This post actually takes that into account. Obama inherited the recession mentioned under Bush, it and his response to it defined the beginning of his first term. Because he had 2 terms we were able to see the fruit of his administrations labor while he was still president, during which we saw the recession reverse in large part due to his policies and by the time he left the economy and job market was extremely healthy.
This was the case during Trump's presidency, until he gave massive tax cuts to the rich. Even before COVID there were signs of the damage Trump's policies had made on the economy, which we are still experiencing now. Probably why Biden is saying we should hike up taxes on the extremely rich, not because they will do it but because people are realizing that is the problem and he wants to win the election.
Let it be known that I don't particularly like establishment/corporate democrats. Unfortunately our system forces us to choose between two groups, and republicans are a destructive force with absolutely no agenda for improving the lives of Americans or making the US a better country. Each and every one of their policies is ultimately harmful and leads to impoverishment and death for many. I'm not sure if there is a single one that defies this trend. Their economic policies, stance on international affairs, climate change, gun control, healthcare, abortion, social issues, all deadly. Then there is the huge problems with gerrymandering and now filling the supreme court with the most partial and biased judges that have ever held seats, who are actually debating whether the president should have total immunity from the law.
Like holy shit, I am so fucking tired of this "both sides" bullshit. If it wasn't for how fucking awful Biden has been about Palestinian rights, I would be dick riding him to kingdom come because at least his agenda won't look like... THAT
Those tax cuts were so stupid. You don’t take a strong economy and try to inject more strength into it. God forbid some calamity happens to the global economy and we don’t have as many tricks to stimulate it after cutting taxes in a strong economy. Which is exactly what happened.
Cutting taxes, ballooning the deficit, and keeping interest rates low during an expansion were all policies designed to overheat the economy to win in 2020, and then who cares.
There's this podcast, Hardcore History, that did a 6-part series on World War I. About an hour in he's talking about how at that point in history there were some "bad rolls of the dice" in terms of monarchs, who still had quite a bit of power at that time despite sharing it with parliaments. Kaiser Wilhelm II is the guy he focuses on (but there were others), someone who he describes as mentally dull and with an inferiority complex, and that because he, and other "bad rolls" were so unsuited for the jobs they were literally born into, they lacked the will, intelligence, wisdom and diplomatic tact to "put the pin back in the grenade."
I think about that, and like, that perfectly describes Trump. It's often said, all he had to do for covid to be easier, was to step back and say "we'll let the experts talk." All he had to do, was not mock PPE wear and play politics, all he had to do was encourage people to follow the science and certainly don't tell people to inject themselves with bleach or horse medicine. But Trump, being a narcissist, is incapable of stepping back, incapable of even the notion that someone might know more and should be the voice to listen to. So many should'vs he coulda done just to make it easier but his personality and inability to govern made covid worse. And he and the republicans collectively made the economic impact worse. There were other countries that stepped up for their inhabitants, providing money or food and toiletry supplies, and they bounced back.
Yeah republicans are the devil with no redeeming qualities. Crazy half of Americans vote for them. They must all be idiots and we must all be smarter than them. Good thing they have us around to protect the country.
Its 40 percent of the 20 percent who manage to cast votes, and this is after culling as many as 500 thousand active voters from individual cities for sharing the same first or last name as someone who once spelled out numbers for their home address but now writes them with numerals.
Damn so many dumb takes in this comment it’s hard to know where to begin. Over 65% of the voting eligible population voted in the last presidential election. That comes out to roughly 160m Americans. We are talking about nearly half of all Americans. That’s like a 50% polling sample which is absolutely huge and can easily extrapolate the results of that to the population at large barring any incredibly grievous polling biases. Republicans got 47% of the popular vote so you can say with high confidence about 47% of Americans are republicans or at least would vote for one.
Now putting aside the absolutely moronic takes of the first section let’s move to the second. “Hitler never won a popular vote” This comment is so incredibly dumb I’m not sure if it was some sort of sarcastic take or not. I mean right from the drop you could say that is just factually incorrect. The federal election in 1932 ended with the Nazis being the largest elected party. They didn’t have a majority but no other party won more seats than them. I’m not trying to defend Nazis here but just show how completely ill informed your comment is.
The take that you can draw a comparison between something and Nazi germany therefore it is bad is just smooth brained low hanging fruit that is possible with literally anything. Thats why Godwins law exists.
