Obamanomics at work

I ran across the following item that I thought everyone might like.  I have no idea whether or not the story is true, but it makes a great point:

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign the read “Will Vote For Change.” I thought that was hilarious.

Once in the restaurant, I noticed my server had on a “Obama 08″ button, so I thought this was a superb opportunity to see how this works in real life.

When the bill came, I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama concept of spreading the wealth around. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip as an economic stimulus to the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed away …apparently he has no concept of Hope n’ Change.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I decided he could use the money as a stimulus. The homeless guy was grateful and thanked me.

At the end of my experiment in economic stimulus, I realized the homeless guy was happy to take money he did not earn, but the waiter was really angry that I gave away the money he earned even though the homeless guy needed the stimulus more,based on my criteria. Obviously the waiter was Rich, and doesn’t understand that the homeless guy needed and deserved the money more, based on Obamanomics. The homeless guy,however, was happy with the Change.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

And I guess the waiter just needs to get used to working for the change he voted for, hmmm?

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FDR and the "Raw Deal"

I want to expand on an idea that I started on my blog yesterday.  I mentioned, briefly, about Obama becoming frustrated that some of us Right - Wing - Arch-Conservative - Fundamentalist - Americans don't think that FDR did anything to shorten the Great Depression.

I'd take that a step farther ... maybe two steps.  Not only did FDR lengthen the Great Depression, but without the "Raw Deal" he gave America, it's very possible the 1930's wouldn't even be called the "Great Depression".  It may have only been a short recession, the likes of which we see on a regular, cyclical basis.

David Limbaugh (brother of Rush) wrote the following:

No central planning-type guru is as smart at allocating scarce resources as a free market pricing mechanism. As the Heritage analysts point out, when government spends $1 billion on highways, for example, hiring road builders and purchasing road materials, "It must first tax or borrow $1 billion from other sectors of the economy — which would then lose a similar number of jobs. In other words, highway spending merely transfers jobs and income from one part of the economy to another."

Though liberals, such as Obama and the vast majority of history textbook authors, have a romantic attachment to FDR, the best evidence is that his New Deal did not end the Great Depression, but exacerbated it.

No one has done a better job in refuting liberal history revisionists and FDR apologists than Burton W. Folsom Jr. in "New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America."

Almost at the end of FDR's second term, the economy was getting worse, with unemployment at more than 20 percent. Folsom cites the words of FDR's treasury secretary and one-time confidant, Henry Morgenthau Jr., to make his case. These words should serve as a chilling reminder to all politicians even considering jumping on Obama's FDR big-spending bandwagon:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

So when I read that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has suggested that Obama's economic stimulus plan could receive "significant support" from Republicans if Democrats would just include Republicans in crafting the legislation, I have to ask, "Are they all Democrats now?"

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Helicopter hits Obama in the head

Here's something you won't see played over and over in the MainStream Media...

Apparently, Obama was so busy mugging for the cameras when he tried to board Marine One, that he smacked his head on the door of the aircraft. 

Every gaffe made by George W. Bush, whether due to his struggle with words or a clumsy moment (which all of us have, by the way), was replayed over and over on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the Comedy Channel and the Food Network.  (Okay, I just threw in the last one to make a point.) 

Even going back to Gerald Ford, Republicans have been made fun of for every little thing that wasn't as perfect as The Messiah.  Ford, who was a football player, and apparently not prone to clumsiness, was lampooned during his entire Presidency for one fall.

Images of Bush falling on a Segway or on a bicycle have been replayed so many times on the major networks that hardly anyone in America hasn't seen those clips.

Obama hitting his head on a helicopter, though, now that's a different story.

Too many important things are going on right now.  We have to get that stimulus package passed.  And we have to deal with Gitmo and Iran.  There isn't a place in the media for something this trivial.  Besides, we can't show Obama having a weakness.  That would be un-Messianic. 

Expect a new line item in the stimulus package before it's passed:  Several billion dollars for designing and building a new Marine One with a larger door.

