Lisa Benson for September 10, 2010

This cartoon’s Obama is correct, but the imagination isn’t America’s; it’s Lisa Benson’s. She has fantasized these bad policies, made evident in her inability to specify any.

If she left fantasy and woke up, then she would see that President Obama, though conservative and with little help from the Senate, has spent the last twenty months helping America return to her feet after Bush-Dick brought her to her knees.

That would be the Harry Reid “Super” democratic Senate? If The big O can’t get it done with them, it must be really bad policy.

Are you still blaming your parents? Get off the Bush bashing wagon, it’s really getting old.

Why must it be really bad policy for the Senate Republicans to refuse cloture, Josef? It’s probably really good policy.

The 111th Congress actually accomplished more than the previous three congresses, but, considering how bad off the country has been with fourteen years of Republican congresses and eight years of Bush-Dick, there is so much more to do. Bush-Dick ruined the country for eight years. We can stop blaming him in about seven. Besides your guilt for supporting him, why do you want to let him off the hook so soon & so easily? Can’t Republicans EVER take responsibility?

Republicans aren’t hiding under your bed. They are after your social security.

It’s amazing how many stupid people there are, and they vote!

josefw, I think Brian knows that nothing could be more indicative of evading responsibility than bashing Bush for Obama’s policies, but he’s just very ,very fond of typing “Bush-Dick”. Don’t look for it to stop even after 7 years.

Brian, let’s pretend that there was no 911, no wars, no housing market/financing collapse, and that Bush’s terms were noted as being generally lackluster and non-eventful with an economy that was slowing down but not too bad.

Obama is then elected in 2008. Which policies (healthcare reform, expansion of government, repeal of Bush tax cuts, cap and trade, etc.) do you think Obama would not have implemented anyway and would not be still hiding under the bed?

@ C.A. Brobst, I wish I wasn’t forced to give my retirement money to the government to spend. If I had had the option to put my and my employers’ funds in the same options that senior government employees have, I’d be retired by now.

Brobst that is not true.

No.You would be broke.

^ What’re you talking about, SuperGriz… there wasn’t a catastrophic loss of trillions upon trillions of dollars of “wealth” in the private sector just recently. No one loss their retirement savings and nest eggs. Just use your imagination! None of it happened.

“Republicans aren’t hiding under your bed. ”

Of course not, they’re too busy making sure they have enough guns and ammo to massacre American citizens if they lose the vote this November.

David Brooks has an interesting column today – basically, he says we need more machinists and fewer people in finance. I think it’s worth thinking about:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/opinion/10brooks.html?th&emc=th

^ Machinists will not help if they have to go to India or China for a job. Bring the jobs back by eliminating the tax breaks for moving factories overseas.

“Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” lyrics:

Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by. I say to myself, “You’re such a lucky guy.” To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true. Out of all of the fellas in the world she belongs to you…

But it was just my imagination running away with me. It was just my imagination running away with me…

Ooh-hoo-hoo-hooh Soon we’ll be married.. and raise a family. In a cozy, little home out in the country with two children, maybe three. I tell you, I can visualize it all. This couldn’t be a dream for too real it all seems.

But it was just my imagination – once again – running away with me. I tell you it was just my imagination running away with me…

Every night, on my knees I pray, “Dear Lord, hear my plea… don’t ever let another take her love from me or I will surely die..” Ooh, her love is heavenly; when her arms enfold me, I hear a tender rhapsody… but in reality, she doesn’t even know me

Just my imagination – once again – running away with me. Tell you it was just my imagination running away with me. I never met her, but I can’t forget her. Just my imagination.. – ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah – running away with me

SuperGriz, are you saying that these government employees are broke? Hardly. By the most modest calculations, I’d have over $1.5 million extra in the bank by now. Assuming that these mandatorily-deducted funds would be placed in a 403b-ish account, that would be money that I could borrow against and give to my children when I pass on, and spend as I wish, when I wish once I retired.

Your “you’d be broke” statment represents the irrational fear that has kept the government’s social security ponzi scheme going. Frightening old people keeps an idiodic mandate alive. I know why the government is so interested in skimming my retirement money off the top of my earnings and redistributing it to their friends, but why are you?

“SuperGriz, are you saying that these government employees are broke?”

I wasn’t aware that government employees were paid directly by the stock market.

They’re not.

Short term or long term..this is what is to be considered when government takes actions. The effects of today were not caused by yesterday actions. They were caused by actions years ago. Two wars at a time, tax breaks for the wealthy, and failure to deal with riseing health care. This was caused by both parties, but mainly republicans. Example, Reagan had a good idea of trickle down economics. But, he failed to put limits on it. Thus, businesses made more money but instead of creating more jobs for US workers, companies sent jobs overseas and padded executive and stock holders pockets. Reagan should have stated: money made here stays here.

I told you Republicans were hiding under your bed.

We must take your hypothetical, Nemesys, one piece at a time. Even without September 11th, Bush-Dick would still have invaded Iraq. The Republican cronies got him the nomination so that he would invade Iraq. Working on that kept him from attending to the warning about al-Qaida. Thus, he would have found some pretext to invade, with or w/out the Senate’s approval.

Without September 11th, however, the Democrats would have won seats in November 2002 and Congress & Bush-Dick might have spent the next two years at loggerheads, with a small sputtering, undeclared war (a “police action”, like Vietnam) in Iraq. Saddam Hussein would have fled, but not been found, probably, but the country would still be a mess.

Without September 11th, Bush-Dick would have lost his bid for legitimate election in 2004, so John Kerry (probably) would now be president. The Supreme Court would be less regressive (William Rehnquist’s death & Sandra O’Connor’s retirement would have happened under a Kerry presidency) and might have already legalized same-sex marriage while not permitting corporations to buy our political campaigns.

Without Bush-Dick and the Republicans in charge, the debt would not be so huge, although the tax cuts might still have passed, so that would still be ending right now, although, considering that we would probably be living in a budget surplus, as Kerry would’ve ended the Iraq fiasco by now (that would’ve gotten him re-elected against John McCain in 2008), and Bush-Dick’s two military fiascoes wouldn’t be costing us trillions of dollars.

Barack Obama would be preparing for re-election to the Senate and looking to run for president in 2012. We would have a budget surplus, which would make health-care reform easier to create, especially as Bush-Dick’s tax cuts for the rich ended. The Congress would still be evenly divided, however, so who knows what else might be happening?

Nemesys, if you had put your retirement money in the stock market, you would be living on food stamps out of a cardboard box now. Save Social Security.