The following is a guest view by OC Treasurer Chriss Street
The President Takes his First Sip of Tea
Candidate Barack Obama famously said: “Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.” At the time, candidate Barack Obama saw himself as a transformational figure to bury the last vestiges of Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economics and usher in a nirvana of the progressively managed economy and a collaborative foreign policy. With U.S. unemployment now 30% higher than when he took office, and American combat deaths running 13% higher than his predecessor; it is President Obama who is being transformed to a pro tax-cut populist moderate.
President Obama’s $3.8 trillion dollar stimulus failure ignited the Tea Party movement, which may be the most significant political backlash since President Hoover’s trade-killing, Smott-Hawley Tariff plunged the world into the Great Depression. Fortunately for President Obama, he can wake up every morning and read his tea leaves in the form of overnight polling from consummate professions, such as the Rasmussen Report and Pew Research Center. What he saw last week was the implosion of his party’s lead in voter identification for the first time since this type of polling began:
Political Party Identification
Identification 1988 1992 2000 2008 2010
Republican 33 30 30 33 36
Democrat 33 37 38 42 35
Independent 34 33 32 25 29
Tea Party movement “patriots” tend to describe themselves in the following terms: “Normal everyday working people who are fed up with having to balance their family budgets while Congress and the lawyers in Washington, D.C., cook up ways to tax the living daylights out of us and then hire thousands of IRS hooligans to come to our homes and hit us over the head with their tax and- spend billy-clubs.” For a year the Democrats attacked the Tea Party patriots as a right-wing fringe element that are out of touch with mainstream Americans; while Republicans tried to hijack the conservative Tea Party logo to mask their own nasty deficit spending addiction.
President Obama’s compromise with Congress fully embraces the populist Tea Party mantra of restraining government intervention and letting the private sector create jobs. All the Bush tax cuts are extended for 2 years, business can now expense 100% of capital equipment purchases in the current year, personal Social Security tax withholding is cut by 2%, the rise of the Alternative Minimum Tax is delayed and the length of the unemployment benefits extension is curtailed.
The President’s rating of voters strongly approving versus strongly disapproving his policies had hit an all-time low of -19% late last week; down by -47% from +28% when he was inaugurated. Bad luck with rising unemployment,nuclear saber rattling by North Korea and Iran, daily Wiki Leak exposures shredding his foreign policy initiatives and literally getting his teeth kicked in and taking 12 stitches on the basketball court seemed to pound the young President from every direction. When the evening news interviewed basketball legend Charles Barkley about the injury, he commented: “He’s a lefty, he always goes left.”
With irrelevancy looming, the President has shocked the Nation and taken a hard libertarian turn toward the Tea Party Movement. The President’s poll numbers leapt in a positive direction immediately, with his negatives down by almost one third. A grinning and newly confident Commander and Chief stood proudly in front of the glare of the television Klieg lights as his former liberal and progressive fellow travelers were too tongue tied to even respond.
The President’s economic policies have created a very difficult situation for Americans. Over 8 million jobs have been lost or out-sourced and the nation now has a debt load that is approaching that of Greece. But the best way to stop digging yourself into a ditch is to throw the shovel away. Let’s hope President Obama savors his first sip of tea enough to put it on his regular menu.
For additional articles on finances by Chriss simply go to his blog at:
www.ocmoneyman.blogspot.com
What does disgraced, ex-OC treasurer Chriss Street think about President Obama? = Something I had forgotten to wonder about.
Vern. There is always two parts to a report. The messenger and the message.
Do you find any fault in what was written or simply oppose the author?
It’s hard to know what’s going on with Obama right now. I think Chriss really exaggerates the change he’s supposedly gone through, basically because Obama was never as radical as Chriss originally thought.
“…a transformational figure to bury the last vestiges of Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economics and usher in a nirvana of the progressively managed economy and a collaborative foreign policy.”
Ridiculous. That was never Obama. That’s a caricature of what us progressives want, and it’s the nightmare vision painted by Chriss’ Republican friends. The only thing that’s changed is maybe Chriss is seeing Obama more clearly now. Maybe being out of office he has time to actually hear what Obama says and see what he does.
Vern.
Radical? Are you kidding? President Obama has read the tea leaves and I am not referring to the Tea Party. Those tea leaves have been engaged in our nations politics since the founding fathers put quill in hand.
He’s trying to shift the focus and work on his remaining agenda which he now acknowledges will be a very challenging task
That weirdo supported Hairball Sidhu, Case losed.
Tony.
One of our mutual north county friends once endorsed our former Mayor Lance MacLean [who supported redevelopment] yet I have moved on.
Where does this 3.8 trillion amount come from? If this is TARP, then you have the Bush Administration to thank for that, it was a done deal far before Obama was voted into office. Minor detail.
But I do hope he will get credit for this compromise, that he felt it was far more important to get tax cuts for the middle class extended than to fight over tax cuts for those making over a million (the Senate voted down the other compromise of just extending tax breaks for the first million in income).