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Obama: Government is the Answer

As if we didn't already know that Obama was an anti-American Socialist, recent remarks have confirmed his lack of faith in the American people and his faith in Big Government solutions to problems.  Obama arrived at his first White House news conference with one primary message:  Only Government can fix the economy.

"At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life."

To the extent that Big Government got us into this mess with excessive taxation, overspending, and excessive government regulation, particularly in the financial industry, I'd have to agree with Obama.  Unfortunately, his solution is "more of the same thing that got us into this mess should get us out."  I wonder how much sense that makes.

He also took issue with those of us in the blogosphere (primarily) who have recently criticized FDR and his New Deal policies that, according to a recent study by UCLA, extended the great depression by seven years.  

"They're fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago," he said.

If by that you mean that liberal journalists and historians see FDR as the nations First Messiah and Obama as the Second, then yes, you are right.  Liberals have been "feeling a tingle down their leg" over FDR for decades, in spite of evidence that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. 

Obama insisted that he did not really want to spend billions of dollars of taxpayers' money (yet), but that was what was required.  

"I would love not to have to spend money right now.  That wasn't how I envisioned my presidency beginning..." He said.

Of course, the implication here is that he would loved to have spent it later when he could target the money more toward the socialist liberal humanistic agenda that the Democrats have tried to push in this bill.  He would gladly have traded our current situation for one in which he could spend a trillion dollars on Socialized health care, a larger amount for abortions and planned parenthood, and other liberal, socialist causes.

While his sales pitch was focused on job creation, much of the Pork Barrel Spending Bill avoids job creation.    He said "My initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs."

Using that standard, he most certainly will be able to claim success no matter what happens, given the numbers of expected job losses predicted by Nancy Pelosi.

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Preparing For Failure

From American Spectator:  www.spectator.org

By Philip Klein on 2.10.09 @ 6:10AM

Even while calling for the urgent passage of the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package, the Obama administration and its liberal allies are laying the groundwork to neutralize criticisms should it fail.

"[B]y the midterm elections we're probably not going to see an economy that's better than now," former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich conceded Sunday on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. "I mean, not that the stimulus program will have failed, but that the stimulus program, even if it succeeds, will not actually kick in. It will not get the economy better than it is now. Without the stimulus, the economy could be far worse in two years than it is now."

While he hasn't been quite as explicit as Reich, President Obama has adopted the same line of reasoning as part of his public relations offensive to boost support for the stimulus package: a failure to act will make things worse, even if acting may not make things better -- or at least not for a while.

President Obama is selling the plan as one that will "save or create" four million jobs, and he's continued to hedge his statements on the upside potential of the legislation while portraying the dire consequences of inaction.

Last week, he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that if Congress didn't pass the stimulus package: "Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

On Monday, President Obama took his show on the road, urging an Elkhart, Indiana audience to get behind his plan, while cautioning them not to expect miracles.

"We know that even with this plan, the road ahead won't be easy," Obama said in his initial remarks at the town hall-style gathering. "This crisis has been a long time in the making, and we know that we cannot turn it around overnight. Recovery will likely be measured in years, not weeks or months."

Then, in his first primetime press conference as president Monday night, Obama explained: "My administration inherited a deficit of over one trillion dollars. But because we also inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression, doing little or nothing at all will result in even greater deficits, even greater job loss, even greater loss of income, and even greater loss in confidence."

What this means is that if the economy is still in trouble as the 2010 elections approach, Democrats will argue that eight years of Republican rule left the country in such awful shape that Democrats will need more time to clean up the mess. If unemployment is in the 7 percent to 9 percent range, they'll say, without their policies, it would have been 12 percent, or perhaps higher.

While lawmakers are primarily interested in getting reelected, to liberal intellectuals who are constantly clamoring for more government spending, the failure of the stimulus package would represent another real-life example of the failure of Keynesian theory. That's why they've been criticizing the plan from the left.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has led the way by arguing that the stimulus package is far too small.

