Obama’s Katrina? It’s the Economy Stupid
According to Jim Pinkerton’s article, the economy is President Obama’s Katrina moment:
The economy is shaping up to be Barack Obama’s Katrina. If President George W. Bush was blamed for his slow response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there was plenty of blame to go around, of course, but the disaster was on Bush’s watch, then Obama will get the blame for his slow response to the current recession. The difference, of course, is that Katrina afflicted a city and a few states, while the recession afflicts the whole country.
Unemployment is 9.5 percent and rising fast, certain to go higher than 10 percent. And what is the federal government doing about it? Not much. And so House Republican Leader John Boehner makes a good point when he asks, “Where are the jobs?”
On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden said that the Obama administration had “misread” the economic indicators. So what are they likely to do about it? More of the same, which is to say, not much.
I can’t argue that the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled congress didn’t act swiftly after getting sworn into office. I CAN argue, though, that they only acted swiftly to pay off their political allies. Similarly, I can argue that the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled congress didn’t act swiftly to right the struggling American economy. They still haven’t.
In fact, Vice President Biden’s comments this weekend suggest that they still don’t have the answers for righting this economy. This is what passes for leadership in today’s Democratic Party:
Democrats are starting to notice that the fiscal contraption of government leaks more fuel than it burns. “We’re disappointed,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on “FOX News Sunday.” We’re looking at ways to get the money out more quickly.
With unemployment already sitting at 9.5%, with the recession dragging on longer than the longest deep recession, people are looking for answers. Thus far, the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled congress haven’t implemented anything that remotely resembles a plan to jumpstart the economy. In fact, President Obama made this troubling remark:
“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.)”
Based on that quote, Obamanomics simply consists of spending hundreds of billions of dollars without focusing that spending on anything that makes industries productive. It’s spending hundreds of billions of dollars without a plan or a productive objective.
Ohioans have already figured it out that President Obama doesn’t have a plan that will start us on the path to prosperity. More states will follow shortly. If that happens soon, the Obama administration’s road to credibility will get significantly steeper.
People don’t blame President Obama for starting this recession but they’re starting to blame him for not providing the solution for ending this recession. I suspect that the White House is aware of that and is starting to panic. They know that the moment that their credibility heads south is the minute that their agenda dies.
That doesn’t mean they won’t keep pushing, though:
Thus the “cap-and-trade” legislation, which passed two weeks ago in the House of Representatives, is a perfect exemplar of the modern Democratic mindset: The green environmentalists are happy, because carbon-based energy production is restricted, and greenback-minded Wall Streeters are happy, too, because traders will make billions trading trillions’ worth of funny-money carbon contracts.
But there is a catch: People don’t have jobs now, and they won’t get them in the future if Obama spends money that doesn’t stimulate, and then seeks to choke what remains of the productive economy through environmental regulation.
This unholy alliance will reach critical mass at some point. Whether that’s sooner rather than later ins’t known right now but I’m betting it’s sooner, not later. I’m not alone in that thinking either:
Overall, 52 percent now say the stimulus package has succeeded or will succeed in restoring the economy, compared with 59 percent two months ago. The falloff in confidence has been sharpest in the hard-hit Midwest, where fewer than half now see the government spending as succeeding. In April, six in 10 Midwesterners said the federal program had worked or would do so.
In March, Republicans criticized Pelosi’s cronies while they criticized policies that President Obama supported. Now that much of the blume is off the Obama administration’s proverbial rose, people are criticizing President Obama directly. They’re no longer walking on eggshells. Instead, they’re speaking frankly.
NOTICE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Great sounding speeches don’t mean alot right now. Results matter. People are watching. Finally, you’re being rated by results, not great sounding speeches.
Technorati Tags: Economy, President Obama, Consumer Confidence, Katrina, Job Growth, Recession, Spending, Steny Hoyer, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog