That’s BS, Mr. Vice President
According to this Washington Times article, Vice President Biden wants us to believe that the reason why the economy isn’t doing better is because they simply couldn’t comprehend what awful shape the Bush administration left the economy:
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the administration underestimated the severity of the slumping economy when it assumed control in January, but he added that it’s too early to consider a second massive economic-stimulus measure to help jump-start the economy. “We misread how bad the economy was,” Mr. Biden said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
It isn’t that this administration misread the economy. It’s that the Obama administration, working with the Democrat-dominated congress, passed a stimulus bill that wasn’t a prescription for prosperity. Instead, they just went on a spending spree in which they paid off their political allies.
This isn’t arguable. President Obama admitted it at the congressional Democrats’ retreat in February:
“So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That’s the whole point. No seriously. (Laughter.) That’s the point. (Applause.)”
Vice President says that the Democrats couldn’t have known that the economy was awful. The more accurate statement is that the Obama administration thought they could pass a $787,000,000,000 spending bill that didn’t stimulate the economy and nobody would notice.
They thought they could immunize themselves by just blaming the Bush administration for everything. That hasn’t worked because people are noticing that the Obama administration’s economic plans aren’t productive.
When President Obama saw big Democratic majorities at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave., he thought he could pass the Democrats’ wish list. He didn’t think about people who were unemployed or underemployed actually insisted on results. Now he’s finding that people expect him to get important things done.
Kevin Hassett debunks the Obama-Biden myth in this article:
The Obama administration has no shame, and is willing to abandon reason altogether to achieve its short-term political goals. Ronald Reagan ran up big deficits in part because he believed that his tax cuts would produce economic growth, and ultimately pay for themselves. He may well have been excessively optimistic about the merits of tax cuts, but at least he had a story.
Obama has no story. Nobody believes that his unprecedented expansion of the welfare state will lead to enough economic growth. Nobody believes that it will pay for itself. Everyone understands that higher spending today begets higher spending tomorrow.
As noted above, President Obama admitted that ARRA was nothing more than spending alot of money. There wasn’t a logic behind it. This administration didn’t put things into the bill that gave small businesses an incentive to invest or to grow their company.
After the $787,000,000,000 are spent, what will have been done to make American industry productive and prosperous? The best that can be said is that some roads and bridges will have been built. (That’s if the environuts don’t ruin things.) After that, the only think that will have happened will be that a few million fistfuls of money will have been spent.
BIG WHOOP!!!
This administration is giving us abundant proof, at least on a weekly basis, that they’re clueless as to what makes the U.S. economy prosperous. Pissing away money won’t make us stronger. It’ll just tell the Chinese that our debt is worthless.
My final judgment? It isn’t that the Obama administration didn’t realize how bad the economy was. It’s that the Obama administration doesn’t have a clue about building a strong economy.
Technorati Tags: Economy, Joe Biden, President Obama, ARRA, Spending, Pork, Prosperity, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog