? I bet we're talking 2007 or earlier. He spends his time with political aspirants and issue activists and mega-donors and a few choice private friends from his former life. If he could, like the kings of old, put on a disguise and walk anonymously among the common people as one of us, he would likely be completely shocked by what he would see.

[alc]

5. http://www.majorityleader.gov/bill-tracker/

This is the list I've seen recently. 387 bills passed by house but not taken up by senate. Supposedly many were passed unanimously by the house.

http://www.majorityleader.gov/bill-tracker/


There are a couple of specifics I've heard that probably helped the Rs in the vote:

Obamacare is a failed policy according to R's. A lot of people - Rs & Ds - agree that parts of it should be fixed and the house has tried (e.g. medical device tax)

The XL pipeline is another policy the Rs blame Reid for - the house wants it and many D senators (and some unions) want it. It probably is a real failure of our government to not even bring it up for discussion/vote/veto.

[Man from Pickens]

24. Keystone isn't a voter motivator

the pipeline is a corporatist wish-list item - normal people aren't voting on that, except to vote against it. It was never a campaign issue.

What the Rs cast blame for isn't important. It's what the voters cast blame for that matters.

[maced666]

6. Obamacare - obviously.

Most voters don't like it and see it as failed. It was a factor in this election. Obamacare may be the best thing since sliced bread around here but in the rest of the world? It is viewed as a failure.

[kelliekat44]

7. I was wondering the same thing. You won't get an answer from the voters either. They just repeat

what FOX and friends and Rush tell them. They never have to think about anything.

[leftstreet]

8. 8 years ago the Democrats started promising massive change

Starting with the 2006 midterms where the Dems went full-out anti Bush, anti war, and pro-ethics




Then 2008 saw promises of Jobs Programs, Universal Healthcare, no more war, and hope for Main Street not Wall Street





Maybe the answer lies somewhere in there...

[ellie]

9. I don't know

I have been going nine rounds with a rethug on Gawker and I can't get him/her to give me a straight answer. He/she keeps changing the topic whilst calling me a "libtard." I will keep trying though.

[Puzzledtraveller]

10. average americans (who do not spend all their time on forums such as this)

Or even frequent cable news see their station in life, unchanged, or worse, they blame party in charge, get revenge, easy as that.

[B Calm]

12. Beats the hell out of me. Republicans are not very clear about that,

probably because if they told us nobody would vote for them.

[Zorra]

14. They genuinely don't know. Some tool on Fox News probably said it, and they parroted the phrase. nt

[LondonReign2]

15. And while the Republicans were delivering that message

Democrats REFUSED to say what their policy successes were

[Wolf Frankula]

16. Bipartisanship, Reaching across the Aisle

Forging a Bipartisan consensus, trying to be 'post partisan', caving in to the repubs, not fighting back against obstructionism. NOT ACTING LIKE A GODDAM MAJORITY WHEN THEY HAD THE MAJORITY!

Wolf