The Goddess Kinda Watches the President’s Press Conference
(so you don’t have to)
As President Obama strides to the podium for tonight’s press conference, I notice he doesn’t really have what I’ve come to think of as a presidential walk. He’s so cool and casual: none of that stiff arms, cowboy frog march we got from President Bush.
President Obama has a few good moments during the news conference. My favorite was the response to a CNN reporter who asked him why it took him several days to “express his outrage” over the AIG salary bonuses. Note that he didn’t ask why the loop hole was written into the stimulus package in the first place. All this douchebag wanted to know was, “where was the outrage?!”
“It took me a couple days,” said Obama, ”because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.” In your FACE, cable news man!
If I’m honest though, despite my best intentions to keep on top of all this stuff I have to admit that I’ve already lost track of all the programs the Obama administration has passed or proposed, and his presidency is only 65 days old. So far, we’ve had:
- The original Toxic Asset Relief Act: $700 billion
passed during the Bush Administration to infuse capitol onto banks’ balance sheets - The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill: $787 billion
includes tax cuts, infrastructure spending, Medicaid spending, etc. - The budget: $3.5 trillion
Obama’s top priorities are: health care, energy, education, deficit reduction - The financial sector bailout: $1 trillion
the plan announced by Tim Geithner to create a public-private partnership to buy troubled assets from banks; separate from TARP program - The auto sector bailout: $22 billion in government loans already accepted with a request for another $22 billion on tap
- The AIG bailout: $170 billion in loans
- Housing program: $75 billion
reduces mortgages to no more than 30% of borrowers income, which no one is frikkin’ talking about.
Add it all up, and it comes to about $5.15 trillion billion gazillion dollars.
I think my head is about to implode. Methinks I should maybe pick one issue and focus on that, just to get some sense of equilibrium.
–lori
March 30th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Thank you! I thought I was going to watch more political videos (since we lack a tv) after Obama took office, but I’ve been my usual slacker self.