First thing, was anyone else get surprised by the uncharacteristically accurate title given to Carly Fiorina in this segment of This Week with George Stephanopoulos? Normally, aren’t these surrogates usually called “advisors”? I guess I have to give the chyron operators credit for calling a spade a spade.
John McCain has admitted that he don’t know much ’bout the economy, so perhaps it makes perfect sense to him to send out an executive who was ousted from her most prominent position for mismanagement and not producing the returns and corporate profits expected and not see the irony in her dismissing economists’ warnings that a gas tax holiday is a bad idea.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you defend that gas tax holiday? I was talking to Senator Clinton last week. and asked her if she could name a credible economist who could support it, and she couldn’t. Can you?
FIORINA: No, I can’t, but, you see, I don’t think it matters. I’m a…
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: How can you say that, though?
FIORINA: Because I think economists sometimes argue about the theory. Economists, right now, are arguing theoretically about whether we’re in a recession or not. An American family who is sitting around the kitchen table wondering how they’re going to pay for groceries, fill their gas tank, whether they’re going to stay in their home, whether or not they can send their kid to college this fall. For them, the economy is in difficulty, and all the theoretical discussion is, sort of, irrelevant.
Yeah, let’s not talk to the guys with the edumucation. Trust your gut, that’s the Republican way. The whole argument as to whether we’re in a recession is comparing apples to tea cups. The reason it’s still up for debate resides in which definition of “recession” economists want to use. By the way, Carly, you probably don’t want to bring up how bad the economy is for the average American, since it got this way under Republican majority rule, and that doesn’t bode well for your non-economic-minded candidate. However, as you proved so aptly at HP, as long as the haves get their fancy jets and other perks, it doesn’t really matter how much worry around the kitchen table Joe Sixpack experiences, does it?
Full transcript below the fold
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you heard Senator Reid right there. He says the case against John McCain is he’s wrong on all of the big issues, the war and the economy.
FIORINA: Well, I’ve heard a lot that John McCain is a third Bush term. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was John McCain, after all, who spoke loudly, for four long years, saying that Don Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in history, that the prosecution of the war in Iraq was going badly, and that we needed a new strategy. And we are now executing a new strategy because of John McCain. John McCain has differed with George Bush on global warming, on climate change, on how we should deal with high fuel prices right now, saying that we should stop the fill of the strategic petroleum reserve, for example.
STEPHANOPOULOS: President Bush isn’t very enthusiastic about the gas tax holiday, either.
FIORINA: No, he’s not. So there are clear places where George Bush and John McCain differ. And I think John McCain will run on his own record, his own character, his own integrity.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you defend that gas tax holiday? I was talking to Senator Clinton last week. and asked her if she could name a credible economist who could support it, and she couldn’t. Can you?
FIORINA: No, I can’t, but, you see, I don’t think it matters. I’m a…
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: How can you say that, though?
FIORINA: Because I think economists sometimes argue about the theory. Economists, right now, are arguing theoretically about whether we’re in a recession or not. An American family who is sitting around the kitchen table wondering how they’re going to pay for groceries, fill their gas tank, whether they’re going to stay in their home, whether or not they can send their kid to college this fall. For them, the economy is in difficulty, and all the theoretical discussion is, sort of, irrelevant.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s not theory is that this is going to cost $9 billion, and money’s going to come out of the highway trust fund. That could cost up to 300,000 jobs.
FIORINA: Well, if it continued, yes, but let’s talk about how much earmarks that John McCain has said we need to stopped, earmarks…
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: He’s using that for the tax cuts?
FIORINA: Well, that $42 billion in the last two years. Discretionary spending has risen 70 percent in the last seven years, another clear difference, by the way, between President Bush and John McCain, who believes that, to get out of a difficult economic time, we have to practice fiscal restraint. We have to grow our economy. And we also have to find ways to reduce the increase in discretionary spending.
Filed Under: Election 08, John McCain, This Week/George Stephanopoulos
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Yep- they are on my list, too.
Fiorina is allowed to doubt economists because her leadership at Hewlett Packard was so amazingly successful.
Did I say “successful”? Well, “disastrous” could be more applicable.
Same thing — only them danged ivory tower ay-leet egg-heads differentiate between success & failure.
Carly’s also advising him on the mortgage crisis, with the “Johnny Mac”
why is anyone paying this whore-bag failure to talk about anything??????
I think that when the government is running deficits as they are, that any expenditure should be reviewed to see if we’re getting the appropriate bang for the buck. Seeing that this tax holiday proposal doesn’t get the appropriate bang for the buck, I lose respect for the economic leadership of those who propose this idea.
So, no economic leadership skills and a promise of more borrow and spend (creating the inflation tax), an enemy recognition deficiency which led us to Iraq, and nothing for health care except to tax workers for imputed income on employer paid insurance premiums; that’s about sums up what you get with McCain. Along with more Bush like court appointees.
She is great wiretapping employees.
Hey, I got a question for the failed-businesswoman-turned-political-shill:
If McCain pushes through a gas-tax holiday, somehow, what’s to stop big oil from simply keeping the price the same and raking in that money for themselves as pure profit?
Well Obama thinks there is no short term solution.
I say BS.
They can release and stop buying the oil reserve.
They can start using domestic drilling and build refineries.
They can try to get OPEC to produce more and meet with the oil companies and have them subsidize with our government like Iraq and Venezuela.
Of course, this will force Obama to take the lead and put him out there politically. Our economy depends on oil and that is not going to change short term.
Or you can do nothing and continue to watch the econmoy crash.
Remember when science was respected in this country? Remember when educated and intelligent people were looked up to? It’s almost to the point where the complete lack any expertise is considered a hallmark of trustworthiness.
