Huffington Post: Kirsten Gillibrand Opposes the Obama Agenda

[Ichingcarpenter]

OK, I took liberty with the title, but this struck me yesterday with her speech
on taxes and balanced budgets during these economic times that made me a little apprehensive about her. She also put President Obama on hold when he called her, though I totally
understood. Anyway here you go : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/new-yorks-next-senator-op_b_160497.html


New York's Next Senator: Opposed to the Obama Agenda

By Lawerence O'Donnell


The accidental governor of New York ended his relentless daily display of incompetence in choosing a successor to Senator Hillary Clinton by offering this praise for his choice, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand: "She also introduced legislation that would require that our federal budget be balanced annually. Our state budget is balanced annually, our federal budget is not."

The governor obviously has no idea that this means he has just delivered a Democratic senator who is committed to voting against the first Obama bill to come her way--the stimulus package that will push the federal budget at least 800 billion dollars farther away from balance. Indeed, the Gillibrand simple-minded devotion to balancing the federal budget above all else means that she must oppose everything on the Obama agenda. Everything President Obama wants to do costs money, money that the federal government doesn't have. Obama, as he made crystal clear in the campaign, plans to do it with deficit spending, something that Congresswoman Gillibrand opposes and something we now discover the governor of New York opposes even though New York state will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of that spending.

Introducing "legislation that would require that our federal budget be balanced annually" is as childish as Congressional behavior can get. If Gillibrand had her way, Obama would have no tools to use to get us out of this recession/depression. Nor would we be able to continue paying soldiers in Iraq or buy the jet fuel to fly them home or enact any version of health care reform.

All the adults in Congress agree that we need a deficit-financed stimulus package--the Democrat v. Republican disagreements are only over the precise size and shape of the package. How long will it take Kirsten Gillibrand to grow up?

[FLAprogressive]

1. Don't say we didn't warn you.....

she's an anti-working family Blue Dog

[Thrill]

3. Its simple. If she doesn't become more liberal. She will be defeated in a Primary

[TheWraith]

9. More liberal than pro-gay-marriage and pro-Medicare-for-all?

Um.

[annabanana]

16. There is no shortage in the state of NY of people

who support those two proposals, and also support the new President's agenda.

[walkaway]

28. She only recently changed her mind about both those issues

Apparently she changed her long held convictions in order to appear to represent her new, state wide constituency. She is basically a republican like her father and the rest of her family. How will she vote? We don't know but you might want to take a look at the bills she has introduced on the state level. They are uber conservative.

Patterson is crazy to pick her. Now they both put their seats in jeopardy. This is all b ad for the party.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. I heard on the news that Carolyn McCarthy, a Democratic Congresswoman from Long Island

intends to challenge her in 2010. I hope so. I am none too pleased with my Governor's selection.

[malaise]

20. She was on Tweety yesterday n/t

[Tejas]

23. ah yes, the Congressperson without a clue!

Youtube > "thing that goes up".

:rofl:

[glowing]

2. I would think Ms. Gillibrand would change her tune now that she represents the

entire state. She ran in a Republican stronghold and won. Of course she had to portray a fiscal conservitude. I think many are protesting a bit too much. Should the Senate just be a bunch of old, rich white dudes? We all know how the pugs spent and didn't pay for their wants. Now, is the time to spend because we have no choice. However, in the future, we will have to pay for what we spend now. I think the young, blonde politician is the envy of many politicians who like protocol a bit too much. Lawrence, get off your high horse.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. She said that during her acceptance speech for Senator

Get your facts right

[glowing]

8. Well, she won't last long if she doesn't vote for the bill.

[Muttocracy]

12. did she talk about it, or just Paterson citing her earlier bill? nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. It was her words... I mentioned it when you had

to leave during the speech yesterday on the thread you started.

I can't find a youtube of the speech without someone talking over it yet.
But I guarantee it was her statement.

[Muttocracy]

22. I tried looking for video but AP just had the same part I saw

damn fire drill!

[AtomicKitten]

5. This is a poorly thought out political appointment, but fortunately temporary.

In 2010, all bets are off.

[TheWraith]

6. Nomally I like Lawrence O'Donnell, but I think he's overstating his case here.

Yes, Gillibrand is pro-balanced-budget. But to my knowlege she has never suggested that that means blindly voting down necessary spending. He's assuming facts not in evidence.

