Gov. Charlie Crist and the Stimulus

[percmanucci]

Basic economics, Association does not imply causation. Just because unemployment increased after the bill passed is not diffenitive proof that one cause the other.

[Hello59239]

@percmanucci

Exactly. The Club for Growth doesn't really support any real government measures for growth besides tax cuts. It should be renamed "Club for Austerity".

[moondogjack1978]

The unemployment rate in FL was skyrocketing BEFORE the stimulus.

Florida is a service economy dependent on tourism. Folks don't have cash so they don't vacations in FL. No cash equals no spending which equals job loss.

Simple high school econmics.

Rubio and Meek are tools. Crist for Senate, Sink for governor and Grayson for Rep.

[oregonconservative]

Crist has never been a real Republican and he has never been a conservative. He's a progressive. Florida needs Rubio desperately. America needs Rubio. Florida made a huge mistake when they didn't elect Katherine Harris. The GOP dumped on her because she is a true conservative. The GOP has been cannibalizing their conservatives since the 1960s. Crist represents the progressive wing of the party. He needs to go.

[moondogjack1978]

@oregonconservative Rubio is a loudmouth tool of big business

[pickard72]

This is so misleading...

[oregontaxdebtrelief]

a lot of emotions!

[debtconsolidationloa]

I do not know how, to whom, and I liked it!

[mrcreditcarddebt]

short and clear!

[wonwinner7]

Don't hate, just vote!

[singledad11]

I hate crist for raising my taxes and calling them service fees, 1,500 in service fees my ---, he took florida ,one of the best states to the bottom, and now he wants to be senator so he can lay around and do nothing, his career is over when he raised our taxes and called them service fees.he has destroyed florida.

[RobertRobls]

Tell Charlie Crist to Move to Chicago to run for Senator. In Florida we are going to elect Marco Rubio.

[3martijns]

Disgusting RINO.

[Telescopemaker]

As a Floridian, I can't wait to vote Charlie out. what a disgrace!

He's a super liberal democrat posing as a Repub- hmm, like Arnie in CA, I'm sick of their ilk.

Stimulus was nothing more than Democratic SLUSH fund- that's why the money isn't helping and much "hasn't been spent" (officially).

[Quanuck]

ZaBlanc, what are you smoking? Cash flow is when a consumer buys a product or service. The business needs to pay the server or spend to re-stock. The government is printing money and devaluing the dollar. Simply throwing money around at pork projects apparently has done nothing to decrease job losses. A business needs to keep break-even points to stay in business, a gov't entity needs to just increase taxes to overcome lack of efficiency. We are being scammed and screwed. God bless America.

[zzx2847]

Frankly, Obama's giving REAL Democrats a bad name. They jumped on the "hope n' change" bus only to be thrown under it, in the name of "progress".

[Maziyar]

these ppl talk like its still 2009. nooooo unemployment is at 10 percent. the numbers lag. it astonishes me how they think we don't kno what the fuck reality is.

[growliberty]

Malik Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded 30 honorable innocent Americans at their home base in Ft Hood Texas. I heard he shouted God is Great as he opened fire. I also heard he was pissed off that Obama is moving to slow in his support of Islam. Another Islamic terrorist Obama voter, typical America hating Democrat. And now ObayMaos congress pushes this Fing death bill though with the cover of fire. Stand up America, do what you can to stop these extremists. Fight the Bill!!!

[rdrakken]

did you seriously just call the over 50 million people that voted for Obama Islamic terrorists?

Please go fucking shoot yourself you piece of shit. You give REAL Republicans a bad name...not to mention Humans.

[ZaBlanc]

That was the most idiotic comment I have ever seen, and that's saying something.

So, to summarize, this man represents all Obama voters and this represents Health Insurance reform?

Tell that to my children. Hope you get screwed by your insurer some day and you remember who's side you fought on.

[moondogjack1978]

@ZaBlanc When it's THEIR kid's life on the line then they sing a different tune.

[Nickelodeon2002]

The Stimulus package should have been called the "Reverse Robin Hood" policy. Though then it might not have been passed under Bush or Obama.

[johndrew25]

For more on why these stimulus bills actually harm economic recovery, see Burton Folsom's new book, New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.

[DaveLister360]

Club For Growth could end up being the best thing that happens to Democrats in 2010. Crist could easily win that Senate seat, but they want to knock him out in the primary. LOL.

[fishbait888]

Agreed, thanks for the far right wing republicans youth voters like me are being forced from the party.

Crist for Senate.

[ZaBlanc]

What an absurd commercial. The stimulus did not lead to job loss and economic problems. The stimulus is trying to solve that. In case Club For Growth hadn't noticed, jobs were being hemmoraged and the economy tanked long before Obama stepped foot in the White House.

This is the worst kind of political ad.

Poor Charlie Crist, attacked by his own side. Can't say I feel bad, but the Republicans are bursting at the seams. Eventually they will be two parties.

[IssuesAndJustice]

"The stimulus did not lead to job loss and economic problems."

