Every time I despair over Obama's seemingly-inadequate stimulus package and political strategy, one thought returns me to the straight and narrow:

We could have had Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm.

The idiocy of what McCain's proposing, esp. via a vis FDR, was even more flagrant than you report. He told Couric that he wanted a commitment that once GDP grew by 2% (I can't remember if he said for a quarter or a year, but no matter), a balanced budget would be required.

Consider: FDR had growth that FAR outstripped 2% for every year 1933-1937 (I don't have the exact figures, but at least high single-digit range). Then he tried to balance the budget in '38, and the economy plunged again instantly, creating one of the worst years of the era. (As Krugman says, that very year is the basis of nearly all the right-wing "FDR prolonged the depression" rhetoric) It's frightening to me someone with media influence can make such a demand as McCain did and not be ridiculed.

McCain, of course, actually remembers the Fireside Chats.

Which makes him a mere infant as far as the Senate goes, of course. Robert Byrd is old enough to have been one of FDR's speechwriters.

Just one pat on the head from Obama and all my worries would be over. If he patted it as we basked in the glow of a fireplace I'd be teetering on orgasm. And rich, I'd be rich. So says McCain.

Hahah! Suckers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29035531#29035531

Take that.

I watched McCain say in an interview yesterday that the stimulus bill "isn't a stimulus bill, it's a spending bill."

No doubt he would complain that a doctor isn't fixing a patient's fever, he's only giving him medicine.

The only reason anybody takes McCain seriously is that his thrid-grade level of understanding of economics is better than most journalists' kindergarden level of understanding of economics.

What we're witnessing (besides total idiocy on McCain's part) is the completion of the Republican party's transformation from a political party participating in a democracy to a cabal of corrupt fascists willing to destroy a nation in order to rule it. It's truly astonishing.

However bad things get, I'll have McCain to remind me that they could have been so much worse.

My sentiments exactly. Thank God McCain isn't president and the Republicans, for all their bluster, aren't really in charge.

I seem to remember McAce has seven or eight houses and a plethora of cars, millions of $ and no brain. His mouth however appears to be positioned at the wrong end of his torso, which closely rhymes with ass++++...

That the "liberal press" hasn't/won't call him or the other jackasses on this drivel is what is truly appalling.

We could have had.....

Due to a stroke, President McCain is resting in the Western Whitehouse in Arizona, Vice President Palin will answer your questions on the stimulus package.

Or at least, sort of, you know, answer 'em.

Wouldn't THAT be scary? You betcha!

He didn't win. It wasn't even close!
And still it scares me that his side even had a chance.

Jack Keefe -

I presume you're kidding. I'm three months younger than McCain, and I have no recollection of Roosevelt's Fireside Chats. Well, I can remember some of his speeches during the war, which may have been called that, but although I have a lot of memories from prewar days they're all related to family stuff; the first thing I can remember of national importance is Pearl Harbor. And I seriously doubt if McCain was any more aware of such things than I was.

Whew! Well that proves that the Republicans have no new ideas and that they think its better copy an old idea than admit you have no ideas on how to save the economy.

Or even a concept of how to create an idea to save the economy

Or a process which could develop the concept to create the idea on how to save the economy.

If I were a Republican I would be mortified.

The McCain presidency - the cup that passed from us.

Why oh why can't we have no McCain come back?

I watched McCain say in an interview yesterday that the stimulus bill "isn't a stimulus bill, it's a spending bill.

That has to be one of the latest lines on their scripts. I've heard a few Republicans say the same thing, word for word, over the past couple of days.

Why do we as a country bother to elect Republicans when a flock of trained pigeons would do the job just as well, and cost us less?

If I were a Republican I would be mortified.

No, if you were a Republican, you would have no shame.

The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Er...wait, I meant our workers are fundamental...er, our fundamentals are working...er, fundamentally, we are economic...

I got so sick and tired of hearing McCain go on and on on the campaign trail about how Obama never broke from his party and never worked with politicians from across the aisle in the Senate. It comes as no surprise now that it's needed from McCain that he has failed to ignore his own petty partisan impulses.

Remember "Country First" John?

Why do we as a country bother to elect Republicans when a flock of trained pigeons would do the job just as well, and cost us less?

... and pigeons tend to crap in public a lot less.

All the republicans know how to do is destroy America. They have destroy etched into their hearts. Bastards.

He's never fooled me. He's always been the same McCain...out for his own interests only. He's the most self absorbed man in the senate...a place he does not deserve to be. He's milked sympathy and guilt for everything he could get from it...which was quite a lot. He does not know what he's talking about on almost any subject but manages to through out endless platitudes. I share the horror of that image of what the country would be like if he had won but I always predicted that dems would win so was never really worried about this self absorbed, self centered ego maniacal lying hypocrite would ever be president. He suppresses his rage and anger just below the surface and Obama should never trust him...ever...on anything because he's going to get even with everybody who has ever 'betrayed' him (which means disagreeing with him). "The fundamentals of the economy are strong blah blah blah..." McCain: wrong on everything and lying about it. He really thinks he's unique.

"It's especially ironic to tie these two misguided observations together -- the only time FDR exacerbated the Great Depression was when he tried to balance the budget."

You area an idiot if you think tinkering with the price of gold on a daily basis (to name just a single policy) didn't have negative economic consequences. Jesus man, I know he's the patron saint of liberalism, but that doesn't mean everything he did was great.

McCain campaign economic advisor Mark Zandi said today during a conference call for Moody's Economy.com that without the stimulus bill the country would lapse into 10%+ unemployment for an extended period, which he termed "a depression."

Zandi also recommended a larger stimulus plan.

Um, hello, Senator McCain, stimulus IS spending. Get it? Didn't think so.

No money for computer training for the disadvantaged, says the man in the $500 loafers. Are there no workhouses?

Enough, who in the country truly believes John McCain is an economics expert. Just because the media gives him a microphone doesn't mean sane people find him credible. Of course the GOP is going to obstruct. They always go back to the familiar because they have no new ideas. The party is lost in the 90's while the rest of the country has moved on. The Democrats should pass their package on a party line vote and move on with their agenda.

...McCain appeared on far-right radio host Hugh Hewitt's talk show last night, and blasted the New Deal:

"The job of the presidency, in my view, is to give people hope, give people hope. Whether you happen to have liked Franklin Delano Roosevelt's policies, and there's a number of them I still think exacerbated the Great Depression, but he gave the fireside chats, and gave people hope and optimism for the future."

___
How is this "blasting"?

...the only time FDR exacerbated the Great Depression was when he tried to balance the budget.

On the other hand, for a more modern example, how did Robert Mugabe stimulate the economy of his nation by printing money?