Feb 05 2009
Liberal Arrogance Implodes Democrats
The so called stimulus package being considered by Congress is collapsing in an implosion of reality. People are starting to focus on the make up of the bill, which apparently President Obama wants us to ignore. He knows it is in trouble, so he has claimed we should close our lying eyes, ignore the details and vote for this pile of BS!
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“Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential,†Obama said while acknowledging criticisms of the plan. “A failure to act and to act now will turn crisis into catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession.â€
He took issue with Republican complaints that the plan doesn’t include enough tax cuts and has too many long-term initiatives that won’t quickly boost the economy.
“These criticisms echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems, that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence,†Obama said. “I reject those theories — and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.â€
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When Obama comes up with the ‘essential’ bill we can debate it, but the criticisms are right on target per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring and analysis. First the phasing, which is shown in the following graph:
Then the CBO statement:
The budgetary impact of the bill stems primarily from three types of transactions: [1] Direct payments to individuals (such as unemployment benefits), [2] reductions in federal taxes, and [3] purchases of goods and services (either by the federal government directly or indirectly via grants to states and local governments). CBO estimates that impacts from the first two categories of transactions would occur fairly rapidly. In the third category, CBO estimates slower rates of spending than historical full-year spending rates in 2009 for a number of reasons:
The third category is the largest element – it is the programs that are supposed to lift the economy. They won’t kick in for a year or more, probably much more than a year (read more from a previous post).
The Senate Republicans have come up with an incredible measuring stick for the bill’s expense, as noted by Jim Geraghty:
[Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell] To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.”
Well, that’s a pretty clear way of describing the size of this pile of failed liberal policies. But there is another way to look at it – what would it be as a direct payment to each man, woman and child in the US? just to round off assume 300 million people in American and a $900 billion dollar bill. 900,000/300 = $3,000 per individual.
Now does anyone think they will get $3,000 dollars per head from the government? Hell know, the most is $500 in the tax break day. But you will OWE $3,000 dollars per head. Now why would anyone let the government squander $3,000 of their hard earned money and get back in return $500 for the pleasure?
The end result of this mess is political observers left and right see President Obama on the brink of becoming a lame duck – in record time. Remember, a lame duck President is one who has lost their political clout because the people see them as irrelevant. First the conservative side, from Victor Davis Hanson:
Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.
We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking.
Read the whole thing. It marks the failure of his ethics promises, the lost stimulus and many more.
This is quite serious. I can’t recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton’s initial slips). Obama immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and the Secretary of Defense. If he doesn’t quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterism—angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.
And now the leftward view, presented by Michael Hirsh of Newsweek:
Obama’s biggest problem isn’t Taxgate—which resulted in the Terrible Tuesday departure of his trusted friend, Tom Daschle, and the defanging of his Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner. Nor is the No. 1 problem that the president can’t seem to win a single Republican vote for his stimulus package. That’s a symptom, not a cause. The reason Obama is getting so few votes is that he is no longer setting the terms of the debate over how to save the economy. Instead the Republican Party—the one we thought lost the election—is doing that. And the confusion and delay this is causing could realize Obama’s worst fears, turning “crisis into a catastrophe,” as the president said Wednesday.
Obama’s desire to begin a “post-partisan” era may have backfired. In his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by day. Yes, there are still some very legitimate issues with a bill that’s supposed to be “temporary” and “targeted”—among them, large increases in permanent entitlement spending, and a paucity of tax cuts that will prompt immediate spending. Even so, Obama has allowed Congress to grow embroiled in nitpicking over efficiency when the central debate should be about whether the package is big enough. When you are dealing with a stimulus of this size, there are going to be wasteful expenditures and boondoggles. There’s no way anyone can spend $800 to $900 billion quickly without waste and boondoggles. It comes with the Keynesian territory. This is an emergency; the normal rules do not apply.
