Which Fib Will He Stick With?
President Obama spent the first month of his administration telling people that the only way to avoid economic catastrophe was to pass Prime Minister Pelosi’s stimulus bill. He said we were facing the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. According to this AP article, President Obama says that things aren’t so bad. My question is simple: Which fib will he stick with?
Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and his plans will speed recovery.
Challenged to provide encouragement as the nation’s “confidence builder in chief,” Obama said Americans shouldn’t be whipsawed by bursts of either bad or good news and he was “highly optimistic” about the long term.
President Obama is nothing but a slick pitchman. The idea that things are suddenly all better after he told everyone that we were teetering on the brink of a epochal catastrophe simply isn’t credible.
Did his stimulus bill suddenly cure all our economic woes? If so, how? Let’s consider that most of that money won’t be spent before the midterm elections. That’s before considering the impact the wasteful spending will have on inflation. That’s without considering the impact of Tim Geithner still not having figured out how to solve the banking system’s troubles.
Are we supposed to suddenly snap to attention just because President Obama says so? I don’t think so. Why should we when he’s essentially elevated Nancy Pelosi to the role of prime minister? It isn’t like sane people think that Speaker Pelosi suddenly discovered America’s political mainstream. She certainly hasn’t provided proof of that with the bills that she’s written.
“I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say,” Obama added. “Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They’re not as bad as we think they are now.” “And my long-term projections are highly optimistic, if we take care of some of these long-term structural problems.”
The problem with President Obama’s happy talk is that his budget includes unrealistic growth rates that Wall Street economists don’t find credible. One of the barometers that I use to gauge economic conditions is former House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich. I don’t question his credibility because he’s the man that put together the budget blueprint that helped us run surpluses 5 straight years while creating millions of new jobs. That’s credibility I’ll trust without hesitation.
Last night, Rep. Kasich appeared on Hannity. The questions Rep. Kasich raised didn’t involve the type of happy talk that President Obama is engaging in. He focused on the irresponsible and unsustainable spending written into ‘Prime Minister’ Pelosi’s stimulus bill. He’s worried that there wasn’t nearly enough tax relief to jumpstart the economy. He said that all the debt that’s being created will dampen economic growth for the next decade, a view supported by the CBO.
Other things that Rep. Kasich mentioned as troubling were the tax increases, the damaging effects of cap-and-trade, the lack of a plan to fix the credit markets and the mortgage bailout. Rep. Kasich said that it’s wrong to ask people who lived within their budgets to bail out people who bought homes in the hopes that real estate prices would continue rising.
By citing these things, Rep. Kasich essentially told me (a) what things urgently need fixing and (b) that the Obama administration hasn’t addressed these things.
Factoring those things in, why should I trust President Obama’s happy talk? Isn’t the smart thing to do to wait and compare President Obama’s supersized budget with the Republicans’ budget?
On top of that, Obama wants to overhaul health care, reduce greenhouse-gas pollution and undertake major changes in energy policy. He’s projecting a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year, by far the largest in history, but says he can get it down to $533 billion by 2013.
“I am not choosing to address these additional challenges just because I feel like it, or because I’m a glutton for punishment,” Obama told the Business Roundtable, a group of top business executives. “I am doing so because they are fundamental to our economic growth, and to ensuring that we don’t have more crises like this in the future.”
President Obama suffers from the same malady that afflicts most Democrats: he isn’t willing to prioritize which things need immediate attention (fixing the banks leaps to mind), which things need fixing within the next couple years, which things are best corrected by the private sector (health care) and which things will correct themselves.
It’s time President Obama stopped talking about spending irresponsible and unsustainable amounts of money. That’s what’s worrying Wall Street and Main Street alike.
Until he starts acting like an adult who knows how to say no, people won’t think of him as a thoughtful politician. They won’t confer on him credibility. Until President Obama changes direction, he’ll be forced to play the role of pitchman selling an unappealing economic blueprint.
Until President Obama changes direction, he’ll be forced to choose which fib he’ll sell.
Technorati Tags: Economy, President Obama, Tim Geithner, Speaker Pelosi, Stimulus Bill, Cap And Trade, Health Care, Mortgage Bailout, Inflation, Tax Increases, Global Warming, Democrats, John Kasich, Ryan, Balanced Budgets, Fiscal Restraint, Republicans
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
March 13th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
The difference between two years ago and “happy talk” and Big Zero’s “happy talk” today is that, had the guvmint regulators done their jobs without interference from congresspeople like Franks, Waters and Dodd, there was a chance the “recession” (which wasn’t, then) would have been a simple blip and the economy would have rebounded strongly, and now the economy (with O’s guidance) doesn’t have a chance for years.
Someone must have finally gotten to the supposed egghead and convinced him that GW is no longer prez and he doesn’t need to bash the economy any more.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Obama is responsible for the irresponsible lending practices that were a disaster 10 years in the making. If he had pretended everything was just fine like Bush, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
March 15th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Liem, if you could read between the lines you would see I put a huge portion of the blame squarely on Bush’ administration because they failed to regulate the portions of the economy that have made sewers look like heaven. Of course, that fact that the regulators were intimidated by Franks (who was telling us in early 2008 that Fannie and Freddie were sound) and gang (including race-baiters like Jackson and Sharpton) had very little to do with the whole mess, right?
‘Course, I would expect that of you, who thinks every bad thing in history (and possibly prehistory) is a direct result of either GW or one of his ancestors.