Obama promised with stimulus that unemployment would not go over 8%.

It's at 9.8% now.

That is a FACT.

Either Obama lied or his economic team is very weak.

[ZaBlanc]

So what? It wasn't caused by the Stimulus. There is no grounding in reality that would cause companies to dump jobs because of the Stimulus which has created jobs. It just means it would have been a lot, lot worse.

Bush said he'd cut the deficit in half and it went up. Which is he guilty of?

This isn't exact science. The economy is in a bad place. We're all just trying to fix things up. So grab a freakin mop. :-) If you want to place blame, we KNOW who to blame, and he's gone now.

[IssuesAndJustice]

Bush was a fiscal liberal and Obama is too. The deficit this year is more than 3x the big deficit of last year.

The stimulus is funded through citizen's tax money. Money that is taken from investment and consumption. If Gov spending is not as efficient as the spending of the taxpayers then economy suffers.

Sometimes Gov taxing and spending is efficient like for fire, police, roads, etc. In this case I don't think the evidence shows that it was.

[ZaBlanc]

All governors are "fiscal liberal" because it's reality. Things cost money. America is fiscally liberal which is why Social Security and cuts to PB freakin S were fought.

And stop, the deficit is great ter because of (A) The Stimulus to fix Bush's mess, (B) The Bailout which came late in Bush's Presidency and (C) we put Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget whereas Bush hid those costs.

Nothing has changed except for the Stimulus, which is a necessity and gets paid back to the government.

[redbloodedusgirl]

You can't be this naive. Stimulus gets "paid back" to the gov't only in the sense that the gov't has the power to tax--but no one is actually paying the gov't for the services it provides through so-called stimulus. I don't know where you took economics, but the only way to create wealth is to provide goods that a market is willing to purchase by adding value to raw materials with human labor. Hence, Sony creates wealth, the government does not--it can creates work and money, not wealth.

[ZaBlanc]

Right. But the money comes back. The "economy" is not an amount of money. When we have problems with the economy, it's not a budget thing. It's about money flow. Right now, the money is locked up amongst the very rich and they are unwilling to invest. The Stimulus aims to unblock that. It's basic economic theory.

The government is NOT like your household budget. You can't afford deficits. However, business can benefit by borrowing money and turning profit.

Without economy, no tax rev.

[redbloodedusgirl]

Do you actually believe what you wrote? Stim is a fed spending bill for public works; it does NOTHING to encourage investment. What are "rich" supposed to invest in--paved highways? Gee, great return on that.

Stim provides NO investment mechanism whatsoever, it simply spends money on public works projects.  Gov't then taxes only its own spending. . . at a loss. Stim fills potholes with cash--basically, buries it in the ground, never to be seen again.

[ZaBlanc]

Yeah, and the money that's spent goes to a wide array of private business that spends that money on other services and so on and so forth. I'm not going to argue with the red blooded US girl, it's economics 101. How to kickstart economy.

Think it won't work? Fine. It's not an argument that has to be won. It just has to work. If it works, Dems will dominate Congress another 8 years. If it fails, Republicans gain some seats.

Republicans f'd up the economy, can't just sit back.

[redbloodedusgirl]

"Republicans"? Do you really not understand what created this? Congress; they all deserve to get canned. Yes, money needs to go into the economy, but stim just dumps it into favored pork projects (which is why they'll get re-elected, not because stim "works"). Small fraction of stim will produce anything; it is doomed to have only a short-term economic benefit. If gov't had handed the $ 800 bil. to 10 mil. poorest American families, I would have applauded--would have spent money more wisely.

[ZaBlanc]

Economists agreed on the Stimulus. Obama didn't invent it. Just because the now out of power conservatives want to claim it's Socialism or Communism or whatever other term you want to label it, doesn't mean it is. Focus your energy on oil company subsidies and medicare giveaways and we'll take care of the economy for you.

[IssuesAndJustice]

"Focus your energy on oil company subsidies and medicare giveaways"

I am opposed to those too as all fiscal conservatives that I know. That is just sold out DC GOP leadership that supporters that.

[tbetz]

Of course, the Club for Growth (actually the Club for Growth of International Corporatism At The Expense of Regular Americans' Jobs) ignores the fact that without the stimulus package, we'd be stuck in a depression the likes of which we haven't seen since 1930.

I love this ad! Marco Rubio is Florida's Doug Hoffman, and the result of the Club For Growth's campaign in Florida (they dropped a million bucks in NY's 23rd DIstrict) will be adding a Democratic Senator from FL.

Bring on the FAIL!!

[conguera]

Crist should just switch parties. Why is he even trying to be a Republican? He's better than that. Besides, does he really want to suffer the smear campaign this represents? It's so 20th Century.

[ZaBlanc]

Because he *is* Republian. That's the problem. Unless you bring the Bachmann crazy, you are called a moderate and a liberal. Yes, the two are conflated.

Ask Arlen Specter.

[wolviex2008]

This guy needs to go.