This is truly hilarious. Hirsh notes the fatal flaws in the ‘stimulus’ package and Obama’s neophyte missteps, but he blames the GOP for simply noting them and garnering public support. Here is the kicker Hirsh – Americans see the facts too and they are not buying it. And no, you don’t just throw money around hoping some sticks and not too many crooks make a killing in the process.
Hirsh is a classic liberal, intellectually and motivationally lazy. He comes from the “I’m here, were are my benefits?” camp if life. He cannot fathom a real solution, so therefore one cannot possibly exist! He cannot fathom brain surgery or how to fly people in space, but they also exist.
Obama won on a promise to lead. I guess we should have checked the fine print more to see he was going to lead us down the tubes.
Addendum: BTW, what happens if the Democrats become known as the party of shrill and unnecessary panic mongering? Global Warming, The rich killing the poor, whites out to annihilate blacks, Bush and Cheney listening in on liberal phone calls, and an unavoidable economic collapse – all sound like variations on crying ‘wolf!’ to me. Here is an example from Obama/Hirsh:
A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future,” he said at the White House.
But it is also true that a failed act will undermine confidence even more, which will easily “turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future“. In science, and especially medicine, it is well established that rash acts can hurt a situation, making things worse. That is why doctors don’t just throw any old medicine into a patient to see if its negative effects or positive effects will be the stronger effect.
Face it, the left is in over its head and has no damn clue what it is doing, they are simply demanding they get to do it faster.
Update: Here is another liberal trying to understand why exaggerated promises on the campaign trail are easier than actually having to lead:
At this crucial juncture in the push to pass an economic recovery package, President Obama finds himself in the most unlikely of places: He is losing the message war.Â
Despite Obama’s sky high personal approval ratings, polls show support has declined for his stimulus bill since Republicans and their conservative talk-radio allies began railing against what they labeled as pork barrel spending within it.Â
The sheer size of it – hovering at about $900 billion — has prompted more protests that are now causing some moderate and conservative Democrats to flinch and, worse, hesitate.Â
LOL! The liberal media really did guzzle down their own Kool Aid – didn’t they. These people really are this dumb. There is a reason a majority of the people are rejecting this bill, and it is not because liberals are smarter than most Americans.
Soon they will be lashing out at moderates like the far right did, and it will be 1994 all over again. BTW, my favorite line of the year is going to be this realization:
But the Obama team also made its own mistakes. The president’s troubled cabinet nominees added to the cacophony that at times drowned out the White House economic messages in the past two weeks.  And it seems more apparent each day that the nascent Obama Administration isn’t fully prepared for the task at hand.Â
Week three and the liberal media is just now getting a clue about how inexperienced and unprepared Obama is. That is not a sign of the media getting smarter – that is a sign of how bad Obama is bungling things. This is going to be a rough year for America. Watch as the bureaucracy takes over and Obama loses all control.
Newsweek doing WH press releases..don’t they have their own website we pay for already?
And another lesson from the medical world “First, do no harm!”
This spending orgy will bring back the inflation of the carter years and as history seems to need to repeat itself, people will too late figure out that government is more of a problem than a solver of the problems it has created.
It is patriotic to spread as much light on this as possible especially since the media can’t. This government has no concept of economics and is hallucinating on the power it has in believing it can do more good than harm.
For those of you who voted for this, please take the time to reflect on how the politicians have twisted you desire for change. Call your congressman or soros directly to complain.
Obama says that trickle down economic thought is dead. It didn’t work for the last eight years and it won’t work now. Really! Bush inherited a recession with the implosion of the dot com bubble. At the time that was a really big deal and millions lost billions. Then there was 9-11. Bush cut taxes on all levels and created hundreds and thousands of jobs that the left said would never happen, but it did. In 2006 when the republicans lost control, everything went to hell in a hand basket and the housing market crashed. Now there is panic and more panic and more panic. STOP PLEASE WITH THE PANIC. Does anybody miss President Bush? Calm, collected and direct. This is what we are going to do and we will slowly work our way back to low unemployment, we have been hit hard, but we will be ok. Obama stirs up crap on every level and wonders why nobody spends money. What would you buy today except what is absolutely necessary for survival? Why spent $30,000 on a car that might be obsolete tomorrow. Why buy a home if you might get a better interest rate next week. Please lets slow down.