[Still Sensible]

11. Yes he is

In looking at the attacks on Gillibrand, it appears to me that generally the attackers just don't like that she supports the NRA and she voted against the TARP package. What I can find on her voting record looks very progressive to me. And what is wrong with generally being pro balanced budget? Eight years ago most of us were bragging that Clinton was the first president in decades to have a surplus. By the way, the only place I have seen anything that claims Gillibrand is "committed to voting against the first Obama bill to come her way--the stimulus package," is in O'Donnell's piece.

[dansolo]

29. Isn't Obama also pro-balanced-budget?

It is my understanding that under normal circumstances, Obama would be a fiscal conservative as well.

[GodlessBiker]

7. In a way. She's come out in favor of marriage equality and he opposes it.

[terisan]

10. Can't keep printing money folks; you also owe China too much to keep expecting

China to buy your debt. You are gleefully on the road to $100 per gallon milk.

Patterson went way up in my estimation with this appointment.

The fact is that if Bush had tended tto balancing the fed budget we would be in good shape now instead of bankrupt.

[annabanana]

17. we can always eat the rich. . .

:evilgrin:

[terisan]

35. great suggestion!. I'll have my Upper Crust braised!

[stray cat]

14. I believe in fiscal responsibility as well - I'll wait and see if she really objects to spending now

[Muttocracy]

15. check out her comments on TARP and federal spending here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8135332

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8135332#8135445

New Yorkers pay huge amounts of taxes, so it's an important issue. Our federal legislators don't control the state and local rates, except NY is one of the states that gives more than it gets back. And the tax burden here drives businesses and residents away. And there are lots of links between federal programs and state and local budgets.

The longer I live here, the more fiscally conservative I'm getting because I see so much money WASTED by all levels of government. I think a lot of NYers are going to appreciate hearing about government financial restraint, and I think it's a plus that she voted against TARP. Where the hell did that money go anyway? She wanted it spent in other ways with more oversight.

[Greyhound]

26. The fault in the "logic of fiscal conservatism" is the belief that waste can be eliminated by

strangling the resources. As we have seen for a generation, all it accomplishes is a lack of services while the waste remains.

Rather than imposing unworkable restrictions on budgets within a dysfunctional system of allocation, redesign of the system is what is required. Pete Wilson had a good idea (yes, he is a republik), zero budgeting every year, as one example.

It is self evident that what we've done in the past does not work, it is time to change the way we operate.

[Muttocracy]

30. right, I'm not saying it will eliminate waste

because you can spend less money but spend it on stupid choices too. (I'm particularly outraged by a couple of expensive choices the local school district and local govmt are making at the moment.)

I like the fact that she didn't support TARP because of the lack of transparency and oversight. Kucinich and Sanders voted against it too, didn't they?

I agree strangling government is not the answer, and I don't support that at all - but I DO want representative who will think carefully about how money is spent and not just trust the treasury / Wall St. / banks / the market to figure things out.

[Greyhound]

37. Totally agree on the TARP giveaway, it is such a blatant, shameless,

outrageous pile of corporate welfare.

I believe that we need to think of some way to bypass the whole party structure/illusion. I honestly believe that people with the same agenda run both parties, and by doing so, ensure that progress is blocked no matter which is in power at the moment.

Obama is scary smart and, I hope, will use his popularity and megaphone to bypass the parties and bring The People to bear and force the politicians to implement sanity and fairness.

He's off to a good start and these NewBlueDLC3rdWay DINOs, along with their Republik allies, are working as hard as they can to blunt the effect and benefit of change. We'll quickly see how this plays out.

"We're going to win it on our terms" - President Obama

[JackRiddler]

19. She voted against the TARP. Twice.

There were two votes that mattered most under Bush. She wasn't around for Iraq, but she voted against the plunder plan.

I have problems with almost all of her positions otherwise.

But she voted against the plunder plan.

Bravo!

[dkf]

24. The TARP is meant to save Wall Street.

She wants to doom her state. What an idiot.

[JackRiddler]

25. Saving Wall Street = Dooming Everyone.

Ah, another apologist for Ponzi Street. I thought the "THANK GOD IT PASSED" brigade went into hiding after Paulson's revelation that the real function of the TARP was to give cash money to the crooks in exchange for nothing.

Well I live closer to Wall St. than Gillibrand does, and it's brought misery to the vast majority of people in the world, including in New York City. This great city and its people will survive the necessary nationalization of the capital-issuing sector and the attendant cleaning-out of the criminal class, you can be certain. There will be lots more misery in the transition - thanks to what Wall Street did while it was alive, not because it meets with its deserving death.

[Muttocracy]

31. The executives on Wall Street killed Wall Street. New York state is losing revenue but

I don't expect everyone across the country to bail it out. We were living on gambling earnings and the creators of that were crooked.

In Wall Street's heyday, it's not as though everyone in New York was doing well.

[DCKit]

32. If we had each received our share of the TARP money directly....

the banks would have been helped far more effectively as people paid down (or off) their credit card, revolving and mortgage debt.

TARP, as it is, is a colossal mistake.

[dkf]

38. Yes it didn't work exactly as planned, but if we had let all the

big banks fail, I can't imagine where we would be.

Can you?

[DCKit]

40. The massive infusion of cash from everyone paying off personal debt...

would have kept them solvent.

They just didn't want to have to swallow their toxic and/or imaginary securities.

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. Obama asked for the remaining $350b- she voted against that this week

January 24, 2009
WHEN Wall Street fell last fall, Gillibrand voted against the $700-billion bailout package twice. This week, she again voted against releasing the final $350 billion of the bailout.

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/saturday/news/ny-usgillintro246010656jan24,0,6637148.story?page=2

[JackRiddler]

34. Stop making me love an upstate conservative.

[aikoaiko]

21. What a fuckin distortion to not mention Fed Balanced Budget bills have supermajority exceptions...

...for emergencies.

Is it too much to expect columnists from the left to be more honest that their rigth wing counterparts?

[bottomtheweaver]

33. In California, "balanced budget" means cutting education, health services,

state payroll, and every public service except of course prisons and corporate tax cuts. Calling for a "balanced budget" inevitably leads to "reigning in out-of-control entitlement spending," and on a federal level that means "fixing" (privatizing) Social Security, so this is a disastrous selection at this particular moment.

[walkaway]

36. She is against amnesty for illegal immigrants and pro Fences...

on the border. She sponsored a bill for the NRA to make it more difficult to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and put less restriction on hollow tip bullets and "cop killer" guns. As well as limiting the ability of cities to restrict gun ownership within their borders (Washington D.C.'s gun laws).

Her brand new devotion to gay marriage is highly suspect. Her usual excuse for voting like a red state republican is that she has to represent the voters. Her real agenda is highly conservative. Do a little research on who she and her family really are.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SuperTrouper]

41. I am taking a wait and see attitude. However, I am disturbed by what I am reading.

[lumberjack_jeff]

42. Sooo... unbalanced budgets are "The Obama Agenda"?

O'Donnell's reductionism is an insult to his readers.

[Still Sensible]

43. This is just wrong. How can one look at her record and conclude

that she will be a negative for Obama... especially since Clinton and others are so heartily behind her? So what does her record indicate?

I am not thrilled that she is 100% NRA rated, because while I accept that people should have a right to own firearms I reject that the right is absolute. I don't consider this a dis-qualifier, though.

The place where I have a serious concern, however, is on the immigration issue. She is wrong. I don't have any problem with people who want to secure our borders, although I don't believe the border fence is the answer for a whole host of reasons. But she is on the wrong side of the issue to deny all illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

That said, Gillibrand gets quite high ratings from gay rights advocates, Emilys list, NARAL (100), ACLU (100), NAACP (96), NEA (gave her an 'A'), AFL-CIO (96), and NOW (100).

She voted for expansion of SCHIP, to require warrants for all FISA wiretapping, to restore habeas corpus to detainees, and to close offshore corporate tax loopholes. She favors medicare for all and gay marriage. All in all, she looks a little more progressive than either Secretary Clinton or President Obama.

So given how proud we were when Clinton managed the first surplus in more than three decades, when did we decide that a balanced budget was not a desirable thing? I would suggest, however, that Gillibrand table that for a while until we get the economy back on its feet.