My concern is no matter what he does, he won’t ever win some people over. And that’s just how things go.
Huh.
You are correct on your bottom line remark. There will always be the hard core 10 to 20 percent whom you will never win over. Politicos know that which is why the independent vote is becoming more important today.
He’s a fraudster. Why is the OJ Blog helping to rehabilitate this guy?
People like Street are what’s wrong with this county.
I didn’t read his piece. I don’t care what he has to say.
He deserves oblivion.
Roy. No one requires that you add anything to this post. Please feel free to pass the next time I post something where you oppose the person, regardless of his or her message.
We are to love our brothers. I guess Americans should not purchase vehicles made in Germany or Japan based on their being on the opposite side in WWII. Let the healing begin.
And a Merry Christmas to you!
I oppose the author! He may be a smart and intelligent person, but his moral code is way off, and to be honest, can’t really understand why you are posting something he has written. There is a huge amount of us OC Republicans that are looking for some good politicians who actually have a code of ethics that they live by, and Chriss Street is definitely not one of them. Posting pieces written by the Chriss Streets of the world is not doing anything for OJ’s reputation.
So, are you saying I should hang on to this article Mike Carona gave me about closing Gitmo, and not publish it?
Vern.
If you have a relevant article on Gitmo why are you sitting on it?
Even Ron and Anna Winship reference Noam Chomsky who is surely not someone I would hang with but has something provocative to say about our country
It was a joke, Larry. Right, Carona a thinker, and his “little sheriff” a writer.
Anonymous.
I posted a Press Release from the White House last night. We do not limit considerations from those who have an understanding on the topic submitted for debate. This is not about anyone’s morale conduct in your view.
Feel free to take the author to task if you can on his material and opinion.
You surely have taken me to task on my posts and I welcome a fair debate.
Merry Christmas!
Yep.
Vern,
What’s next, Miguel Pulido and Scott Baugh posting on ethics?
Tea, ethics,morals and holidays. This is fun!
Street might have valid ideas, but I meant what I said when I said that he represents what is wrong with this county.
For years, I watched Street (and his assistant Anna Bryson) showing up at SOCCCD board meetings to give dubious and gratuitous reports, evidently designed merely to keep his mug in front of South County voters. Bryson, of course, is a trustee at CAPO. Why was she addressing us? Again, the point seemed to be to give the “in” crowd exposure.
That’s how these people work. For years, trustee Fuentes arranged to get Mike Carona to show up to be pious and patriotic before the cameras at Irvine Valley College. Fuentes, Schroeder, and that crowd run this county; they keep their little group in power, and loyalty is the only qualification — not competence, not integrity.
And so Fuentes’ colleague (on the board), John Williams, became OC PublicAdministrator/Guardian, despite an utter lack of qualifications. And when it became clear that he is corrupt and incompetent, he showed up before the Supes with his lawyer, Phil Greer, who happens to be the lawyer of four of the five Supes. Greer was also the lawyer for Raghu Mathur, the corrupt and incompetent Chancellor of our district (until recently).
It’s a nice little scheme, isn’t it? But it is wrong. These people are like a cancer. And, no, I don’t think it is decent or right to give the key members of this ugly machine a “voice,” even if that voice has something to say. Giving such a man a voice is a failure of moral proportion and moral clarity.
Good afternoon Roy. Just to point out that we have just given you a platform to express your thoughts which have nothing to do with the post but to confirm that we do permit readers to go off the story thread on ocassion.
We thank you for your interest in the Juice blog and look forward to your contributions as we head into the new year.
I disagree, Brother Larry. Professor Bauer’s comment does have to do with the post. It has to do with the author, and with your choice of author. And it has to do with Professor Bauer’s principled refusal to address Street’s content.
You’ll notice that I, however, did deign to address Street’s content. And you didn’t seem to understand what I wrote in my second comment. I think Street and many others on both sides are finally noticing what a radical President Obama IS NOT. And the only reason someone like Street thinks Obama has changed a lot since Jan. 2009 is because previously Street was living in a Republican bubble and steeped in the GOP propaganda that Obama was the second coming of Trotsky.
Larry,
Why do you have such a problem with those of us that are actually looking for party representatives that actually have a moral code of conduct that they live by? I think Roy’s response is definitely within the boundaries of your post, because you chose to print something written by a man in public office that was found to have breached his fiduciary duty. I have no doubt if Vern had posted something written by Charlie Rangel, you would have been all over that. Larry, I would like to believe you are one of the good guys in my party, but defending and supporting someone like Chriss Street…I don’t know…
Or maybe I am just looking for a Fairy Tale that doesn’t exist.
RRR
I would welcome a post written by Charlie Rangel.
Not every member of Congress has served our nation in wartime and received medals for his or her military service during the Korean conflict.
For that representative Rangel is to be commended. While he is slightly older than myself we might have met at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem when I was a bit younger.
If only every member of Congress, that pushed the envelope, were to be vetted we might need to conduct a major special election.
Yes, by all means have Charlie submit a guest view and we will publish it.