The stock market has been headed steadily downward since the point where Wall Street figured BHO would win and the apathy of market participants is telling. There is plenty of idle cash around, 401(k)’s continue to receive money twice a month from most plans, energy costs and borrowing costs are low—yet the market doesn’t see a pretty picture with the current interventionist government. The folks may vote with their ideals but they hold onto their cash in the face of reality. That is the only poll I need.
BTW—what’s the current Congressional approval rating, last I saw it was single digits.
Obama promised a whole lot of things, none of which are going to be fulfilled.
You begin to feel sorry for the Obama fellow, he clearly is in over his head.
I am so tired of hearing about Obama’s socalled sky high ratings. His approval ratings are right where Bush’s were a month after he took office and that was with the Democrats screaming that he had been selected, not elected.
The truth is Obama is flailing.
If they want to just do the short term stimulus, they could cut out 80% of the bill…and they could cut some taxes. That would probably help more than all of this.
As for energy independence, I am all for that but the vast majority of the money in this bill has nothing to do with that. Besides, Obama does not even support offshore drilling.
I think this is interesting. I found it at “Hot Air” it is part of the study that was done in England, then all over MSM, telling about the number of deaths in Iraq by American. Read the whole thing. To say that tons of money and an effort by the Dems to discredit Bush at the highest levels of government is so true. They did a good job too. I hate politics. Is anybody honest? Does their country mean anything to them. I think not.
In Burnham’s case, politics certainly played a large role in his work. Last year, the Times of London revealed that George Soros provided almost half of Burnham’s funding for the study. Soros shoved millions of dollars into his highly vocal opposition to the war and George Bush, funding Democrats and the Democratic Party in their efforts to unseat Republicans over the last three election cycles. His contribution of less than $100,000 to Burnham’s efforts were chump change, and bought him the propaganda he needed.
This so called stimulus bill is nothing more than a raid on the treasury by Dems and their special interest groups. It will be the first of many. This bunch has no idea about personal responsibility and working for the good of the country as a whole. If they dont’ raid the treasury regularly until the contry is completely bankrupct it will be a miracle. Maybe someone should start watching to see if these people are setting up foreign bank accts. We have become a third world country. Mark my words. By the time this bunch of bushmen leave office, our economy will rival the worst in Africa. Obama does not know anything about the free enterprise system. He grew up the son of a communist mother and admits he was influenced by, drank and smoked pot with her commie friends. His whole career has been working for left wing anti American front groups to destablilize our free enterprise system by promoting special rights for special interest groups. . Having spent his whole life in this atmosphere, Just where would he have got experience working for the good of the country. There is no way he can work for what is best for the country when his whole life has been spent trying to destroy it. It would require a complete overhaul of his way of thinking to be anthing other than what he has always been. He may be trying, but he isn’t succeeding because he does not know how. . You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. And you can take a pig out of it’s wallow but it will turn whereever you put it into a wallow.
From the Times…
Et tu,
BruteTimes ?I’ve almost gotten to the stage where I want this boondoggle to pass as long as NO Republican votes for it. That way the world will have a vivid picture of how stupid Democrats are.
I know it’s all political payback to the Democrat and liberal cronies, but if you look at Obama’s difficulties in getting ANY honest people to serve in his administration, you realize they’re all getting their paybacks already. Obama seems hell bent on surrounding himself with both crooks and domestic terrorists.
This bill will not help the folks, but it actually might stabilize the markets temporarily, but that’s not what the bill is supposedly designed to do. It’s designed to be a huge democrat pork bill, I’ve seen no evidence that it is anything else.
Web Reconnaissance for 02/06/2009…
A short recon of whatÂ’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….
