Is anybody there? Does anybody care? These words taken from the musical 1776 most aptly describe President Obama’s long awaited job speech. As in all things Obama, his handlers tried to raise this speech to mystical heights by calling for a joint session of Congress. He ought to fire those guys. They scored the unassisted triple play against their boss.
1) The scheduling conflict with the Reagan Library Republican Debate was a political maneuver one too cute.
2) He had to talk fast to get the speech over before the NFL opener.
3) The news cycle was completely co-opted by a terrorist warning issued by Homeland Security simultaneously with the speech.
1-2-3 strikes… you’re out! What were his political advisers thinking?
At the end of the day, his speech contained nothing new. The Republicans demurred not offering a response. None was needed. Economics 101 says this will not work. All Obama is going to do is rob Peter to pay Paul…but then he did promise redistribution of wealth, didn’t he? This time next year we will be another year older and deeper in debt. Keynesian economics anticipates that stimulus is a temporary measure that will melt away in an economy in which the government has no permanent debt. Somebody forgot to tell that fine point of economics to the current administration.
In today's American, any stimulus to be successful has to come from unconventional sources that are not already in the economic bubble. For example, a massive relief of regulation to allow the energy industry to boom would generate billions of dollars of NEW revenue from NEW work and NEW private industry jobs. It also would allow money to stay in the country that is currently being converted into petro dollars as we import our oil. THAT would be something that would work.
Obama did have one idea I found appealing. He wants to prod lenders into allowing mortgage holders current with their mortgage to be allowed to refinance their current mortgage to a lower interest rate even if their house is “under water.” It wouldn’t reduce the amount of the mortgage, but simply allow borrowers to take advantage of the record low mortgage rates right now at about 3.75%. This would put hundreds of dollars a month into family coffers. THAT is stimulus not coming from the government, and one that would be helpful.
As for the rest…three years of unemployment insurance…really? And here we go again with shovel ready jobs. NOW he is touting those white blue collar construction jobs his last plan said we didn’t need any more of. I guess he blew that one. But you know what? With all of the new regulations, it will be years before most of those jobs get started. Environmental impact statement, anyone?
In the last $800 billion stimulus package, less than 10% of the amount was actually earmarked for construction and hard asset projects…less than 10%. I haven’t seen the figures in the Son o’ Stimulus plan…$450 billion....but I understand that it is pretty much following the same configuration with much of the money allocated to state salaries. Here we go again.
True growth can be achieved through energy policy, calling off the EPA, putting a moratorium on Obamacare, quit promulgating regulations on everything from dust to salt, get off the union bandwagon and quit suing American companies and states, and dump the Keynesians!!! That's the ticket!
Unfortunately, to quote Michele Maklin, out ticket is on the Obama Express to bankruptcy. All Aboard!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment