Jul 23 2009
President Was Spinning Like A Top Last Night
I missed the big event last night, but if the transcript is any indication the President was in ful BS mode:
Six months ago, I took office amid the worst recession in half a century. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month, and our financial system was on the verge of collapse. As a result of the actions we took in those first weeks, we’ve been able to pull our economy back from the brink.
Is this not the man and the administration that has spent weeks saying the stimulus bill was not meant to really stimulate anything in the first 6 months? Does the man not have access the government’s own recovery website, which shows no significant stimulus money is out the door yet? Here’s the data for 6 government organizations I have been tracking as of 7/10/09, which clearly shows their actions were a lot of nothing.
In the first graph there are 4 sets of columns showing: (from left to right) (1) the amount budgeted for stimulus programs in that organization, (2) the amount allocated to specific programs, (3) the amount actually spent creating jobs (the bottom line) and (4) the amount unspent from the total budget. (click image to enlarge)
The second chart translates the dollar amounts for the last three sets of columns into percentages of the budgeted amounts. (click image to enlarge)
Bottom line: around 99% of the job-creating money for these departments/agencies is stuck in the government coffers – doing nothing. Here’s the latest summary across all 6 organizations:
- $105 billion was budgeted across the organizations to start new programs and create jobs (the largest amounts going  to the Departments of Energy and Transportation)
- Of that, only $30.9 billion (was $28.4B) as even been allocated to programs to be spent (29%)
- The total amount actually spent to date on stimulus programs: $0.987 billion (was $0.606B), which is a paltry 0.94%.
How can the leader of this nation walk out in prime time and deliver that kind of whopper, contradicting weeks of prior statements? I must note a major detail missing from the next paragraph:
We took steps to stabilize our financial institutions and our housing market, and we passed a recovery act that has already saved jobs and created new ones, delivered billions in tax relief to families and small businesses, and extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who’ve been laid off.
I detect a lack of a estimated number of jobs saved and/or created. Was it 2 million or 2? And what was the price for this miracle of waiting until things turned around on their own after the TARP program President Bush put in place? Massive deficits, to the tune of $1.84 trillion dollars.
The BS meter was pegged all the way through this thing. Check out this clip from Allahpundit:
Â
Link: 
Â
In this segment Obama makes the inane claim that if you take the profit motive out of medicine the care will get cheaper and better! Where did that nonsense come from? And there is ‘profit’ all through out the system, including the salaries of every person involved. If people do not get a reward they tend to not care or go into other professions. As I have said many times, cheap is not best. It’s just cheap.
The man just admitted he intends to shutdown private insurance with the government option. Not profit incentive no industry. The man is going to bankrupt 17% of our economy and replace it with bureaucrats, which he also admits in this segment will be the ones telling the doctor what is covered. Somehow he thinks bureaucrats telling doctors what is allowable is better than insurance companies (which actually do not ration care at all, they just make sure we all pay for the cost of it).
I wonder if the speech changed any minds or simply confirmed people’s growing sense that our young President is only good at spinning a tale. The growing list of defecting Democrats in the House seems to indicate the latter is more likely.
I have been seeing numbers indicating that we are starting to get out of the recession, won’t see recession in 2010, blah blah.
Then I see this: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/07/we-are-now-in-early-stages-of.html
Which one do you believe?
I watched it last night. Actually, just some of it (and I’m a political junkie). He just drones on so much and goes off on so many tangents, it’s hard to withstand. He really doesn’t say anthing. Although there was some stuff about my doctor just dying to perform unnecessary procedures on me to make more money. And there are also apparently a lot of people who go from doctor to doctor, getting the exact same tests done over and over again, and their condition never gets resolved.
My impression: he’s a used car salesman. He’s the nicest guy in the world. You like him. And he’s giving you the best deal on the planet. Not only that, but you have to act NOW. You can’t even go home and think about it for a day, because the car will be gone.
I have one other observation. And, as a scientist, I’m reluctant to use the word “fact” (which is often over-used), but I’m tempted to say that the following statement rises to it:
If you believe that not only will the healthcare plan cost only several hundred billion dollars, but also that 2/3 of the cost of the program is already in the system (making much of it “revenue neutral”), you will believe just about anything a politician tells you.
Pinnochio is gonna save money the Michelle Obama way!
Didn’t she run a hospital where they dragged the poor, not able to pay patients out to other hospitals or dumped in the street?
Well its’ goin national since it worked so well!
Then big goberment can decide does this Republican old guy or this downs syndrome baby or this busted up Marine really have anything left to offer the Socilaist utopia or are we better off just given em a pill and helpin them on their way.
Pinnochio Presidente says dump em. Worked for the Wife!
Lurker – there is only great hope this country has left.
The hope that Obama will fail.
AJ, you’re being way to gracious. He was not spinning like a top, he was lying like a rug.
You could have picked up, “Dreams of my Father”, or whatever the title is, for really cheap, if the profit motive had been taken out of the equation too.
The President’s thinking is so simplistic, it boggles the mind. He graduates from college an idealist, common enough, then he plays at a variety of jobs, which he doesn’t like much and quits to run for state congress, then the US Senate. But it appears that his thinking and experiences are stunted at the college level. Further more he surrounds himself, from 25 to 40 years old with people who are sophisticated in a way Obama is not, they can put meat on the bones of his idealism. Obama thinks they are terrific. I’m thinking Wright, Farrachan etc. But with Obama’s oratory skills he doesn’t want to be a little guy, but make a big splash, so goes for Presidency, the country is falling apart, but I’m taking my wife for dinner in New York guy.
