I think Obama has some good intentions but his policies just aren't going to allow him - or us as Americans - to meet his goals. Please also understand that it doesn't matter if I'm a democrat or republican, I'm just pointing out the flaws in Obama's policy. I apologize for the length here but it's all worthwhile information. Jobs: Obama himself stated that most of the jobs created in the recovery plan are towards "paving roads" and "building schools", so basically dirt-digging construction. If you recall from his campaign, he said that "the middle-class has been hit the hardest". If this is true, then why is he creating jobs that only immigrants (both legal and illegal) and the very poor generally perform? A middle-class father who lost his job as a computer technician just isn't going to happily throw on some gloves and bust out the powertools in the name of the economy. Creating jobs in the field of construction doesn't stimulate hardly anything. Sure it may create good things, but that doesn't help our economy. There were only three types of other jobs mentioned in his address: teachers, alternative energy related jobs, and jobs in finding the cure for cancer. The first one, teachers, is somewhat acceptable, but teachers accounts for a very small proportion of the general population. The second one was alternative energies. I think this is great that we are seeing some productivity in this sector, but again we must ask: how many middle-class americans are researching and developing alternative energies? My guess would be an extremely small portion of the population. Lastly, the Obama said he would put more money towards finding the cure for cancer. Again, great cause, but again I highly doubt middle-class americans are the ones researching to find a cure for cancer. Furthermore, we don't even know when we'll find a cure for cancer. So this is somewhat of a lost cause as far as stimulating the economy goes. Education: Somewhat ironic I think is Obama said "Every american needs more than a high school diploma", which is an admirable statement but kind of flies in the face of his recovery plan which creates jobs that only those without a diploma generally perform. Changing topic, Obama also said he wants to "Increase college attendance" but also "Lower the cost of tuition". Super. But what does that mean? Colleges around the U.S. can only admit so many applicants as I'm sure all of you know. This means there is a fixed supply. If you increase applicants where there is a certain amount of spots available it only drives up the cost of tuition, it doesn't lower it. Note: There might be increased infrastructure among colleges but I'm pretty sure any education infrastructure additions will be towards high-schools or state colleges, many of which already are overloaded with students. Businesses: Obama said he wants to "end payments to agribusinesses that don't need it". Sounds like good money managing, which it could be. However, this gives less incentive to agribusiness (farming) to produce as much or as high of quality as the previously did, which can have some negative repurcussions. He also said he wants to end tax breaks for businesses that ship jobs overseas. This will just increase the costs that the business has to pay and they will just put that directly upon their employees in the form of lower wages or laying off workers. Or it will be transferred to the consumer as higher prices. Taxes: Decrease in tax for 95% of Americans. Great. But by how much? This is the big question. Let us not forget that Obama will repeal the Bush tax cuts and increase taxes on the wealthy. Bush tax cuts gave ALL americans a 3-4% tax cut. As soon as those are gone everyone's taxes go up 3-4%, not just the wealthy americans.
I'm far from an Obama superfan but your arguments are flawed. Your criticism of him wanting to give jobs to those who don't have a diploma is strange. He wants to make sure everyone gets good education but that doesn't mean those that didn't just disappear. They still need jobs and they still need money to support themselves. Increasing college attendance and reducing inflated costs would be neat but I think its just posturing at this point. Even so, there are ways of reducing over crowding by expanding campuses and creating more living space for attendees and also giving more funding to these public schools. It's my opinion that at a certain point stimulation can only go so far. You need to raise taxes at some point to be able to pay off deficit. I don't know much about his tax policies and I don't much care. If he raises taxes, oh well. If he lowers them I hope it jump starts the economy. Subsidies for agribusiness put out many, many mom-and-pop farms which reduces jobs and also puts increased amounts of pesticides in your food. I can't recall much but ABC did a fantastic job covering farm subsidies, I'll have to call it up for you. As for jobs, almost anyone will do almost anything to support their family. Those jobs won't go to illegal immigrants because they're government controlled. As for the more specific jobs, that's just politics, not policy. He did that all election and he's gonna do it his entire term. Sucks, I know. I hate being talked down too but you need to understand that that is not part of his strategy.
well... personally, this doesn't really have to do with obama, but congress took something off the stimulus package, that would make sure that all employees of companies that would recieve money would have to confirm that they are American citizens. Honestly, the illegal immigrants steal a lot of the american people's jobs and thus creating bad situations. deport the illegal aliens... will make a lot of new jobs.
i apologize, who does the construction currently is besides the point. This is what I am saying: Obama is creating jobs but in the wrong sector of the economy. He's creating construction jobs. If you'll recall, most of the jobs affected by the economic crisis were business jobs as well those in the auto industry. Many people, like the 5,000 laid-off microsoft computer technicians are not going to jump on these construction jobs entailing, as obama put it "paving roads and building homes". What we need is tax breaks for businesses so they can rehire the workers they had to lay-off, because that is the source of the problem. In addition to all of this, construction jobs are short-term only. You can only build highways for so long. Once these jobs fizzle out, it's probably going to result in inflation, maybe even as much as 12%. As far as college goes, I'm just pointing out that if you increase demand when there is a limited supply (demand being the # of people that want to go to college and supply being the space available to college students) it only drives up the cost of tuition. Thats econ 101. Agribusiness you might be right on, and I'll have to do more research on that. But the main thing I feel obama is missing is the jobs he's creating versus the ones that he should be creating. The middle-class has taken the hardest hit and therefore we should work towards creating jobs for them, not jobs usually taken by the poor.
