Obama on stimulus: It’s worked great!

What did we expect him to say, “We misread the economy?” That’s for losers and Vice Presidents … but I repeat myself. In his weekly radio address, Barack Obama insisted that we should stop listening to the critics — and the man he put in charge of the stimulus package — and revel in the fabulous success that is Porkulus:

In a little over one hundred days, this Recovery Act has worked as intended. It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession. It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and businesses. Without the help the Recovery Act has provided to struggling states, its estimated that state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now, resulting in tens of thousands of additional layoffs – layoffs that would affect police officers, teachers, and firefighters.

The Recovery Act has allowed small businesses and clean energy companies to hire new workers or scrap their plans for eliminating current jobs. And it’s led to new jobs building roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects, thousands of which are only beginning now. In the months to come, thousands more projects will begin, leading to additional jobs.

When Obama pushed for Porkulus and Congress passed it, do you recall when they argued that it would help states close their deficits? In fact, they argued that the money would go directly to “shovel-ready projects” and create new jobs, not get states off the hook for their own tough decisions on fiscal policy. Had Democrats stood up and said, “What we really need to do is conduct bailouts for all 50 states,” the voters would have abandoned Porkulus in droves. And yet that’s exactly what Obama brags he’s done here.

Obama then offers this rather standard dishonest argument — that those who oppose Porkulus wanted to do nothing at all:

Now, I realize that when we passed this Recovery Act, there were those who felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer. Today, some of those same critics are already judging the effort a failure although they have yet to offer a plausible alternative. Others believed that the recovery plan should have been even larger, and are already calling for a second recovery plan.

But, as I made clear at the time it was passed, the Recovery Act was not designed to work in four months – it was designed to work over two years. We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door, because we are committed to spending it in a way that is effective and transparent. Crucially, this is a plan that will also accelerate greatly throughout the summer and the fall. We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.

That’s an absolute lie, and a deliberate one. In fact, it’s a series of deliberate lies. First, the Republicans did offer at least two proposals, neither of which Nancy Pelosi would allow to come to the floor. One was a tax-holiday proposal which would have allowed taxpayers a break from funding the federal government. The second and better idea actually came from moderate Democrat Rep. Walt Minnick (ID), who proposed a $170 billion START stimulus that relied solely on tax refunds and government spending in only 2009. Republicans backed Minnick’s START plan, but it never got a vote — because Pelosi and Obama locked Minnick’s idea out in favor of their plan.

Obama’s argument that he had promised a two-year effect is also a lie. Obama and his economic team sold Porkulus as a means to prevent an immediate spike in unemployment. Obama’s economic council argued that a failure to pass Porkulus would drive unemployment to 8.8% in the near term. Passing Porkulus would keep it at 8% or below this year. Romer’s own analysis showed that in three years, unemployment would be within a percentage point regardless of whether Porkulus was adopted or not. It was all about short-term performance, and Obama’s plan failed.

As Joe Biden said, they misread the economy, and gave us a failed strategy. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor agrees on that much with Biden:

There is no doubt that our nation faces many challenges, but the plain truth is that President Obama’s economic decisions have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity and have not worked.

President Obama has already asked you to borrow trillions, and so far nearly 3 million jobs have been lost this year alone.

Remember the promises? They promised you if you paid for their stimulus, jobs would be created immediately. In fact, they said that unemployment would stay under eight percent.

Yet just months later, they are telling us to brace for unemployment to climb over ten percent. They promised jobs created. Now they scramble to find a way to play games with government numbers by claiming jobs saved.

Simply put, this is now President Obama’s economy and the American people are beginning to question whether his policies are working.

They’re beginning to do more than question it. They’re beginning to agree with Biden that the White House botched it.

A reminder of how quickly things are moving in our country. A few items are overstated and are not literally true verbatim; but the sense of each item is either 100% accurate or very nearly so.

Observations on the President’s Early Days

1. Offended the Queen of England (The President’s gift to the world’s oldest reigning monarch? An iPod).

2. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia .

3. Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega.

4. Kissed Hugo Chavez on the cheek.

5. Endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia .

6. Announced we would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions.

7. Gave away billions to AIG also without pre-conditions.

8. Expanded the bailouts.

9. Insulted everyone who has ever loved a Special Olympian.

10. Doubled our national debt.
(10.a. Actually, tripled our national debt.)

11. Announced a termination of the space defense system the day after the North Koreans launched an ICBM.

12. Despite the urgings of his own CIA director and the prior four CIA directors, released information on intelligence gathering.

13. Accepted without public comment the fact that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes and two others withdrew after they couldn’t take the heat.

14. Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who quickly identified as “dangers to the nation”, groups including veterans of the military, and opponents to abortion on demand, and who ordered that the word “terrorism” no longer be used but instead referred to such acts as “man-made disasters”.

15. Circled the globe so he could openly apologize for America ‘s greatness.

16. Told the Mexican President that the violence in their country was because of us.

17. Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from its Department of Commerce origins.

18. Appointed as Attorney General the man who orchestrated the forced removal and expulsion from America to Cuba of a nine-year old whose mother died trying to bring him a life of freedom in the United States.

19. Saluted as heroes three Navy SEALS who took down three terrorists who threatened one American life and the next day announced members of the Bush administration will likely stand trial for “torturing” a terrorist who had played a part in killing 3000 Americans by pouring water up his nose.

20. Air Force One over New York City .

21. Sent his National Defense Advisor to Europe to assure Europe that the US will no longer treat Israel in a special manner and they might be on their own with the Muslims.

22. Began the process of nationalizing the auto Industry and the insurance industry. Fired the CEO of what once was the world’s largest company (GM).

23. Nationalized the mortgage business.

24. Announced that for all intents and purposes the Health Insurance Industry will be nationalized.

25. Fired an Inspector General without notice because the IG had challenged (federally-funded) expenditures made by a former NBA player, now mayor of Sacramento, through a charity the player operated. The IG was fired summarily despite the fact that Senator Obama had co-sponsored a bill requiring 30 days notice for such terminations together with a full explanation to Congress (which had not been made.)

26. Threw out 210 years of law and precedent by placing unsecured union claims ahead of those of secured creditors in bankruptcy court.

27. Contrary to campaign promises, President Obama urged the largest tax increase in American history by advocating Cap-and-Trade carbon emissions laws. This tax will hit lower-income people hardest, as it will amount to a tax passed on by corporations to consumers on every carbon energy sources, diesel, fuel oil, coal, natural gas, aviation fuel—in short, everything used to provide energy to our nation and its economy today. But using nuclear energy is out of the question.

28. Changed the overnight classification of demand deposits using daily transfers to different money vehicles so as to disguise the enormous and rapid increase in the U.S. money supply—it has doubled in 90 days. The sham transactions result in an “apparent” reduction of actual M1 by 70%.

29. Gave his first press interview as America’s 44th president to a foreign news organization—Al Jazeera.

30. Honduras...need we say more?

1360 more days to go...

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