This article is a superb summary of the things fiscal and foreign policy conservatives are most worried about in DC right now, and apparently in the rest of the world as well. I consider it a must-read. I regret that it is so dark in its assessment of things, but I think it accurately describes where we stand, after only 65 days.
Best regards in Jesus,
Barrett
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Prospect Magazine: Issue 157, No, he can’t
Bartle Bull Bartle Bull is foreign editor of Prospect
THE WHEELS ARE ALREADY COMING OFF OBAMA’S TROJAN HORSE REVOLUTION. WILL HE, LIKE JIMMY CARTER, BE SEEN AS A ONE-TERM DISASTER?
Discuss this article at First Drafts, Prospect's blog Barack Obama was always going to disappoint. When you promise almost everything to almost everybody—I’ll stop the fighting in Iraq but I’ll also keep going after al Qaeda there; I’ll make the economy grow more but I’ll spread the wealth around, and so on—you will inevitably let many people down. Human beings, even those who read fluently from teleprompters, simply cannot walk on water. But few expected the wheels to come off the new administration so quickly. Just weeks into its existence, the Obama White House is in trouble. The US stock market has lost a quarter of its value since Obama’s election. While a Rasmussen poll in early March had his approval rating at 56 per cent, his net approv...
------------------ You can see the entire article at: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10682
Friday, March 27, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Recovery this Year? Let's Repeal the Stimulus
Barrett Duke
March 16, 2009
On February 9, 2009 newly inaugurated President Obama addressed the deeply worried residents of Elkhart, Indiana and declared that Congress needed to pass the stimulus bill immediately. Failure to do so, he avowed, risked allowing our economy to “sink into a crisis, that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse.” Now, a little more than 30 days later, the president has declared that things in the economy are “not as bad as we think they are.” His administration is suddenly telling us that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. Indeed, Ben Bernanke is now declaring that we could see what we have been told are the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression end this year.
So, how could we move from a prediction of catastrophic financial peril to such a rosy picture in a month? We certainly can’t credit the stimulus bill for this rapid turnaround. Most of its spending won’t even kick in until 2010 or later. What is more likely to be spurring this new optimism is political in nature. When President Obama wanted to pass the pork-laden stimulus bill, he needed to fill us with fear that all was about to be lost. Swift passage of the stimulus was essential to our nation’s economy, we were told. While this approach worked very well to get the American people to back off of their objections to the stimulus, it has created a problem for the administration’s efforts to follow that near trillion dollar bloated stimulus spending plan with an even larger $3.6 trillion budget spending plan.
The American public is rightly asking how we could ever pay for this enormous expansion of government borrowing and spending if we are on the verge of economic collapse. The solution—tell the people the economy is doing much better. Convince them that things aren’t nearly as bad as they think. In response, we are supposed to say to ourselves, “Well, I guess we can afford to follow our president on this after all.” It’s like your accountant telling you that you were absolutely broke one minute and then suddenly having him tell you that he found a previously unknown cache of your money. In your elation, you might even give him a bonus as a reward. However, what you should be doing is asking your accountant why he never saw the money the first time. Perhaps your accountant isn’t worth what you are already paying him.
March 16, 2009
On February 9, 2009 newly inaugurated President Obama addressed the deeply worried residents of Elkhart, Indiana and declared that Congress needed to pass the stimulus bill immediately. Failure to do so, he avowed, risked allowing our economy to “sink into a crisis, that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse.” Now, a little more than 30 days later, the president has declared that things in the economy are “not as bad as we think they are.” His administration is suddenly telling us that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. Indeed, Ben Bernanke is now declaring that we could see what we have been told are the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression end this year.
So, how could we move from a prediction of catastrophic financial peril to such a rosy picture in a month? We certainly can’t credit the stimulus bill for this rapid turnaround. Most of its spending won’t even kick in until 2010 or later. What is more likely to be spurring this new optimism is political in nature. When President Obama wanted to pass the pork-laden stimulus bill, he needed to fill us with fear that all was about to be lost. Swift passage of the stimulus was essential to our nation’s economy, we were told. While this approach worked very well to get the American people to back off of their objections to the stimulus, it has created a problem for the administration’s efforts to follow that near trillion dollar bloated stimulus spending plan with an even larger $3.6 trillion budget spending plan.
The American public is rightly asking how we could ever pay for this enormous expansion of government borrowing and spending if we are on the verge of economic collapse. The solution—tell the people the economy is doing much better. Convince them that things aren’t nearly as bad as they think. In response, we are supposed to say to ourselves, “Well, I guess we can afford to follow our president on this after all.” It’s like your accountant telling you that you were absolutely broke one minute and then suddenly having him tell you that he found a previously unknown cache of your money. In your elation, you might even give him a bonus as a reward. However, what you should be doing is asking your accountant why he never saw the money the first time. Perhaps your accountant isn’t worth what you are already paying him.
It’s time to ask a similar question of President Obama: “Was the economy about to drop off the cliff into financial ruin in February, or were you just mistaken?” I have to say, it didn’t sound to me like he had any doubts about our impending financial disaster. Yet, suddenly, the picture is so bright we can even feel giddy about the future. We can spend those trillions we don’t have because things are going to get better a lot faster than anyone thought.
I don't know whether the president was mistaken in February or not, but I know this: If the future looks so bright all of a sudden, let’s repeal the stimulus bill. Apparently, we don’t need it. Then, let’s take a real hard look at the president’s budget proposal and ask ourselves if this is how we want to spend our new-found cache of money.
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