It appears to me that in his life he got everything he ever wanted for nothing. It doesn’t appear that he knew what went on behind the scenes, like how hard his grandmother must have worked to give her only grandchild and his mother the free wheeling life they enjoyed.
I’m trying to figure out how Obama can reduce Doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance companies, and the people they serve to red pills and blue pills and if only they weren’t so greedy everybody would be taken care of, and it won’t cost more then the government can tax. Obama has no clue how society functions or it’s institutions, or how the world works. How could we have elected such a naive thinker, don’t answer that, really I know.
Obama has compromised his responsibility to the nation with his small minded, inexperience. Every time he tries to explain himself it becomes clear that he has no clue how a capitalist, democratic, republic works.
I tried, people… really tried to follow the entire “press conference.”… but maybe 2/3 through I just tuned out for a book… One hour… 12 questions… No follow-up… No specifics…
.
May & I have a little joke… whenever anyone says… “The fact of the matter is… dah dah dah…” whatever follows is 100% speculative BS… My President went to the wall with that little phrase at least twice last night… heh…
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
Another good read on the world economy and what may be in store.
As a friend said to me this morning “we are living in a liberal insane asylum.” Somehow that helped me, and I offer it in case others’ heads are exploding with this ‘logic’, this ‘truth’, these ‘facts’, and this ‘plan.’
He could have saved time by simply saying, “Trust me.”
Kathie, I think all of you are giving Him the same pass as the zombies (MSM) in that room.
This is a rat with a plan. Really look at his actions and never, ever listen to the Voice. He attacked Pugs and then said he didn’t. Yep. He said he inherited from the Pugs. He inherited from the Dims. He said you did not need repeated tests. In other words, you are not entitled to a second opinion……………only the government guy’s. He said the doctors were the evil guys because they would steal your tonsils for money. He called a police officer Stupid because he arrested his friend. Yep, unfortunately this particular officer was attacked by the President of the USA on national TV. Does it remind you of the attack against a citizen standing in his own yard (Joe the P)? Or how about the attack against Palin? Or shooting the bird? This rat always has a plan.
Now don’t call this guy racist because he sat for 20 yrs in a racist church. His arrested ‘friend’ was screaming ‘racist’ at the police officer. Nope, not Him. He only threw his white granny that raised him away because she was scared of her bus ride.
MSM elected this plant. I hope they do not have parents and gramps. Nope, on second thought, after the way they all stomped their feet, cheering and having such a laughing good time last night, they deserve to get in those lines.
Owl is mostly right, this rat has a plan.
Do not listen to Pinnochio! What he says has nothing to do with what he is trying to do. He is a salesman trying desparately to sell you while not being able to tell you the real plan.
The real plan, that which he told to Joe the Plumber and in code tells his loving followers, is to redistribute the wealth!
Thus he trashes capitalism at every opportunity, free enterprise at every opportunity all in an effort to grab as much wealth as possible from the private sector and bring it to the public sector where it will be doled out by him and his socialist buddies to those they deem worthy.
He attacked Republicans blamed them, he attack insurance companies and profits, blamed them, he attacked Doctors and blamed them. He attacked the best system of healthcare ever known to man in order to drive a wedge, even throwing in the race card as he always does in a pinch, to drive a wedge between the haves and have nots so as to further his scheme of grabbing as much of the wealth as possible for Government to dole out as Government deems appropriate!
The wedge is between the haves,
and have nots and guilty because they have and know this will not affect them anyway,
until it does!
He hates America and is trying desperately to return her to her rightful owners, he is a college kid with no real world experience just a whole bunch of Socialist mentors and puppetmasters thus the name Pinnochio!
I agree with Kathie 100% on the lack of real world experience. Never seems to have had to work for a living or worry about where his next meal is coming from but then has the audicity to lecture the rest of us on sacrifice—-right out of the trust fund hippie playbook. When your mind is not focused on work and making your way in the world it is free to wander to the thoughts of utopia where he seems to be firmly entrenched. Only his utopia is what America calls hell. Keep shining the light of day on this turd and his shine will continue to wear off; just remember how quick the flakey liberals were to throw the Clintons aside once the boy wonder came on the scene (maybe there is honor among thieves afterall). I too pray for his failure each day but hope he remains in good health as the next two in line are accomplished incompetents.
Obama is in a role he has never been in before. He is now personally responsible for the success or failure of something. HE will be held responsible for the results of his administration. As far as I can tell from his background, he has never been in the chief executive role of anything. He has never had to bear the responsibility of the actions or lack of actions of other people. And he shows this when he is quick to assess blame for various things on other people. Ultimately HE is responsible. He has no training for that role and no experience in it.
Now that the campaign is over, he is going to have to execute (and I am not talking about senior citizens and the unborn). He can’t just vote “present” and try to avoid taking a stand because avoiding a stand is a stand in and of itself. He won’t be able to get lost in a large group of peers as he could with votes in the Illinois legislature and in the Senate. He is “the one” and only chief executive. All of the results are his responsibility, he will be held accountable. The concept of that is completely alien to that man.
Looks like Obama has no coattails to speak of either. Barbara Boxer is clinging to a 4 point lead in her bid for reelection against Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett Packard) with 7 percent undecided. That is going to be an interesting race to watch.
[…] rescue. Think about this. The federal spending for job creation has not even really started, it has spent less the 1% of the money that was supposed to go to job creation 5 months after it was enacted. And many of those jobs are a joke: How much are politicians straining […]
[…] many times, the job spending component of the stimulus bill is stuck in the federal bureaucracy. As of 7/10/09 we are still waiting for 99% of the money to come out of the bowels of the federal bureaucracy (I […]