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1. 

   Fairportfan said, 7 months ago

   Well, yeah. That’s all Republicans care about.

2. 

   Anthony 2816 said, 7 months ago

   Robby must be talking about that period when the Republicans suddenly decided that using the filibuster was actually a good idea.

3. 

   HOWGOZIT said, 7 months ago

   2816; Works the same when other party is in power. Neither has a patent on filibuster/obstruction

4. 

   dtroutma said, 7 months ago

   It’s been 25+ years of ignoring infrastructure to buy in large part military systems that don’t work, and cut taxes to a level that ignores basic need. Even Reagan and 41 had to raise taxes back up to avoid total disaster, but not small disasters. 43 just ignored facts for eight years. A chain is its weakest link, we have nothing left but weak links, it is indeed not just the front wheel.(an idler)

5. 

   believecommonsense said, 7 months ago

   I like this one. Auth captures the angst of the Reps who only care about the front wheel, though will claim no responsibility for it needing repair. Obama is completely correct in his conviction that all the wheels must be repaired (reformed) for the USA engine to be healthy again. I admire his conviction and courage in the face of the obstructionists of both parties and those who insist he’s moving too fast and should concentrate on only one thing at a time. In the end, that would mean only one thing gets repaired. We’ve seen this before.

6. 

   motivemagus said, 7 months ago

   I like this cartoon, which I think is dead on. People are surprised that Obama is actually aiming to keep his promises on education, energy, health care, etc. Surprise!!

7. 

   deadheadzan said, 7 months ago

   Obama has big goals and they all dove-tail together just like fixing that locomotive in the toon.

8. 

   harleyquinn said, 7 months ago

   Fix the finance by staying out of it and all else can and will fall into place.

9. 

   motivemagus said, 7 months ago

   Unfortunately, harley, the only thing all the economists agree on is that if we leave the financial institutions alone (letting them fail), we will sink straight into Depression, and stay there for some time to come. (Meanwhile, the Chinese will no doubt roar ahead of us. They’re already itching to do it.) If you think it’s bad now, just imagine what would happen if the main sources of credit for industry, small business, and frankly anyone else disappeared.

10. 

    Fairportfan said, 7 months ago

    harleyquinn says:

    “Fix the finance by staying out of it and all else can and will fall into place.”
     
    Might i humbly point out that, just as with the Great Depression, we are *in* this mess because the Gov’t stayed out of finance - in 1929 it was margin calls; in 2008 it was derivatives.
     
    It took government intervention to fix it then, and it will again.

11. 

    deadheadzan said, 7 months ago

    Way back in the old days Teddie Roosevelt took on the robber barons and was known as “the trust buster”. After that we came to the Great Depression and FDR came along with the New Deal and regulations that prohibited banks, insurance companies from merging together to create mega-institutions. In 1999 the Gramm-Leach-Blliley legislation was passed that essentially did away with these restrictions and this is the result. The worse financial crisis since the Great Depression. Senator Dorgan of N.
    D. gave a speech in ‘99 that this might happen and he was correct.

12. 

    danielsangeo said, 7 months ago

    “Actually FDR’s policies prolonged the depression and WWII got us out.”

    Get that off a teleprompter, did you?

13. 

    longtimecomicsfan said, 7 months ago

    Actually, it’s refreshing to see the current Administration addressing years of deregulation, and moving to re-instate some of the protections that were put in place after the Great Depression and later dismantled by the Republicans. FDR turned the economy around and got GDP growing again by 1933 (technically, the end of the depression), but as he tried to balance the budget, the Recession of 1937 forced his hand and he went back to government spending to avert ANOTHER depression.

14. 

    WillBerry said, 7 months ago

    IF OBAMAMAMA only wanted to re-build infrastructure I would be on his bandwagon. However, it is the rest of the agenda that horrifies me. Universal/Single Payer Healthcare; The Bill Ayers Education Agenda; The Alternative Energy but no drilling non-plan; and, most scary of all, Tim Geithner and Robert Rubin in charge of the Economy!

    danielsangeo - FDR was saved by World War II in Europe. Check the facts - economy was in doldrums until late 1939, when orders from France, Britain, Holland, etc, …, led the way. NRA was ruled unconstitutional, CCC was good idea, but didn’t help economy, WPA ended up using sub-par materials.

    Infrastructure work is over-due, but so is clearing the corruption, lobbyists and life-long politicians out of government!

15. 

    WillBerry said, 7 months ago

    longtimecomicsfan - If you examine the facts or talk with people who lived in the period 1933-1939 you would drop any idea that FDR turned the economy around. Business growth was nil, employment growth was minimal outside of government, and most Americans were just trying to survive from day to day. Speak to African-Americans also - poverty and segregation were total.

