Judged by his own standards, President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. "This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession," he said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It's "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."So wrote Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post. The case for a huge stimulus Samuelson wrote, “Is to prevent a devastating downward economic spiral.” (see story)
Given these dire warnings, you'd expect the stimulus package to focus almost exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn't, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame.
Yet what President Obama has done according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is back load the Stimulus bill so that most of the spending occurs in 2011 or later to 2014. That’s during election years do I really have to explain why Democrats did this?
The CBO estimates that only a minuscule 3% of the money will be spent during 2009 and 2010 roughly $595 million dollars. Yet if you recall Obama said that we needed to rush and spend enough money immediately to advert impeding catastrophe possibilities. He said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It's "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."
But according to Samuelson Obama words are different than his actions. Hum, imagine that? Must be that deep thinking and nuance-thing that Democrats are so known for.
No it’s not, Samuelson diagnoses it as Obama’s politics are in conflict with and are compromising the economics of this country
This should have been a huge stimulus up front focused only to kick start the economy with good middle class jobs but what Obama has done, he has diluted the upfront power of the stimulus for political bragging rights in 2011 and 2014.
But what is even more devastating is what the money is being used for. According to Samuelson, [f]or starters, there's $8 billion for high-speed rail. "Everyone is saying this is [for] high-speed rail between Los Angeles and Las Vegas -- I don't know," says Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. Whatever's done, the design and construction will occupy many years. It's not a quick stimulus.Then there's $20.8 billion for improved health information technology -- more electronic records and the like. Probably most people regard this as desirable, but here, too, changes occur slowly.
So what was up with all of that hurry up and now we’ve got to wait, didn’t Obama, the media and Democrats urge us all for the need too get this bill passed quickly? Yes they did.
But Samuelson writes that [b]ig projects take time. They're included in the stimulus because Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are using the legislation to advance many political priorities instead of just spurring the economy. Therefore the hurry was to get American people’s money before they knew what hit them.
Funny how Democrats always do that with any spending, remember how they attempted to load down President Bush funding of the war with their little pet pork projects, same thing! (see story)
Some politicians never learn. The purpose of the stimulus is to keep declines in one part of the economy from dragging down other sectors but to the Democrats it was just another bill to add their special little projects. Apparently no bill is too important to forego an opportunity for Democrats to add pork to it.
Finally if the economic problem is anywhere as sever as President Obama describes his stimulus package is not enough large enough to do the job. Samuelson believes that it only offers modest relief. While what it does do is centralize more power in Washington for Obama and Democrats.
Samuelson argues that no one knows how the results will bear out, but in any case it is Samuelson’s opinion that President Obama and Democrats allowed partisan politics to ran roughshod over pragmatic economic policy that this country needed in our time of crisis.
One must wonder why Obama has been so dire on the economy, so much so, that even past president Bill Clinton has asked him to lighten up. I’m thinking that Democrats know that what they’ve done will eventually fail. The Stimulus package was a failure from the start because it wasn’t designed to aid the U.S. economy. What it’s really designed to do is stimulate the Democrat election chances for 2011 and 2014.
If the economy is destroyed because of this blatant and unnecessary Democrat partisanship it’s going to take a whole lot of sweeping Democrats out of office to clean up this mess!
I say let’s get started at the very first opportunity! For Obama ONE AND DONE!
And for the midterm election in 2011 sweep corrupt and partisan Democrats out!