He appears to be in full panic mode. He can’t seem to decide if he wants to scare us, entertain us or take us on the campaign tour. If his mug does not leave my TV soon………………….
I have a little different take on who is running this show. Still think he was ‘placed’. I read and watch commentators say over and over that Pelosi and Reid stole this thing from him as he was trying to reach across the aisle. Not from what I have seen. That’s what they want you to think so they keep him squeaky and constantly ‘reaching across’. Nope, my opinion is that this did not happen without it coming straight from the White House. This is Obama’s baby.
Watch what he is doing, instead of his lips moving. There is quite an extensive list at this point of his signings. Quite a scary fellow and if he was not my president, I would have to say he was anti-American.
BTW, I can’t find a single phone being answered on either side in the Senate.
AJ, did you see the article over at Gateway Pundit about a clause in the “stimulus” bill that bans religious activities at public college campuses, ie no more Fellowhip of Christian Athletes, etc. on campus?
Jim DeMint tried to have this clause taken out and the dems defeated it …
U.n.b.e.l.i.e.v.a.b.l.e.
TO ALL:ANNOY YOUR CONGRESS PEOPLE IF THIS DISTURBS YOU!
The Blue Dog Dems are already revolting:
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Dems warn leaders to resume regular order
excerpt:
A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution†and see that the House returns to a “regular order†process of legislating.
The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year…
…Since last year, many senior House Democrats — many of them subcommittee chairmen — have grown overly frustrated with how only small and select bands of legislators have been responsible for writing bills, such as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout as well as much of the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-warn-leaders-to-resume-regular-order-2009-02-02.html
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I also heard on the news that a bunch of blue dog Dems have been complaining that they had their arms twisted into voting for a bill they didn’t support.
These are the 10 Leading Economic Indicators from The Conference Board:
1. Average number of initial applications for unemployment insurance
2. Number of manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials
3. Speed of delivery of new merchandise to vendors from suppliers
4. Amount of new orders for capital goods unrelated to defense
5. Amount of new building permits for residential buildings
6. The S&P 500 stock index
7. Inflation-adjusted money supply (M2)
8. Spread between long and short interest rates (the yield curve)
9. Consumer sentiment
10. Average weekly hours worked by manufacturing workers
Any Government practices and/or stimulus that doesn’t drive these items in 2009 won’t lead us out of the recession in 2009.
Victor Davis Hanson has a follow post to his article (The Impending Obama Meltdown) over at The Corner:
Friday, February 06, 2009
A Rather Modest Observation, Really [Victor Davis Hanson]
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDlhYWEyNzdjNGI1ZTNhYzJjOTUxNDEzYzg5ZGQ2MTA=
Support for GOP Rises on Generic Congressional Ballot
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Following the unanimous Republican opposition to the economic stimulus bill proposed by and House Democrats, the GOP has narrowed the gap this week on the Generic Congressional Ballot.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys found that the Democrats’ lead is down to four percentage points–42% of voters said they would vote for their district’s Democratic candidate while 38% said they would choose the Republican (see crosstabs).
A week ago, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/congressional_ballot/generic_congressional_ballot
As Obama has a meltdown, and the blue dog dems try to save their great party….here is something to consider about the direction of the Republican party:
Republicans Like GOP’s Conservative Direction, Democrats Don’t
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/republicans_like_gop_s_conservative_direction_democrats_don_t
And, what Bob Beckel (Dem Strategist) says the Republicans did right:
Democrats Beware of Michael Steele
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/democrats_beware_of_michael_st.html
And, what has Michael Steele been up to? He’s cleaning house. Probably a good first step:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0209/Resignations_at_the_RNC.html
Interesting trends in this graph on Obama’s approval rating at Rasmussen.
The trends are down in “strongly approve” and up in “strongly disapprove”.
[…] new jobs the Democrats in DC promised? Simple, they will not be activated for many months to come. As the CBO stated when the so called “Stimulus bill” was being rammed through Congress by the Democrats, […]