16. 

    danielsangeo said, 7 months ago

    “Check the facts - economy was in doldrums until late 1939”

    These two statements (“Check the facts” and “economy was in doldrums until late 1939”) are in conflict. The economy roared back except for the recession in 1937-1938 when FDR decided to listen to his conservative critics.

    Nice try, though. This has been a talking point (off a teleprompter?) that has existed on the Right for several years now and, like most of their talking points, they have no basis in fact. They are ignoring (conveniently!) the growth from 1934 to 1937. Even with the recession, FDR gave us a 5.37% annualized percentage growth.

    Not too shabby coming off the worst crisis of his time.

17. 

    churchillwasright said, 7 months ago

    Daniel, here’s a fact for you (no prompter needed): A quote from FDR’s Treasury Secretary
    Henry Morgenthau, after two terms of FDR’s “New Deal”, stated, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work…After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…And an enormous debt to boot.”

    http://www.reteaparty.com/2009/03/a-quote-from-fdrs-treasury-secretary/

    Again, sorry the link doesn’t work (don’t know why) but all you have to do is google “fdr treasury secretary quote” and you’ll get 170,000 hits.

18. 

    motivemagus said, 7 months ago

    churchill, nice try, but daniel is right. Economists generally agree that the New Deal worked; with the single exception of when he implemented tight money to make the conservatives happy, and it immediately squelched the regrowth. Quoting one guy from the time (one of the conservatives, as I recall) doesn’t work as well as modern economists who’ve studied it from a distance.

19. 

    churchillwasright said, 7 months ago

    He was Roosevelt’s Treasury Sectretary (for I suppose at least 8 years). If you can cite a source that he was a Republican, I’d like to see it.

    And saying “economists generally agree” means little. After all, we’ve all grown up reading schoolbooks that say the new deal brought us out of the depression, so it’s ingrained in us economists, too). It’s not until modern economists, studying it from a distance, that there’s been any question.

    More to the point, if Geitner says to Obama in 2017, “you know all this stuff we’ve been doing since you were elected, none of it worked!” you’d still say he didn’t know what he was talking about.

20. 

    danielsangeo said, 7 months ago

    Okay, let’s think about this quote by someone that opposed many elements of the New Deal.

    “[W]e have just as much unemployment as when we started…”

    Now, to the untrained eye, this is a bad thing. However, if you scratch the surface (something conservatives rarely do), let’s examine the quote and you’ll see why it’s not a bad thing after all:

    Let’s examine it with this scenario (which I have just invented to prove a point):

    If there is a number that starts at 100, and it’s 25 when you come in and it’s 25 when you leave, this isn’t a bad thing or a failure. This number takes a long time to STOP sliding. So, when you get in, it’s 25, then it goes down to 10, then 5, then 2. When you leave, it’s 25 (a 23-point gain). How is this a bad thing?

    Please explain it to me.

    EDIT: Did a bit more digging and found something VERY interesting. The quote in question from Morgenthau comes from Burton Folsom, Jr’s book “New Deal or Raw Deal?” Folsom (who isn’t an economist) says that he got the quote from the FDR Presidential Library from “Morgenthau Diary, May 9, 1939”.

    May 9, 1939. Six years after FDR began his presidency, why would Morgenthau say “After eight years of this Administration” if “this Administration” hasn’t been in existence for eight years?

    Oh, and the rise in umployment and decline in fiscal stimulus in 1937? Yeah, that was because Roosevelt listened to Morgenthau.

21. 

    churchillwasright said, 7 months ago

    Daniel: It’s not a bad thing… but it’s not a good thing either.

    Maybe we can agree on this: (most) economists and the financial gurus of the world are idiots! They can argue all day long whether the New Deal brought us out of the depression or extended it’s length. There’s really no way to really know. And anyone who tells you they know the answer is full of themselves.

    It’s just like the mess we’re in today (which few of these geniuses saw coming). When we’re out of it, which will happen eventually, there will be debates over whether the policies of government bailouts and stimuli was the reason. But they’ll be no way to really know. You can never go back and un-ring the bell, don’t spend the money, replay the game and see if you win in more or less moves.

    In any case, I can only use the common sense that I’ve learned in my real world. I’m in a recession, too (lost my job). I’ve got non discretionary spending (rent and car payments). Luckily I don’t have much debt. I don’t raise my budget 8%. I don’t triple my debt. I cut back on all non discretionary spending (electric use, cheaper foods, entertainment, any and all goodies). Hopefully I will outlast the economic downturn.

    The government would read that last paragraph and scratch their heads like it was written in hieroglyphics.