O-Bull In The WaPo Today

This item by Obama is a farce meant to trick the American people. If the government doesn't spend over a trillion dollars immediately unemployment may approach double digits:

Unemployment will approach double digits.

Gasp! Clue Obama. It reached double digits in 82 and it didn't take a trillion dollars of our money and mortgaging our children's future to dig us out. It took calm and perseverance to endure some hardship, both of which you apparently lack.

The economy entered 1982 in a severe recession and labor market conditions deteriorated throughout the year. The unemployment rate, already high by historical standards at the onset of the recession in mid-1981, reached 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, higher than at any time in post-World War II history.

Another clue, Obama - smart long term planning doesn't get done overnight (the way you, or someone, who knows, the doors were closed) produced this bill. You are taking advantage of, admittedly, a very bad economy to fulfill your ideological goals.

That isn't noble, it's disingenuous and even loathsome. And any call for change was not for you to create a US socialist state. Whatever happened to Drill, Baby, Drill? The American people were all for that, but you are already shutting down approved new oil leases? It seems your desire to act upon what Americans may or may not want is very selective, indeed.

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education.

If this is such a critical time, then act forthrightly, which you are not. To do that you would be seeking to immediately push through a bill that dealt only with any immediate threat. And you would be content to allow American citizens to watch any debate over your many extremely liberal policies and spending proposals as it played out over time, giving ample room to assess such significant change.

Instead, you are leading like some Halloween trickster dressed in a mask and wearing the cloak of a bad economy to fool Americans looking on in hopes that you will get your desired result before they have time to strip away the facade.

In your very short time in office you have already managed to look incompetent given many of your troubling appointments, more than a few of which have had to withdraw. And now your style suggests a certain sneaky-ness that Americans would do well to not trust unless or until you manage to prove yourself to us.

Try concentrating on that for awhile and get back to us when we have reason to find you credible. For now, you can keep your bloated and over reaching stimulus package that polls suggest has been marked return to sender by the majority of voters - just as it should.

Comments

[Steve J.]

It reached double digits in 82 and it didn't take a trillion dollars of our money and mortgaging our children's future to dig us out.

It took over $1 Trillion in deficit spending.

[Dan Riehl]

"It took over $1 Trillion in deficit spending."

Well, considering we're up to several trillion already between TARP, new guartees and everything else - I's say it's enough. Interesting that you offered no defense for the untargeted idologically driven spending that won't help the economy at all. And with only 1% going to infrastructure, yet that's the portion Obama hawks the most, I guess the other 99% just ain't so hot.

[Old Trooper]

It's that 99% that is going to repay election debt that I object to big time.
Voter Fraud and Social Engineering is not cheap but should come out of Obama's pocket.
Sticking the Taxpayer for the tab is ....what Democrats/Socialists do best.

We are all still paying off LBJ's Great Society Bill.

[Mike]

The big difference between now and the 80's recession is that the recession in the 80's was caused by the Fed and it's policy of stopping inflation by raising interest rates. Today the Fed interest rate is 0%. There's nothing more it can do to stimulate the economy. Businesses won't invest because they are not expecting profits. In fact everyone is worried about deflation. And consumers have stopped spending. The government is the spender of last resort. The stimulus has to be huge because our economy is huge.

[Fred Beloit]

One of your best, Dan. To follow up and see support for your views some may want to check out Reason's work on this subject.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/131509.html

So, President Spindle Shanks (I'll return to being respectful when this man returns to being forthright) goes Chicken Little for Wapo. Do they eat it up with a spoon or spit it out. Don't know, don't read that rag.

As far as Sweet P., your friendly leftard is concerned, when one goes to his blog one finds this overwhelmingly convincing statement. "Krugman agrees with me." I guess he means the Krugman who seems to be a full-time economist, at the same time a full-time opinionater for the NYT, and a part-time owner and manager of Memeorandum.
I don't know why Obama doesn't just hire Krugman as the all-around fixer for the administration.

[Fred Beloit]

BTW, a friend where I live, just two weeks ago said that the bank at which he works couldn't make any mortgages because the appraisals were coming in much lower than the asking prices for homes. This week they are trying just to keep up with mortgages flowing through. Just a sample, true, but interesting.

[ECm]

You are proceeding from false assumptions (Mike, Steve J) that government is, in any way, directly responsible for sane (note the word "sane" not bubble-generating lunacy from loose monetary policy, etc.) economic growth--it isn't, period.

Furthermore, if you want legitimate stimulus that gets to where it needs to go, you cut taxes heavily and let the market work it out--you don't take 1 trillion dollars you **don't** have and throw it on a bonfire that's designed to fatten up constituents that supported your run for office, rather than any meaningful "stimulus" that *will* inevitably fail and, at the same time, steal from our grandchildren's children.

[Fred Beloit]

ECm, I recall hearing the phrase "business cycle" someplace.

[SacTownMan]

Excellent post Dan!

I echo your main points!

And Fred has a point about showing respect for the office of POTUS. I had every intention of calling Barry "President Obama" but he has failed to live up to his end of the bargain. He continues to be a self-centered socialist acting like my President but he has done little to date to earn my respect.

If President Bozzo doesn't start to act like a President for ALL American's he will end up ruining the free market system this country is founded on.

Our individual freedoms are at stake and I simply refuse to allow him and the 300 or so selfish and partisan politicians that support him on his socialist agenda to implement their manifesto unfettered! There are 300 million+ Americans and this small minority although elected to office do not represent me or the vast majority of Americans and our core belief of a free and Democratic United States of America.

If he continues to "wing it" and do nothing more than continue to make pretty speeches to appease his base he will do more to bring down the Democrats than even San Fran Nan and Prince Harry.

There is a bad smell coming from Washington these days and it is not suprisingly ozzing out of "the One's" butt!