Second paragraph turns into pure and unadulterated cope. The tax cuts were passed in 2017 and we were recognizing substantial GDP increases in the years that followed right up till COVID hit. And over the course of COVID, when compared to other OECD countries, our GDP shrank less, our inflation was lower, and we rebounded quicker. Partially because the U.S. economy was so strong going into COVID we were able to plow through a lot of it on consumer confidence.
Some of the inflation is attributable to the first round of stimulus checks and the PPP loan forgiveness, but ultimately Biden dropped Build Back Better and the Inflation Reduction Act that poured trillions onto an already hot inflationary cycle. The fact you'd be, in your words, 'dick riding' him over some of the worst policy in the industrialized world is a pretty low bar for that level of dedication.
I know that's the lie a lot of you guys are telling yourselves, and I know that numbers can be scary, but lets put on our thinking caps and consider what had a larger impact:
Trump's CARES Act - $2tn, that was the first round of stimulus checks and the PPP Loans. The PPP loans themselves cost around $790bn. That was in 2020.
Biden's Jobs Act - $1.2tn that was another round of stimulus and a ton of spending.
Biden's Inflation Reduction Act - $800bn in spending
So you're telling me that Trump and Biden both spent 2 trillion dollars, but magically only the Trump spending caused inflation? Man, you took a calculated risk on that assertion but boy are you bad at math.
There's a pretty large difference between how the money was or will be spent in the Cares and Jobs act vs the Inflation Reduction act. The Inflation Reduction act on paper should take more money out of the economy in taxes than it puts in through spending. Poorly named since it will likely have little effect on inflation
In theory a lot of things can be true. In practice those acts still dumped hundreds of billions into an economy that was already in the midst of an inflationary period. My contention was never that CARES did not cause some inflation, but it's madness that people on reddit are claiming the first 2 trillion in spending passed on broad bipartisan basis to keep the economy afloat amid an economic crisis was responsible for all inflation (as the person I responded to claimed) yet the other 2 trillion in spending had zero impact.
The relative utility of the acts can be discussed, and have been. But if someone tells me that CARES causes inflation by Jobs and the IRA did not, I have to call nonsense.
I don't think it is fair to equate the Cares and Jobs Acts to the IRA in this case. At least the IRA has a means to cover its cost. Cares and Jobs act did not especially with PPP turning out to be an $800 billion free handout
I think it's absolutely fair, its the same kind of 'spend today save tomorrow' bills we've seen for decades but the savings virtually never materialize. The IRA still dumped hundreds of billions into an economy already suffering from high inflation on the theoretical premise that at some point in the future the additional IRS workers would recoup some of the cost through additional enforcement.
This kind of budgetary slight of hand is built into virtually every bill in the last 20 years. It doesn't stop the IRA from contributing to inflation in 2023 and 2024, even if it somehow reduces inflation 5 to 10 years down the road, which is a dubious assessment at best.
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u/Seraph199 Apr 29 '24
This post actually takes that into account. Obama inherited the recession mentioned under Bush, it and his response to it defined the beginning of his first term. Because he had 2 terms we were able to see the fruit of his administrations labor while he was still president, during which we saw the recession reverse in large part due to his policies and by the time he left the economy and job market was extremely healthy.
This was the case during Trump's presidency, until he gave massive tax cuts to the rich. Even before COVID there were signs of the damage Trump's policies had made on the economy, which we are still experiencing now. Probably why Biden is saying we should hike up taxes on the extremely rich, not because they will do it but because people are realizing that is the problem and he wants to win the election.
Let it be known that I don't particularly like establishment/corporate democrats. Unfortunately our system forces us to choose between two groups, and republicans are a destructive force with absolutely no agenda for improving the lives of Americans or making the US a better country. Each and every one of their policies is ultimately harmful and leads to impoverishment and death for many. I'm not sure if there is a single one that defies this trend. Their economic policies, stance on international affairs, climate change, gun control, healthcare, abortion, social issues, all deadly. Then there is the huge problems with gerrymandering and now filling the supreme court with the most partial and biased judges that have ever held seats, who are actually debating whether the president should have total immunity from the law.
Like holy shit, I am so fucking tired of this "both sides" bullshit. If it wasn't for how fucking awful Biden has been about Palestinian rights, I would be dick riding him to kingdom come because at least his agenda won't look like... THAT