Wow. I knew the Tea Parties were going to have an affect on politics - I just didn't realize that that one day of protests was enough to convince Obama to invalidate the reasoning behind the stimulus.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama spent all February telling us that we needed to spend an additional $850 billion for the stimulus to prevent disaster in the government. The argument of deficit spending in a recession is that contraction of work is an output gap, that can only be filled by federal deficit spending.
It doesn't matter how we spend money, as long as we spend it. That's the whole purpose of deficit spending, to replace some of that lost demand. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winning Economist, even said during the stimulus debate that Obama's spending wasn't enough to prevent a prolonged recession. What we were told was to not look too hard at the AARA, but instead to just pass it, because we needed to quickly get that money into the economy. Yes there was going to be waste, but what mattered most was that money was spent, and spent now! Obama speaks here to that urgency, and says we have to move quickly to save the county from losing hundreds of thousands of more jobs.
The charge against the stimulus bill is that it was a massive payoff to Democratic constituencies - a one-size fits-all pork bill given to Democrats who couldn't fund projects over the last eight years. The argument for the bill was it would stop a Great Depression, and if that meant some money was wasted, at least it was spent, taking up excess capacity.
That was then. What we see with today's Presidential Weekly Address, is that the charges against the stimulus were true. Obama is back in his weekly address saying the new problem facing us is wasteful government spending. We're on an unsustainable path. First, it's about time we found something to agree on. I hope he actually means it. But second, he's going to go to his Cabinet heads and ask them where they can cut spending.
This is where it gets juicy. Obama's budget, along with the stimulus represents trillions in spending with an exploding federal deficit that will be larger every year from now until at least 2019. He triples the deficit, and then has the nerve to claim he halves it by the time he's out of office (No mention is made of the fact that every year is larger than anything Bush presided over). After authorizing the spending of all that money, including a stimulus bill that gave Congress less than 14 hours to read before voting on, how exactly does Obama have any credibility on cutting spending? It's been two months. TWO MONTHS!
If the Stimulus was needed, it is still needed. If it and other spending is wasteful and needs to be cut, then it was not needed. Personally, I'm for door number two, but this is a massive, massive switch from the Doom And Gloom Trio we heard in the beginning of his adminstration. Why the change in heart?
Only one explanation. Half a million people took to the streets on April 15th to complain about an out-of-touch government elite. Obama's people recognize how big a deal this is. With a declining approval/disapproval gap, and polling data that suggest that Obama is an extremely polarized president (Bush had better ratings, and they said he stole his election), Obama and his staff are freaked out.
Watch his full address. He sounds like he could have attended one of the Tea Party protests, and fit right in.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama spent all February telling us that we needed to spend an additional $850 billion for the stimulus to prevent disaster in the government. The argument of deficit spending in a recession is that contraction of work is an output gap, that can only be filled by federal deficit spending.
It doesn't matter how we spend money, as long as we spend it. That's the whole purpose of deficit spending, to replace some of that lost demand. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winning Economist, even said during the stimulus debate that Obama's spending wasn't enough to prevent a prolonged recession. What we were told was to not look too hard at the AARA, but instead to just pass it, because we needed to quickly get that money into the economy. Yes there was going to be waste, but what mattered most was that money was spent, and spent now! Obama speaks here to that urgency, and says we have to move quickly to save the county from losing hundreds of thousands of more jobs.
The charge against the stimulus bill is that it was a massive payoff to Democratic constituencies - a one-size fits-all pork bill given to Democrats who couldn't fund projects over the last eight years. The argument for the bill was it would stop a Great Depression, and if that meant some money was wasted, at least it was spent, taking up excess capacity.
That was then. What we see with today's Presidential Weekly Address, is that the charges against the stimulus were true. Obama is back in his weekly address saying the new problem facing us is wasteful government spending. We're on an unsustainable path. First, it's about time we found something to agree on. I hope he actually means it. But second, he's going to go to his Cabinet heads and ask them where they can cut spending.
This is where it gets juicy. Obama's budget, along with the stimulus represents trillions in spending with an exploding federal deficit that will be larger every year from now until at least 2019. He triples the deficit, and then has the nerve to claim he halves it by the time he's out of office (No mention is made of the fact that every year is larger than anything Bush presided over). After authorizing the spending of all that money, including a stimulus bill that gave Congress less than 14 hours to read before voting on, how exactly does Obama have any credibility on cutting spending? It's been two months. TWO MONTHS!
If the Stimulus was needed, it is still needed. If it and other spending is wasteful and needs to be cut, then it was not needed. Personally, I'm for door number two, but this is a massive, massive switch from the Doom And Gloom Trio we heard in the beginning of his adminstration. Why the change in heart?
Only one explanation. Half a million people took to the streets on April 15th to complain about an out-of-touch government elite. Obama's people recognize how big a deal this is. With a declining approval/disapproval gap, and polling data that suggest that Obama is an extremely polarized president (Bush had better ratings, and they said he stole his election), Obama and his staff are freaked out.
Watch his full address. He sounds like he could have attended one of the Tea Party protests, and fit right in.
I'll believe it when I see it. He's pretty good at saying one thing and doing another. That's how he got elected.
Posted by: Ellen K | 04/18/2009 at 12:22 PM
I guess we'll take a tally of the progress on July 4th, right?
"Pay as you go rule that we followed in the 1990's?" Clinton years, right? Pay as you go.... wasn't that a campaign promise? Must not have been as urgent as murdering innocent unborn babies so maybe he'll get to that some time in the next 3 - 44 months.
And isn't it coincidental that he would bring up Napolitano/DHS cutting costs as his "for example." Oh and let's not get a good TOTUS speech in with out a Bush bash, "Since 2003" ... Bush years.
Yeah, the teleprompter knew all the right words for this one. Again, they're only words.
Carry on Bagdad Bob Media.....
Posted by: Sally W | 04/18/2009 at 12:25 PM