That’s ok . . . Economists believe in you.
Almost John Galt @ 10:
It’s been like that for 7+ years.
Just another Republican , dumb as a box of rocks / insane . As to who they’ll interview and quote the friggin networks have lowered the bar so far that it’s embedded in the ground .
“Fiorina is allowed to doubt economists because her leadership at Hewlett Packard was so amazingly successful.”
Heh, heh. Good point. But I certainly think economics is a miserable science as well. I’d just correct her and say I don’t think economists get wrapped up in the _theory_. It’s worse. I think they get wrapped up in the _ideology_.
Don’t let facts get in the way of bad policy. We don’t need bridges or jobs. Not when we can get $28 over the span of 3 months.
Hillary said the same thing. CrooksandLiars, there comes a point when you just have to give someone up.
Ryan @ 13:
Clinton has been pushing this too.
I wonder why Stepha did not ask how we can trust her on the economy when she could not run a fortune500 company well.
getalife @ 9:
I don’t believe Texas and Oklahoma have dried up. They can make more money refining it and selling it with out the cost of drilling for it. So on this i say yes, open up those fields and try to do something.
BUT, as for drilling off of the coast of Calif or Oregon and Washington forget it. When those things blow a gasket the mess is unsurmountable. But I say lets drill all over Crawford. Chimpy won’t mind , after all, he’s an oil man.
Well, if McCain wants to prove himself as George W. Bush part 2 then bringing her aboard makes perfect sense - he needs her to help shore up the “running businesses into the ground and being rewarded financially for it” hole he’s had in his campaign. She fits this hole very nicely. She can’t be his VP though, the VP is going to have to be someone fatter, creepier, greedier, more ruthless, wealthier, older, and willing to shoot old men in the face as long as they apologize afterwards. Oh, and covered in liver spots with a hump on their back with a heart 3 shades blacker than midnight.
McSame is taking credit for the “surge”?????
abiodun @ 18:
Stephanopoulos is terrible, that’s why.
Well, we can blame Georgie and the media whores for letting idiots like this on her show. This is typical science-denying, fact-ignoring Republicanism at it’s worst. They should change their party logo from the elephant to the ostrich.
She destroyed the “resource silo” structure that made HP such a power house. She drove that company into the ground and was fired for her incompetence as a CEO. Why on earth would anyone listen to what she has to say about business or economics.
Leslie [Hussein] @ 17:
DavidtheDuke @ 16:
I’m not saying you both are wrong, but if you’re going to say something like this, don’t you think you should provide a link to support your claim.
Leslie [Hussein] @ 22:
Once people make it up to CEO status, it doesn’t matter how horribly they do. They’ll still get their bonuses, keep their credibility with the people who matter (to them), and keep getting high-paying jobs. That’s Corporate Amerka.
living-abomination @ 20:
Who’s he gonna get? Ken Lay is dead.
Emma Hussein Goldman @ 23:
I like that. Is there a good artist out there that can design their new logo for them?
mudshark @ 25:
It’s been reported all over, here’s one example courtesy of Reuters.
Almost John Galt @ 10:
They are ‘educated’ all these talking heads, pundits, and business types hold degrees and MBAs of some form or another,
they might be stupid but they have the paper to prove it.
Walker @ 24:
They are trying the same thing at 3M, 5Sing it into mediocrity.
Republicans make their own reality. Duh. Or I should say they are making their own reality — they haven’t produced a product yet.
But don’t give up on them. Their dreams will come true eventually, when the make-a-wish fairy grants them their due reward for their faith. /sarcasm
no wonder they kicked her out of hp. she sounds like she was home-schooled. of course, when you intend to continue to fuck shit up, you don’t want no stinking economist offering facts or expertise.
stephie is proof that the DLC is the repug wing of the democratic party. did georegie open with how she was fired for snooping on other executives and staff and that she opened herself and her companie to lawsuits? I suppose not.
its so obvious that as soon as the gas tax is removed the price of gas will immediately skyrocket! there will be a surge in demand but no change in supply. when the summer is over and the gas tax returns you’ll be paying more than if the break never happened.
you don’t need to be an economist to understand that.
Leslie [Hussein] @ 29:
A quote from the Bush Tax advisory board doesn’t say anything to me. The Urban Brookings Institute on Taxes? puhleese. That’s a repug think tank. got any more?
ferrofluid @ 30:
They hold degrees in things like “political science”. I think I see an addition to the oxymoron list.
Barrett D @ 34:
You’ll be paying more anyway, with or without a tax. Because gas prices keep rising. And if the Bushies have their way and start war against Iran, expect gas prices to rise even more.
And Fiorina is probably nothing more than a glorified accountant.
mudshark @ 35:
It’s been reported all over, here’s one example courtesy of Reuters.
A quote from the Bush Tax advisory board doesn’t say anything to me. The Urban Brookings Institute on Taxes? puhleese. That’s a repug think tank. got any more?
I’m not sure what you’re asking for then? I thought you wanted info about Clinton’s gas tax holiday?
If God(presuming it exists) told Hillary to give up her torched earth waste of time campaign, she would tell him to go to Hell.
Leslie [Hussein] @ 39:
A quote from the Bush Tax advisory board doesn’t say anything to me. The Urban Brookings Institute on Taxes? puhleese. That’s a repug think tank. got any more?
I’m not sure what you’re asking for then? I thought you wanted info about Clinton’s gas tax holiday?
right, that’s what I’m asking for. not some report from an unreliable source. An honest,impartial, unbiased report would be nice.
Perfect Republican logic. Run the train right off the cliff. Screw the people.
mudshark @ 19: