Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on July 8, 2010

Liberal singer-actress Barbra Streisand, with husband James Brolin... this week in Aspen, she's unhappy with Obama's out-of-control deficit spending and his plans to overtax the wealthy

Crikey, when entertainment legend-liberal zealot BARBRA STREISAND is against Obama’s deficit spending, you know there’s trouble in the statist camps of the Democrat Party and Team Obama.

Mort Zuckerman and Harvard’s Niall Ferguson did not hold back criticizing the president’s disastrous track record on America’s economy at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Ferguson even commended Rep. Paul Ryan for his “really radical” ideas in his “Roadmap” for fiscal reform.

Gasp.

Endorsement of conservative values and government fiscal responsibility! What a “really radical” concept! And from a Republican! I’m sure that the liberals are having a tough time wrapping their heads around that.

US News & World Report: Obama’s Deficit Spending Is a Disaster:

It seems like half of Washington has escaped the withering heat wave this week, heading out to Colorado for the Aspen Ideas Festival. The opening session featured U.S. News Editor in Chief Mort Zuckerman and Niall Ferguson of Harvard, who both agreed that President Obama’s deficit spending is an economic disaster for the United States–to hearty applause from a celebrity-filled audience that included Barbra Streisand. Here are a few key excerpts of the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove’s report from Aspen:

-“If you’re asking if the United States is about to become a socialist state, I’d say it’s actually about to become a European state, with the expansiveness of the welfare system and the progressive tax system like what we’ve already experienced in Western Europe,” Harvard business and history professor Niall Ferguson declared during Monday’s kickoff session, offering a withering critique of Obama’s economic policies, which he claimed were encouraging laziness.

-“We are, without question, in a period of decline, particularly in the business world,” Zuckerman said. “The real problem we have … are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.”

-Ferguson added: “The critical point is if your policy says you’re going run a trillion-dollar deficit for the rest of time, you’re riding for a fall…Then it really is goodbye.” A dashing Brit, Ferguson added: “Can I say that, having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it. It’s just not a lot of fun actually—decline.”

Ferguson called for what he called “radical” measures. “I can’t emphasize strongly enough the need for radical fiscal reform to restore the incentives for work and remove the incentives for idleness.” He praised “really radical reform of the sort that, for example, Paul Ryan [the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee] has outlined in his wonderful ‘Roadmap’ for radical, root-and-branch reform not only of the tax system but of the entitlement system” and “unleash entrepreneurial innovation.” Otherwise, Ferguson warned: “Do you want to be a kind of implicit part of the European Union? I’d advise you against it.”

David Cameron, the new conservative prime minister of Great Britain, is doing his best to reverse the damage done by massive deficit spending under the Labour party. My column this week contains a few things President Obama could learn from Cameron’s approach. If he follows Cameron’s approach, it might even help him win Barbra back.

Liberal billionaire and successful businessman Zuckerman has been disenchanted with Barack for a long while now… here’s a video of him slamming Dear Leader’s economic destruction back in January 2010:

FOX News: Mort Zuckerman: I’m Disgusted, Obama’s Done Everything Wrong | January 2010

From The Daily Beast, The Elite Turn Against Obama:

You’d think the well-heeled and enlightened eggheads at the Aspen Ideas Festival—which is running all week in this fashionable resort town with heady panel discussions and earnest disquisitions involving all manner of deep thinkers and do-gooders—would be receptive to an intellectually ambitious president with big ideas of his own.

In a way, the folks attending this cerebral conclave pairing the Aspen Institute think tank with the Atlantic Monthly magazine might even be seen as President Obama’s natural base.

Apparently not so much.

Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers, and his departing budget director, Peter Orszag, can expect heavy weather when they land in Aspen later this week to make their case to this civic-minded clique of wealthy skeptics.

“If you’re asking if the United States is about to become a socialist state, I’d say it’s actually about to become a European state, with the expansiveness of the welfare system and the progressive tax system like what we’ve already experienced in Western Europe,” Harvard business and history professor Niall Ferguson declared during Monday’s kickoff session, offering a withering critique of Obama’s economic policies, which he claimed were encouraging laziness.

“The curse of longterm unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, they’ll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time,” Ferguson said. “Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy.”

Ferguson was joined in his harsh attack by billionaire real estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman. Both lambasted Obama’s trillion-dollar deficit spending program—in the name of economic stimulus to cushion the impact of the 2008 financial meltdown—as fiscally ruinous, potentially turning America into a second-rate power.

“We are, without question, in a period of decline, particularly in the business world,” Zuckerman said. “The real problem we have…are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.”

Zuckerman added that he detects in the Obama White House “hostility to the very kinds of [business] culture that have made this the great country that it is and was. I think we have to find some way of dealing with that or else we will do great damage to this country with a public policy that could ruin everything.”

Video encore… Ranking Member Paul Ryan, House Budget Committee, speaking out in March against the “smoke and mirrors,” expense, and unsustainable goals of ObamaCare… magnificent! Click here for transcript.

Rep. Paul Ryan speaks out against “The Washington Way”

Related:
Telegraph: With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932
Gateway Pundit: The Paul Ryan Roadmap: Re-Claiming American Liberty, Freedom & Free Enterprise (Video) and Mort Zuckerman: Obama’s Economic Policies Cause An Economic Katrina and Dem’s Financial Bill Imposes Race & Gender Quotas on Financial Sector and Figures. Obama Praises Electric Vehicle Manufacturer That Makes Trucks That Cost Twice as Much as Normal Truck and As Dem Policies Continue to Fail Miserably – November Thumpin Looks More Likely and Independent Voters Abandon Radical Obama in Droves and Obama’s Cloward-Piven Economic Strategy Working Out As Planned and Dems Refuse Compromise on Unemployment Benefits; Go On Vacation and After US Economy Loses Another 125,000 Jobs Obama Says: “We’re Heading in the Right Direction” (Video) and Unreal. Obama: “Unemployment’s at 9.6%… At Least It’s Not at 12, 13 or 15%” (Video) and Media Shocked to See “Unexpected” Rise in Jobless Rate and Nancy Pelosi: Unemployment Checks Are the Fastest Way to Create Jobs (Video) and Rachel Pulaski Invites All Patriots to the July 3rd Las Cruces Tea Party and Lindsey Graham: Tea Party Will Die Out – Republicans Will Move Away From “The Fringe” and Nancy Pelosi: Unemployment Checks Are the Fastest Way to Create Jobs (Video) and Obama Travels to Wisconsin to Tote Disastrous Stimulus Bill… Tea Party Breaks Out (Video)
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USA Today: National debt soars to highest level since WWII
GayPatriot: Obama Has Killed Recovery
Frugal Café Blog Zone: “Kicking the Dog” One Time Too Often… Wall Street Donations to Democratic Campaigns Drastically Drop and Outrageous: Congress Deemed $1.1 TRILLION Budget “As Passed” – Sneaked in Increased Spending Before 4th of July Weekend and Obama’s Secret to Cheering Himself Up When Faced with Failed Stimulus & Record Unemployment: Have a Danish! (video) and Gloves Off: Left-wing Extremist Chris Matthews’ Anti-Tea Party Propaganda Misrepresents & Demonizes Patriotic Americans… National Tea Party Calling for Sponsors to Drop MSNBC’s ‘Hardball’ (video) and Cowards: Democrat Politicians Hiding Out from Town Halls This Summer to Avoid Angry Voters (video)
The Conservative Pup: Careening Down The Mountain Straight Toward The Cliff
Andrew Breitbart, Big Government: Reward: $100,000 for Full ‘JournoList’ Archive; Source Fully Protected
American Thinker: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
Another Black Conservative: UPDATED: David Weigel just another fake, phony and fraud conservative
Radio Vice Online: Obamacare…more unintended consequences

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