"[I]f we look at the scale of the problem, the Congressional Budget Office says that we're gonna have a hole in the economy, insufficient spending to the tune of $2.9 trillion over the next three years," Krugman said on ABC's "World News" this Sunday.  "And we've got a sort of $800 billion plan to cope with it. It's actually quite a bit on the low side."

Krugman has complained that the "sort of" $800 billion legislation has too many tax cuts, and that President Obama made too many concessions in an effort to win support of Republicans.

"You know, he did a tremendous amount of attempt at outreach and got zero for it," Krugman lamented. "Absolutely nothing. And I hope he's learned his lesson from that."

In his Monday column, Krugman tore into the compromise legislation forged by centrists in the Senate. "I blame President Obama’s belief that he can transcend the partisan divide -- a belief that warped his economic strategy," Krugman snarled.

So for Krugman and other liberal ideologues, if the economy does not recover after an $800 billion government stimulus package, the excuse will be that Obama abandoned pure Keynesianism out of a misguided desire for bipartisanship.

But unlike Krugman, Democrats will have to face voters in the fall of next year, and if economic conditions do not improve, they'll be forced to explain how they ran up trillions in debt without having anything to show for it.

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Octuplets Will Be Well Cared For ... by Taxpayers

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Southern California mother of octuplets receives $490 a month in food stamps and three of her first six children are disabled and receiving federal assistance, her publicist confirmed Monday evening.

Furtney confirmed the public assistance payments after two sources told The Los Angeles Times that Suleman was receiving food stamps and federal (taxpayer) supplemental security income.

“In her view these are just payments made for people with legitimate needs and are not, in her view, welfare,” Furtney said. “She just believes that there are programs for people with needs and she and her children qualify for some of them.” 

In other words, she believes money grows on trees and that the Federal Government can print an endless supply without affecting others.  Fortunately for her, ignorance is bliss.   Unfortunately for the rest of us, ignorance can be very costly.

In an interview that aired Monday, Suleman told NBC “Today” show anchor Ann Curry that she does not receive welfare, a story which Ann Curry all too eagerly bought, hook, line and sinker.

Her six other children are under the age of 7. All 14 children were the result of in-vitro fertilization…

In an interview with celebrity news Web site RadarOnline.com, Angela Suleman said she and Nadya’s father pleaded with her first fertility doctor not to treat their daughter again. She said her daughter went to another doctor.

“I’m really angry about that,” Angela Suleman said of the doctor’s decision to perform the procedure. “She already has six beautiful children. Why would she do this? I’m struggling to look after her six. We had to put in bunk beds, feed them in shifts and there’s children’s clothing piled all over the house.”

Angela Suleman said Nadya’s boyfriend was the biological father of all 14 children, but that she refused to marry him (because she wouldn't qualify for as much government - assistance - that - grows - on - trees - but - isn't - welfare.

“He was in love with her and wanted to marry her,” she said. “But Nadya wanted to have children on her own."

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Obama: GOP Can't Criticize Stimulus Package

President Barack Obama looked comfortable enough at his first White House news conference, but he sounded like a man fed up with one thing: Republicans lecturing him about his $820 billion/$750 billion/$880 billion/$1.3 Trillion economic stimulus plan.

Obama repeatedly reminded a national television audience that federal spending and deficits soared under George W. Bush’s presidency. He used the point to undermine GOP lawmakers opposing his plan and calling it too costly and wasteful.

"It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they’ve presided over a doubling of the national debt," Obama said. "I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility."

"What I won’t do," he said at another point, "is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place." …

Bush and his Republican allies in Congress relied too heavily on tax cuts, "especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans," Obama said, using past decisions to hit current critics who want more tax reductions and less spending in the stimulus plan. "We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it’s only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now," he said…

At least three times he suggested that some unspecified number of his Republican critics want to "do nothing" about the economic crisis. GOP leaders consistently have said they want the government to act, but they think Obama’s plan is too heavy on spending and too light on tax cuts.

