YouCut -- GOP puts up site where public can submit requests

[Pangloss]

More hype than substance at the moment, but perhaps it will develop into something over time. It's just a simple form where you can type in what you'd like to see cut. I think they should at least have it categorized so they can do statistical analysis on the results. They should also have it ID-verified at least to the extent that they do when you submit a request to your Congressperson or Senator (where you have to enter your address and name, etc).

 

http://www.republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/

[bascule]

You know, there's a way I could respect Republicans raising concern about the national debt. They could go "we realize the overwhelming majority of the debt was created under Republican presidents. We apologize." Or something to that effect. But when I hear Republicans hypocritically preaching about the debt all Johnny Come Lately style, I can't help but think "This debt is largely your fault. Why are you raising concern about it only after you're out of power?"

 

If the Republicans are truly concerned about the national debt then they need to reach out to the Democrats and truly find a bipartisan solution, especially since they are, at least until November, the minority party, and one that was forced out of power after their reckless governance created trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt. Cutting taxes and starting a war? Not exactly a sound fiscal policy! But now you feel fit to whine about it.

 

The national debt is a huge problem. I've been talking about how big of a problem it is for a long time. If we managed to pay a substantial portion of it down, we could cut everyone's taxes, which would stimulate the economy. Instead, well, it's huge.

 

A huge amount of that money was paid to Wall Street financials, who then gave America the finger and lined their pockets with it. If you're concerned about the debt, you should be concerned about where the TARP money went. And yet now that the Democrats are talking about passing additional regulations, regulations which would end "too big to fail" by breaking up these incomprehensibly complex financials/banks/insurance companies/kitchen sink corporations, the Republicans cry out in defense of Wall Street. WHAT?

 

The sheer level of doublethink involved here blows my mind.

 

As an aside, I don't think the Stimulus (as in ARRA) was as good as it could've been. I think the investments we are making are good but it isn't what we needed to help the economy to recover. At this point I am firmly convinced that the main problem which is troubling America's economy is a virtual credit freeze among smaller lending institutions. TARP got the money flowing again among major institutions just fine. But try getting a small business loan from a local bank if you are a startup company. It's practically impossible right now.

 

NPR did a piece (on All Things Considered, I believe... link it if you know it) on how you can't get a small business loan for a startup company regardless of how high your personal credit score is. The only way to get a small business loan is to at least start a company on paper and show positive revenue generation for a few years, then they will grant you a loan proportional to the size of your current revenue. Never mind bootstrapping a cash flow positive company in the middle of a recession is a hard prospect.

 

Which really raises a very important question in my mind. There's all this leftover TARP money sitting around, financed through national debt. The Democrats are all "WTF do we spend this on? Let's buy a bunch of cool toys for our country with it" when really the goal of TARP was to unf*ck America's financial system. Yet startup small businesses are completely screwed right now, and I think it's universally agreed upon that startup companies are an essential part of the American way of life and our national success. Look at how many of the technologies which changed everyone's lives worldwide were "born in a garage" somewhere in America. I mean... Google. Enough said.

 

Why can't they dump all that TARP money into small banks which typically deal in small business loans for the express purpose of lending it to startup companies and other small businesses who need small loans in order to get a company off the ground? Wouldn't that be a lot better than spending it on things completely unrelated to TARP's original intentions?

 

(Note: I recently tried to get a small business loan for a startup company and found out it's practically impossible)

[Pangloss]

Why can't they dump all that TARP money into small banks which typically deal in small business loans for the express purpose of lending it to startup companies and other small businesses who need small loans in order to get a company off the ground? Wouldn't that be a lot better than spending it on things completely unrelated to TARP's original intentions?

 

I agree that this would be a good idea. I've never been happy with TARP/stimulus money being used for ideological goals, and certainly either Democrats or Republicans could lead the way on this. Let's see some initiative from SOME-body.

[bascule]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/obama-says-republicans-cannot-have-the-keys-back-to-the-car-no-you-cant-drive.html

 

A nice metaphor from Obama here:

 

“After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want to keys back. No! You can’t drive. We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.”