Aug 03 2009
Hope & Change Obama Style
So, now that the liberal democrats in DC have totally bungled the stimulus effort (it will be showing up next year, as they now claim they planned it always would) what do we see on the horizon for more of the liberal Hope and Change?
Apparently we get to look forward to increasing taxes and increasing unemployment. First the tax increases:
President Barack Obama’s treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul.
As the White House sought to balance campaign rhetoric with governing, officials appeared willing to extend unemployment benefits. With former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan saying he is “pretty sure we’ve already seen the bottom” of the recession, Obama aides sought to defend the economic stimulus and calm a jittery public.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama’s intentions about taxes. Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike to lower the federal deficit; Summers said Obama’s proposed health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere.
“There is a lot that can happen over time,” Summers said, adding that the administration believes “it is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what.”
These increases are due to the failed stimulus package, which failed to jolt the economy into life, which in turn failed to increase tax revenues and offset the mind boggling deficits the liberals ran up this year. Check out this year’s deficit numbers and just soak in the failed products of this massive spending.
This is how a single major screw up can ripple out and create massive destruction everywhere. The fact is without new jobs being created the government is taking in a lot less money – record shortfalls. This increases the deficit. The government is also extending unemployment benefits to keep people from completely going bankrupt. This also increases the deficit. It is an economic death spiral, feeding off itself.
So, let’s now take a look at the abysmal job outlook, as noted by reader Crosspatch:
The U.S. unemployment rate may not peak until the second half of 2010, even as the broader economy shows signs of improvement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.
Another extension in unemployment benefits “is something that the administration and Congress are going to look very carefully at as we get closer to the end of this year,†Geithner said in an interview yesterday on ABC’s “This Week†program.
Another year of rising unemployment? Is this the Hope and Change everyone voted for last fall? President Obama set out to change America – and he sure did. He and his liberal cohorts in Congress have driven the economy into the ditch.
They have given up on the stimulus package working folks. They are now just trying to bail water on a sinking ship using a dixie cup. The liberals will not take the steps that could turn things around faster – it would be a complete admission that liberal policies are all fantasy. To turn things around the government needs to drastically cut spending and lower taxes. The market needs a real jolt, not this pretend crap the liberals have been dishing out. But that would mean admitting they were wrong. Won’t happen. We will all have to suffer for many months to come to appease the arrogant liberal egos now controlling congress and the White House.
BTW, the LAST THING we need is a tax on energy – that would pretty much turn the economy downward again, making things even worse than they will be. And a government take over of our health care system is just looney at this point in time. But do these mad hatters care?
[…] on the Muslim world and to reflect on its inadequacies.His most radical departure from […] Hope & Change Obama Style – strata-sphere.com 08/03/2009 So, now that the liberal democrats in DC have totally bungled the […]
AJ,
One thing that has bothered me about this from the beginning, as anyone who follows knew the money was set to be spent in the out years 2010/2011, is that it always seemed more of a re-election play vs. a real stimulus. You charts show that a minute amount has been spent and that is what scares me.
I know it seems right now as though it has failed (and it has) but if it was never meant to be a short term fix, as it was billed, are you worried that this money will finally start ot make it out of the system by 2011 paired with the natural recovery of the market just in time for the 2012 election?
Let’s face it, the majority of voters have short memories and don’t follow all that much till election time. If the economy is much better in 3 years, will they even care about 2009?
Is it too early to claim victory?
Follow the money. Goldman Sachs stands to make a lot of money in the global warming scam, according to Matt Taibbi in his Rolling Stone’s article in July…as does GE, no?
I have been suspicious in the past but am now firmly in the camp that this is all rigged for the financial betterment of a few. I was in the game believing the top players to have *some* honor. Not now. Don’t get me wrong, there are many honorable brokers/financial consultants that I know…just not much honor in top management. This is all just my opinion.
“I have been suspicious in the past but am now firmly in the camp that this is all rigged for the financial betterment of a few.”
The lightbulb changeover is a great example. Little reported fact – the bill mandating the changeover from old (cheap) incandescants to the new flourescent swirly-bulbs was pushed through Congress by lobbyists for Phillips and Westinghouse, the two biggest light bulb manufacturers. Why? Because they will make a much higher profit per bulb from the new than from the old. And the congressmen who voted for it were all glad to take a cut of the earnings in the form of generous campaign contributions.
And that’s really all that was about from the beginning.
I’m sure all remember when a Presidential candidate said… “Read my lips… no new taxes”
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He failed in his bid for a second term…
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For those historically challenged peeps out there, that would be President Bush… [the elder]
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btw, I opine that “Cash for clunkers” is a tax on the poor…because… taking around one million older cars off the market causes a shortage in the used car market… Remember supply & demand from economics 1?…
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Supply down… price up? Who buys old cars? Ans: Poor people… kids on their first car… unemployed people who can’t afford $30K or so for newer ones?
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Therefore, people with less $$ will be charged MORE for their transportation… ergo… they have LESS $$ for other things… Sort of like being taxed extra, isn’t it?
Geithner inspires absolutely no confidence in the financial community and serves merely as waterboy for those pulling the strings. The incompentence of those in charge is apparent in the cash for clunkers program–since they have no collective experience in running any legitimate business, they completely mispriced their product. At much less than $4,500 they could have achieved the same impact in terms of car sales and not have to deliberate expanding the program. Anybody up there ever price anything they made (rhetorical question as they never make anything but problems).
This might feed into bobo’s overall goals. The clunkers will probably be secretly sent to his good friends in Cuba where these cars would be modern marvels compaered to the old chevys and Hudsons driven down there. Yeah, Cuba, that other shining example of what government sponsored health care will get you. Notice how he is trying to prop up every failed socialist system currently in existence. Just another self fulfilling prophesy for the delusional idiot and bigot that he is.
The major problem with the “Kenya” birth certificate is that it is dated something like February 1964. The “Republic of Kenya” as is shown on the document didn’t exist until December 1964.
But in any case, having been born in 1961, what is now Kenya was then British West Africa. Obama would have been a British subject.
Oops, possibly the wrong thread.