Posted on 02/07/2009 6:32:29 PM PST by Steelfish
FEBRUARY 6, 2009 The Stimulus Tragedy Obama bets that we can spend our way to prosperity.
President Obama has started to play the "catastrophe" card to sell his economic stimulus plan, using yesterday's terrible January jobs report to predict doom unless Congress acts.
No doubt he'll get his way, but the tragedy of this first great effort of the Obama Presidency is what a lost opportunity it is.
Everyone agrees that some kind of fiscal stimulus might help the economy, and that running budget deficits is appropriate in a recession.
The stage was thus set for the popular President to forge a bipartisan consensus that combined ideas from both parties.
A major cut in the corporate tax favored by Republicans could have been added to Democratic public works spending for a quick political triumph that might have done at least some economic good.
Instead, Mr. Obama chose to let House Democrats write the bill, and they did what comes naturally: They cleaned out their intellectual cupboards and wrote a bill that is 90% social policy, and 10% economic policy. (See here for a case study.) It is designed to support incomes with transfer payments, rather than grow incomes through job creation
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
All he is doing is paying of one credit card company with a convince ck from another it never works
The overall economy is heading for devaluation of the dollar and deflation followed by inflation. Watch gold for trail markers.
“Speaking to a House Democratic retreat on Thursday night, Mr. Obama took on those critics. “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.)”
sad little boy in a man’s job...Dick Cheney should be running this show...
Feh. It’s nothing new. We’ve been piling on the debt for as long as I can remember. Democrat, Republican...it’s made no difference.
He is just spreading your wealth, and your children’s and their children’s wealth around now.
Sarc/ off
The market will collapse, and I thought it would have happened by now, but my guess is that some people are holding on as long as possible to make what they can. When the tax increases come, more people will bail. If the dems pull the same stunt Clinton did and make the tax increases retroactive, then these investors will get shafted anyway. That is why I thought everyone would have gotten out of stocks already.
What will Obama do when Porkulus fails to do anything other than make things worse? There will be no more money to throw at the problem unless like Robert Mugabe, Obama simply just prints more money and turns the US into Zimbabwe.
Michael Steele:
“”But the Democrats have a different philosophy. Instead of leaving money in the family checkbook, they want to send it to Washington, run it through a slow and inefficient government, and hope that does some good.”
With 150 million adult citizens in the US, you could cut a check for 10K to each of them----20,000 smackers per couple.
And hundreds of thousands of them would put a down payment on a house. Tomorrow!!
And hundreds of thusands of them would buy a car. Tomorrow!!
And the rest would get caught up, pay down debt, and save and buy. Tomorrow!!
Message to Congrass and President Obama: It is OUR MONEY you are clutching in your grubby little PIGGY-HANDS!!!
Hand it over, or we'll beat the snot out of you!!!
Cuz - you know its worked so much before?
No more going back to the FAILED policies of the past like Ronald Reagan.
Amerika voted for CHANGE and that’s what I’m gonna give them!
A dollar doled out in jobless benefits may well be spent by the worker who receives it. That $1 of spending will count as economic activity and add to GDP. But that same dollar can't be conjured out of thin air. The government has to take that dollar away from someone else -- either in higher taxes, or by issuing new debt in the form of a bond. The person who is taxed or buys the bond will have $1 less to spend. If the beneficiary of that $1 spends it on something less productive than the taxed American or the lender would have, then the net impact on growth will be negative.
And I thought this was a prescient warning near the end:
If done right, this will help reduce risk aversion and gradually restore financial confidence. We hope it does, because the size and waste of the stimulus means we won't have much ammunition left. The spending will take the U.S. budget deficit up to some 12% of GDP, about double the peak of the 1980s and into uncharted territory. The tragedy of the Obama stimulus is that we are getting so little for all that money.
Thanks for including the subtitle. You would be surprised by how many times they are forgotten when the title itself hardly elicits any interest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.