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Obama the Slow Learner (about creating jobs)
Weekly Standard ^ | January 25, 2010 | Fred Barnes

Posted on 01/16/2010 3:32:06 PM PST by reaganaut1

President Obama is a slow learner. For all his brainpower, he’s saddled himself with three ideas about the economy and job creation that aren’t working, either substantively or politically. And he appears to be too ideologically rigid or stubborn to consider the evidence and jettison the failed ideas.

Instead, he puts himself in embarrassing situations. On the day the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate was stuck at 10 percent and 85,000 jobs had been lost in December, Obama insisted he continues “to explore every avenue to accelerate the return to hiring.” So what did he propose? Tax credits totaling $2.3 billion to create “green jobs” and a second stimulus package of $150 billion (the first one, enacted 11 months ago, cost $787 billion). This is more of the same.

Cristina Romer, the chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, managed to out-embarrass the president. Last week, she sandwiched her highly improbable claim that the administration’s stimulus had created or “saved” 1.5 million to 2 million jobs between an Associated Press finding that $20 billion in stimulus funds for roads and bridges had failed to reduce the unemployment rate anywhere and a Labor Department announcement of a rise in new claims for jobless benefits.

The first of Obama’s failed ideas is that government spending is the most effective method of stimulating the economy, spurring strong growth, and generating new jobs. The president needs to chat with Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna on this subject. They studied dozens of examples of economic stimulation between 1970 and 2007 in 21 countries, including the United States.

Their findings are unequivocal. “Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based on spending increases,” they wrote in a paper revised and published last October.

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial
KEYWORDS: fredbarnes; jobs; obama; obamanomics; stimulus; unemployment
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Fred Barnes correctly describes the failure of Obamanomics, but he is a slow learner for not noticing that Obama's goals are to expand government and increase redistribution, not to expand the economy.
1 posted on 01/16/2010 3:32:09 PM PST by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

Slow learners? How about the chuckleheads who voted the guy in the first place?


2 posted on 01/16/2010 3:33:58 PM PST by Clioman (wHAT)
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To: reaganaut1
One if they come by land
Two if they come by sea
Three if they come by foreign visa gift card anonymous donations to their websites
3 posted on 01/16/2010 3:35:53 PM PST by krogers58
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To: reaganaut1
I wish it was only because he is a slow learner . He knows what it will take to create jobs and for some reason , refuses to do it .
4 posted on 01/16/2010 3:36:37 PM PST by kbennkc (For those who have fought for it , freedom has a flavor the protected will never know F Trp 8th Cav)
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To: krogers58
Three if they come by foreign visa gift card anonymous donations to their websites

"Three sir, three!"

5 posted on 01/16/2010 3:36:46 PM PST by paulycy (The Liberals' DOUBLE-STANDARDS are HATE CRIMES.)
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To: Clioman

O’s voters were sure he had a big stash that he was going to share with them. Pay their auto loans, their mortgages, their health care, etc.

So far all they’ve gotten is the shaft.


6 posted on 01/16/2010 3:38:08 PM PST by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: reaganaut1

What is Barnes talking about. Hasn’t Obama created or saved 500 million jobs?


7 posted on 01/16/2010 3:38:14 PM PST by circlecity
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To: reaganaut1

He’s not a slow learner, Fred. He doesn’t care if unemployment is 20%. He’s a communist and all they care about is who has the top job.


8 posted on 01/16/2010 3:39:40 PM PST by OrangeHoof ("Barack Obama" is Swahili for "Bend over suckahs".)
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To: reaganaut1

Slow learner? How about having such dogmatic delusions that he can’t even begin to usnderstand reality.

I just posted this analysis of what just the health care bill is going to do to low and middle income families:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2430112/posts

And that is just health care. We still have crap n’ tax on the horizon, and the other hidden tax increases, like for anyone using banking, and whatever other kinds of stuff they’ve done that hasn’t made thhe news.

Massive tax and spend is not going to get us where we want to be economically, only make things far worse and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of letting up.


9 posted on 01/16/2010 3:39:56 PM PST by dajeeps
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To: reaganaut1
For all his brainpower”

I stopped right there.
What brain power?
The teleprompter brain power?
The guy can't think on his feet. If 0bama has ‘brain power” he has been very successful at hiding it. Fred Barnes has stayed in Washington too damn long.

10 posted on 01/16/2010 3:42:28 PM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: kbennkc
I wish it was only because he is a slow learner . He knows what it will take to create jobs and for some reason , refuses to do it .

I don't believe he is trying to learn at all and will never come around to a sane way of thinking. He has always harbored these ideas and probably honest believes that they will work. He will stall and do everything possible to put these ideas into place and will not repeal them because he is certain that they will work if given a chance. He is a true believer.
11 posted on 01/16/2010 3:42:29 PM PST by Bad Jack Bauer (Fat and Bald? I was BORN fat and bald, thank you very much!)
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: reaganaut1

Create jobs? How?

How about this: Since America is not on a level playing field with China for manufacturing due to their artificial currency value, as well as their complete lack of environmental standards, we should impose tariffs on them for the environment.

As long as China does not meet the same standards of environmental protection that American firms must meet, they should have to have costs added to ANY product that enters the US market.

By adding these costs to Chinese goods, they lose their unfair advantage. Then we will see manufacturing come back to our shores, and the millions of jobs that come with them.

Fair trade. Not FREE TRADE.


13 posted on 01/16/2010 3:51:19 PM PST by datura ("Against all enemies, both foreign and domestic")
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To: reaganaut1

Please, stop with the ‘brainpower’ meme. The man is not all that brilliant. He just poses as being so.


14 posted on 01/16/2010 3:51:36 PM PST by AdaGray (uw)
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To: reaganaut1

Obama is basically a 3D version of Max Headroom


15 posted on 01/16/2010 3:52:21 PM PST by Conspiracy Guy (I voted Republican, no Conservative was on the ballot.)
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To: reaganaut1

Obama’s goal is to preside over the death of capitalism. Nothing more or less. He could care less about creating jobs.


16 posted on 01/16/2010 3:54:31 PM PST by Bigun ("It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." Voltaire)
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To: kbennkc
He knows what it will take to create jobs and for some reason , refuses to do it .

The inescapable conclusion is that he doesn't want to create jobs. He doesn't want a recovering economy. He doesn't want America to be prosperous.

Instead, Obama (and his handlers) want to see the middle class destroyed. That's the crucial step in creating a socialist utopia. And a totalitarian society.

17 posted on 01/16/2010 3:54:46 PM PST by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: reaganaut1

There is nothing slow about this person. He is presto changing the country in record time, just as he intended to. That change just does not include business as usual in America.


18 posted on 01/16/2010 4:02:23 PM PST by Paperdoll ( Hunter/Palin or Palin/Hunter 2012.<)
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To: reaganaut1

HERE ARE JUST A FDW OF OBAMA’S CHANGES FOR AMERICA. COPY THE FOLLOWING LINK AND SEND IT TO EVERY9ONE YOU KNOW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcBaSP31Be8

PLEASE PARDON THE CAPS. I CAN SEE THEM BETTER.


19 posted on 01/16/2010 4:05:43 PM PST by Paperdoll ( Hunter/Palin or Palin/Hunter 2012.<)
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To: reaganaut1

When it comes to job creation, obama is stuck on stupid. Other countries are emerging from the global recession. We’re still reporting as good news ....”we only lost 400,000 jobs this month... When are the numbers going to be in the plus column? obama’s policies have prolonged the recession.


20 posted on 01/16/2010 4:07:12 PM PST by jersey117
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