Asked why he used dire language earlier in the day in Indiana, suggesting the downward economic spiral could be irreversible, Obama did not answer directly, and emphasized his optimism. "I’m absolutely confident that we can solve this problem," he said, "but it’s going to require us to take some significant, important steps."

Obama alternated between "we" and "I" in describing tasks and challenges. "We averted catastrophe by passing the TARP legislation," he said of the massive financial bailout plan that Congress approved while Bush was still president. But without sufficient oversight, he said, "we didn’t get as big of a bang for the buck as we should have."

"My immediate task is making sure that the second half of that money, $350 billion, is spent properly," Obama said, seeming to shoulder the new burden himself. "That’s my first job." …

"My hope is that after a difficult year," he said, "businesses start investing again" and "consumers start feeling that their jobs are stable and safe, and they start making purchases again, and, if we get things right, then, starting next year, we can start seeing significant improvement."

"I am the eternal optimist," Obama said in his final remarks, someone trying to provide the "civility and rational argument" that Americans want in their leaders.

For a man who spends so much of his time navel-gazing, Mr. Obama sure is tone deaf when it comes to his own outrageous hypocrisy.

"My hope is that after a difficult year," he said, "businesses start investing again" and "consumers start feeling that their jobs are stable and safe, and they start making purchases again…”

Why should businesses or consumers be encouraged by anything Mr. Obama has said or done?

Hasn’t he had exactly the opposite effect?

"I am the eternal optimist," Obama said in his final remarks, someone trying to provide the "civility and rational argument" that Americans want in their leaders.

Mr. Obama’s “civility” is to blame Republicans for a financial crisis brought on by his own party and even his own personal efforts. (Cf. Mr. Obama’s work for ACORN and against “red lining.”)

His “rational argument” is “I won.”

For all of his faults, Mr. Bush grew the deficit as a result of the national security concerns following 9/11, the hideous expense of fighting two wars, plus a few social welfare programs that the Democrats loved at the time.

Mr. Bush did not flush away trillions of dollars to buy votes and to push his party’s agenda. (If only.)

This is not Mr. Obama’s money. It belongs to the taxpayers of this country. Almost half of whom did not even vote for him.

Winning 52% of the votes did not make Mr. Obama our king. We’re not a third world dictatorship just yet.

Our elected representatives in government should have some say about how our money is squandered spent.

Every time Mr. Obama tells our representatives to shut up and sit down, he is saying that to the millions of Americans they represent.

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Obama on Biden

From "The Swamp"

by Peter Nicholas

It was a largely somber prime-time news conference, focused on recession and war--except for a moment when President Obama slipped off message and turned his No. 2, Joe Biden, into a punch line.

A reporter asked the president to explain something Biden had said in a recent speech: Even if the White House did everything right in combating the economic downturn, the vice president said he had told Obama, there was still a "30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."

What exactly did Biden mean by that?

"You know,'' Obama replied Monday night in a light-hearted tone, "I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to.''

Then, the president added, ``Not surprisingly''--a seeming reference to Biden's well-known gaffes.

Aides say Obama and the vice president eat lunch together once a week. The two men are quick to praise one another in public. But a few episodes suggest the mutual admiration may have its limits.

Speaking at a security conference in Munich last week, Biden made a curious comment about the Obama administration's $800 billion-plus stimulus package. At a time when Obama has made the stimulus his central focus, when he is racing around the country staging campaign-style events to build support for the plan, Biden referred to it as "our so-called stimulus package.''

That is not the sort of talking point the White House is putting out these days.

Obama and Biden's rapport seems to be a work in progress. The president could barely conceal his annoyance last month when Biden attempted a joke at the expense of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

In giving Obama the oath, Roberts had stumbled over the words.

The following day, Biden had a forgetful moment while swearing in some Obama administration officials.

"My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts,'' Biden said.

At that, Obama reached out his arm, as if to grab Biden and choke off any more quips.

A foreshadow of presidential impatience came during the campaign. In October, Biden warned that if Obama went on to win the election, he would face a severe test from hostile interests within six months.

Obama tried to defuse the warning.

"I think Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes,'' he said.

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