ABC News Jake Tapper posited this question to press secretary Jay Carney today:
TAPPER: President Obama is going to be introducing his outline for a budget. Fed Chair Bernanke has said the lack of a budget having been passed by the Senate has had an adverse affect on growth because it’s created uncertainty. Harry Reid has said that he doesn’t think there’s a need to introduce a budget this year. Who do you — who does the president think is right, Harry Reid or Ben Bernanke?As reported, the White House has "no opinion" as to whether the Senate should pass a budget as required by law. It's already been a thousand days, so what's the hurry? President
7 comments:
President xxxTrumanxxx Obama wants to run against a "do nothing" Congress
Truman's opponent Thomas Dewey was a stiff, inapproachable, programmed eastern establishment empty suit who was derisively called "the little man on the wedding cake." His multiple campaigns of empty platitudes and inconstant positions made Dewey disliked and distrusted by the conservatives in his own party.
But hey, maybe you'll get a funny Chicago Tribune headline out of the deal.
Another similarity: the unemployment rate in 1948 was 4%.
Yeah, and it had shot all the way up from 4% to 3.1% in November 1952, when the White House flipped to the Republicans.
Lyndon Johnson was elected in 1964 with the unemployment rate at 5.1%. After he'd gotten it down to 3.4% in 1968, the voters duly rewarded him.
Alas, the rate zoomed upwards during Richard Nixon's first term, spending a year at 5.9% to 6.1%. That's probably why he got so painfully hammered by George McGovern.
The difference between Ronald Reagan's narrow 1980 win and his 1984 sweep-the-board triumph can pretty much be explained by the improvement in the number: from 7.5% to 7.5%. Oh wait, I think I listed those backwards.
Bill Clinton inherited a 7.6% unemployment rate, but his administration literally halved it by November 2000, to 3.8%. That success certainly paved the primrose path for Al Gore's dominance.
Nevertheless, the data is clear. You can always, and definitively, hang your predictive hat on the unemployment rate.
And another one: both Truman and Obama had a sign on their desks that read "The Buck Stops Here."
Is "Buck" a nickname for Osama Bin Laden?
I think it's Obama's nickname for SuperPAC money (formerly known as a "threat to democracy.")
OH SNAP
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