From Dick Morris, an interesting scenario...
Hillary's First Shot
--Dick Morris & Eileen McGann, September 9, 2010
Has the Democratic Presidential Primary of 2012 started already? Is Hillary Clinton beginning to position herself for a challenge to her boss? Yesterday, Hillary fired what may have been the first shot:
She said:
"I think that our rising debt level poses a national security threat and it poses a national security threat in two ways: it undermines our capacity to act in our own interests and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable. And it also sends a message of weakness, internationally."
The contrast with her husband's presidency is implicit: He balanced the budget and reduced the debt to the point where Wall Street fretted that there would be no more federal debt instruments to buy, leaving them without a safe place of park their money.
Hillary does nothing -- nothing -- without forethought. She plans every word, particularly when the words are critical of her president. By framing the "debt level" as a "national security threat," she gives herself jurisdiction over budget policy and makes her comments about it appropriate for a Secretary of State. And by criticizing the debt level which her president has amassed, she sets up the basis for a fiscal/economic critique of his presidency.
Remember that between the time George Washington took the oath of office and the day that Obama took the same oath, the federal government amassed $9 trillion of debt. And, in the nineteen months since then, it has piled up $3.5 trillion more! Debt is Obama's big negative, the concomitant of his big spending stimulus package. Now he has Hillary Clinton criticizing it and, by implication, him.
Will Hillary run? She might. The scenario would go like this:
Step One: Obama loses both houses of Congress by record margins, throwing the Democratic Party into shock. Disbelief yields to recrimination and the party leaders begin to turn on their president.
Step Two: The popular repudiation of their president leads Democrats to question Obama's leadership and his ratings plunge. Without a base of Democratic approval, President Obama's ratings sink below 40% down into the low 30s.
Step Three: As it becomes clear that the Democrats will lose the election of 2012, more and more party leaders and the rank and file demand new leadership and look to Hillary to turn things around.
Who know is she will really run. She doesn't know. She can't know until she sees how low Obama falls. But remember this: If she does run, her candidacy started yesterday.
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Any comment on plausibility?
Has that toe sucker been right even once? He absolutely guaranteed that Hilary would beat Obama for the nomination.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't count on Obama's dirty tricks. That was his big mistake as a political prognosticator. Perhaps he thought the Chicago reputation was a myth. As to those dirty tricks, there's a film being put together that highlights the primary battle between Obama and Clinton and the tactics employed by the Obama campaign, which included voter intimidation of the Black Panther variety. Stay tuned for that.
ReplyDeleteAs to Hillary running, she could definitely be considered the stronger choice for Dems. She was identical to Obama except for balls. Hers are bigger. I don't think the nation would necessarily be better off if she ran and knocked both him and the Republican out of contention. The problem Barry has is that it seems that his being out of his depth is becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. Hillary, being a Chicago creature as well but with those bigger balls, could take advantage of any perceived weakness. She would also benefit by her gender as the Dems like that kind of crap better than real ideas.
You're ignoring the fact that the quote above by Hilary was about Bush, not Obama. Kind of puts a different light on the subject, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteThat is laughable. But supposing it's true, consider:
ReplyDeleteObama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data
--Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews.com
Wednesday, September 8,2010
In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.
The U.S. Treasury Department divides the federal debt into two categories. One is "debt held by the public," which includes U.S. government securities owned by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments and other entities outside the federal government itself. The other is "intragovernmental" debt, which includes I.O.U.s the federal government gives to itself when, for example, the Treasury borrows money out of the Social Security "trust fund" to pay for expenses other than Social Security.
At the end of fiscal year 1989, which ended eight months after President Reagan left office, the total federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan had accumulated only that much publicly held debt on behalf of American taxpayers. That is $335.3 billion less than the $2.5260 trillion that was added to the federal debt held by the public just between Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was inaugurated, and Aug. 20, 2010, the 19-month anniversary of Obama's inauguration.
By contrast, President Reagan was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 1981 and left office eight years later on Jan. 20, 1989. At the end of fiscal 1980, four months before Reagan was inaugurated, the federal debt held by the public was $711.9 billion, according to CBO. At the end of fiscal 1989, eight months after Reagan left office, the federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion. That means that in the nine-fiscal-year period of 1980-89--which included all of Reagan's eight years in office--the federal debt held by the public increased $1.4788 trillion. That is in excess of a trillion dollars less than the $2.5260 increase in the debt held by the public during Obama's first 19 months.
When President Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt held by the public stood at 6.3073 trillion, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. As of Aug. 20, 2010, after the first nineteen months of President Obama's 48-month term, the total federal debt held by the public had grown to a total of $8.8333 trillion, an increase of $2.5260 trillion.
In just the last four months (May through August), according to the CBO, the Obama administration has run cumulative deficits of $464 billion, more than the $458 billion deficit the Bush administration ran through the entirety of fiscal 2008.
The CBO predicted this week that the annual budget deficit for fiscal 2010, which ends on the last day of this month, will exceed $1.3 trillion.
The first two fiscal years in which Obama has served will see the two biggest federal deficits as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product since the end of World War II.
"CBO currently estimates that the deficit for 2010 will be about $70 billion below last year's total but will still exceed $1.3 trillion," said the CBO's monthly budget review for September, which was released yesterday. "Relative to the size of the economy, this year's deficit is expected to be the second-largest shortfall in the past 65 years: At 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), that deficit will be exceeded only by last year's deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP."
"You're ignoring the fact that the quote above by Hilary was about Bush, not Obama."
ReplyDeleteFirst, what makes you think the Hillary quote is about Bush, considering the quote was so recent and the debt is on the rise NOW?
Second, why would she be talking about Bush when Obama's damage to the economy is so much greater and immediate?
Thirdly, why would her comment, assuming it IS about Bush, change anything I said in my comment? The topic is about whether she would run against Obama, and the question for discussion was on the plausibility of that possibility.
Fatal flaw in your logic, ELA. You're asserting that the entire $2.5 Trillion increase is Obama's responsibility. The deficit is not entirely of Obama's making. TARP was passed by Bush. Tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which are the largest component of the deficit after 2010, passed by Bush. Unfunded Medicare drug company giveaway, passed by Bush. Previously off budget war expenses, started by Bush.
ReplyDeleteSo your assertion is not really true. Thank you for playing our game.
MA:
ReplyDeleteCLINTON: I think that our rising debt levels poses a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways. It undermines our capacity to act in our own interest, and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable. And it also sends a message of weakness internationally. I mean, it is very troubling to me that we are losing the ability not only to chart our own destiny but to, you know, have the leverage that comes from this enormously effective economic engine that has powered American values and interests over so many years.
So I don't think we have a choice. It's a question of how we -- how we decide to deal with this debt and deficit. I mean, you know, it is -- we don't need to go back and sort of re-litigate how we got to where we are, but it is fair to say that, you know, we fought two wars without paying for them, and we had tax cuts that were not paid for either. And that has been a very deadly combination to fiscal sanity and responsibility.
There's no flaw, Jim, fatal or otherwise in MY logic. Take issue with the article's author if you feel his analysis is wrong.
ReplyDeleteNo one's claiming Bush didn't sign TARP into law-- Obama, btw, voted for it. The figures presented in the article merely state that Obama (since he was sworn in) has added more to the public debt than every president from Washington to Reagan... combined.
The Bush Tax cuts are similarly irrelevant. We're not talking about what Bush did in eight years. But rather, were talking about what Obama has done in his 19 months as president.