101 So, by quoting one sentence you believe that all of the jobs being created will be in construction. You don't have a grasp of the legislature. The good thing for you is that there will be an unprescidented amount of transparency about exactly where every dime of our money will be going. Please visit Recovery.gov for a better understanding of the plan. Here is one of many breakdowns available on the site: Have you been around over the last decade. Endless tax cuts for cooperations do not work. Do you think taking the same approach that has been pushed through by Bush over the past 8 years will somehow yield a different result now? You are correct on your basic understanding of economics, except that the bill includes 53 Billion dollars to increase our educational infrastructure(supply) and make it easier for kids to attend college. What is your suggested alternative? What is your suggestion? Do you think the government should create a new computer company to compete with Apple and Microsoft in order to create jobs for the 5,000 Microsoft employees that were laid off? This plan, and the whole philosophy of Obama's approach is to build wealth and prosperity in this country from the bottom up. That being said, if you think there will be no white collar jobs created in this package you have not been paying attention. A total of 266 billion dollars is being spent on(in addition to infrastructure) Science, Energy, Health Care, & Education. Do you see any correlation between those areas and middle class employment? Once again, we have tried it in the way you suggesting and it does not work, it fails, badly. Trickle down economics will never work. It is very easy to say that businesses need more money to hire workers so let's just give them another tax cut. It is smarter, though, to realize that the reason the business owner does not have enough money is not because he is paying a slightly higher tax percentage, but because the vast amount of lower and middle class Americans do not have money to spend on the company's products or services. If an unemployed construction worker suddenly has an income, he will buy an new car, or a new computer, which in turn will boost up small business without bankrupting the country by lowering taxes yet again and decreasing our annual revenue. You need to look a little past economics 101.
Whoa whoa whoa, how have you not heard him saying he wants to digitize America? Doing so will need more jobs in that field. (Cisco student ;D)
obviously i know that ALL of the jobs are not legislature. and i'm not saying this is the entire plan either. However, MOST of the jobs are in the field of construction, perhaps if you took a look here you would find that a majority of the bill is directed at infrastructure which can basically be translated to construction. If your about to blame the entire economic crisis on bush your retarded. it was bound to happen sooner or later, we were in an expansion period and just pushed it too much with spending, we were bound to hit a recession sooner or later based on the economic cycle. ECON 101. I think tax cuts for corporations would help because right now theyre not making enough money so they're being forced to lay off workers. Given an economic incentive (subsidy, or tax break) they will rehire those lost workers and get back on track. I'm not saying there's an alternative, sending kids to college is great. However, you can't increase the amount of applicants and expect to lower tuition costs. That's backwards thinking. And I think you should take a second look at the 53 billion to increase education infrastructure, the only infrastructue listed in the stimulus is towards mass transit, updating government buildings, and the like. At most there is 44.5 billion going towards education infrastructure but that money is mostly geared towards preventing layoffs and updating existing buildings, not creating new ones. You need to look closer at the stimulus package and not just at the general outline you provided. Tax cuts to businesses as well as individuals gives businesses incentive to hire and individuals incentive to buy, which work to support one another. That is what I believe we should do. If people buy more businesses need to produce more which requires more employees. The stimulus creates jobs, but the number of jobs created versus the number of jobs created that people actually need is horrible. Most of the jobs created will not help america. Why? Their being created in a sector that isn't in need of them. Theres not a huge demand for construction or mass transit jobs, so why create them? The middle-class needs help, and obama isn't providing it. NOTE: my econ class is writing up an essay on the implications and effects of the stimulus package. I will post mine once it is finished.
I'm not in disagreement with Obama's general aspirations, however, his method of achieving his goals leaves a lot to be desired.
Elephants Cutting taxes is what republicans love to run on. It's popular with people that don't really understand how the economy works. They view it as a quick way to have a little more money in their pockets so it sounds like a good idea. It is also one of the main factors that contributes to the chart above. When the government collects less revenue our national debt soars. Giving tax cuts to wealthy business owners is the approach we've been taking for a long time now. Now it's time for a different approach. The country elected "change" and that's what we will get. We would have gotten more ridiculous tax cuts if McCain would have won.... .....thankfully, he didn't win. Building wealth and prosperity from the top down is a flawed concept that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. When you are building anything including a nation's economy it is crucial to start with a strong foundation at the bottom so you have something to build off of.
yes, but Obama is just taxing the people who make 250k or more a year more, and giving the people who make less, tax cuts, and for example, somebody who make say 350k a year would be taxed more, and would then fall down to say 300k or 250k a year instead, while the people recieveing tax cuts go above 250k and get taxed more. Also, he is taxing the people who do their jobs well, and are productive members of society, while the people who aren't are being rewarded for doing so. If any body finds something wrong with the last sentence please tell me.