Obama’s Failed ‘Recovery Summer’
We thus find ourselves in the worst economy since the 1930s. Even the establishment press is finally acknowledging it.
It’s potentially even worse, because Barack Obama and his administration remain doggedly determined to pursue their rigid ideology, no matter how counterproductive its results. Let’s look at just three examples: the drilling moratorium, “clean energy,” and taxation.
The Gulf oil spill, which either has or hasn’t been mostly cleaned up, gave the administration a political opening to impose a blanket moratorium on offshore drilling. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was so bent on ginning up a justification for this outrageous overreach that he added language supporting the ban to an already signed-off document prepared by experts who opposed it. Then, when a federal judge ordered the ban lifted, Salazar simply prepared a new moratorium document with a few word changes. This contemptible behavior would have brought instant cries for impeachment if the George W. Bush administration had done something similar.
Recent estimates of potential moratorium-related job losses range from 11,000 to 100,000. Meanwhile, the world drills on. An administration genuinely interested in an economic recovery would not be killing these jobs.
“Clean energy” was supposed to be a core element of Obama’s recovery plan. So how’s that weatherization program going? It has been an epic fail. Almost a year into the program, in three of the states involved with a total population of roughly 80 million, a whopping 292 units had been weatherized. Now they’re actually bragging that 18 states are about 30% done.
“Clean energy” also involved “targeted investments,” with the government play-acting as venture capitalist with our real money. The president visited one such beneficiary company, ZBB Energy in Wisconsin, on August 16. ZBB “received a $1.3 million stimulus loan,” and could potentially take advantage of $14 million in “clean energy manufacturing tax credits.”
If ZBB is worthy of a presidential visit, you really have to worry about how bad things are at the firms deemed unworthy. The company has burned through over $20 million in just under four years. Its sales during its most recently reported quarter were a whopping $189,000. This “represents the country’s future in renewable energy,” according to the Associated Press’s coverage of the president’s visit. If so, our future would be that of Spain. An administration genuinely interested in an economic recovery would not allow such waste to continue.
Then there are the looming income tax increases.
We’ve been operating under what has essentially been the same income tax regime for almost eight years. Could we please dispense with describing what is about to occur as a “repeal of the Bush tax cuts”? What really impends are “the largest tax hikes in history,” which, unless stopped, will arrive on January 1, 2011, with an across-the-board impact.
If this administration and the current Democratic congressional majority were genuinely interested in an economic recovery, they would not be standing idly by as the tax-increase deadline approaches.
The items described above, along with so many other derelictions of duty, explain why voters this fall appear to be on track to decide that a different party should control Congress. Perhaps a new majority will be able to keep the executive branch from inflicting too much further damage in the two years that follow.
“Recovery Bummer.”
We should run with that, says it all: epic fail.
The Obama administration reminds me of the Ford administration with their “WIN” buttons, standing for “Whip Inflation Now.” Funny, I never got my “Recovery Summer” button in the mail.
The problem with Obama is that he is copying the same failed economic policies of FDR during the 1930s, and with the same horrific results. The New Deal extended the Great Depression and was a terrible blow to the economy, just like the repeal of the Bush tax cuts will kill whatever minor “recovery” was going on now. If the repeal of the Bush tax cuts (which are really a huge tax increase) does take place and government spending does NOT go down, you will have the exact same formula FDR used in the 1930s with high taxes and huge government spending. It didn’t work then and it will not work now.
But perhaps the strangest argument the Democrats make is that, “The Republicans have no new ideas.” Well, what do the Democrats have to offer? More of this same failed policy? Are the democrats going to double-down on spending, even though spending over a trillion (with a “T”) dollars didn’t do anything to “stimulate” the economy? What is Obama’s great plan going forward? The answer is: spend, spend, spend and hope that something works. That is no way to get over this economic problem we’re in and Franklin Roosevelt already proved it over 70 years ago.
I agree entirely, and add that at least FDR loved the country; he encouraged and uplifted the citizens. No one could possibly say that of the current administration!
The reality is the Obama is not following FDR’s economic policies, but actually Herbert Hoover. This isn’t 1932, this is 1930.
“Perhaps a new majority will be able to keep the executive branch from inflicting too much further damage in the two years that follow.”
Not likely. Even IF we get a majority in the House, we always lose our spine to do anything. But moreover, we need a majority in the Senate which is not very likely. The left controls the MSM, judiciary, foundations, academia and owns too much money on Wall Street. Until we take over all three houses with super-majorities and the judiciary we will never roll back what this administration and Congress has done. And what has been done over the last 50 years.
“If this administration and the current Democratic congressional majority were genuinely interested in an economic recovery, they would not be standing idly by as the tax-increase deadline approaches.”
Who, in their right mind, believes that this admin and Congress are interested in an economic recovery? They seek its utter destruction as per Cloward-Piven.
It is worse than you think, blotto. Remember that even if the Republicans get a majority in both the House and the Senate, it will NOT be a filibuster-proof majority. The reason for the Democrats’ desperate push to pass the “stimulus” and health care “reform” was that they knew very well they would probably not be able to maintain 60 votes in the Senate for long.
And Obama can veto healthcare repeal unless there is a 2/3 majority in the House. Seems unlikely.
Spend bills arise in the House.
If they have the guts, Republicans can fund Obamacare with a budget of $1.
They took us on a bender. We supposedly had the summer to dry out. It seems they didn’t just get us drunk and have their evil way. No, they left us bent over the table and we’re still getting screwed to this very day. The hang over has hung on, our innocence lost. Now we’ll have to craw home and explain to our children their cost. It was ‘Recovery Summer’ that failed us but really it is just now we’re ready to admit we have a problem. Step one, admit there is a problem – done. Step two, put someone in charge to mitigate further damage – deadline couple of months. Step three, face up to what has been done, try to salvage something, see if we can make headway – no deadline, this will be life from now on.
And last but not least, keep abreast of what is going on in your government, including your state government. Speak up! Vote! Teach your children to do this too.
Green shoots everywhere I look. Obama is THE MAN!!! We love him him here in CA.
You’re supposed to use that “/sarc” thing with this kind of post. Otherwise, some people might think you’re serious.
You’ve either forgotten your sarcasm tags or you are gibbering, bugf*ck crazy.
electing a majority of Reublicans to the House and increasing the number in the Senate and then going back to our lives will accomplish little or nothing. We need to stay on top of what government is doing, stay invloved in our elected leaders decisions, and above all resolve to remove backsliders from office in 2012. We should not be shy about saying so. “Threaten with removal” is not divisive a phrase. IT took the US decades to get here, and we are seeing only the approaching wave of the tsunami. It will take us decades to reverse the damage, when it hits. You and I must work the remainder of our lives for that which we will not see, the safety and security of the American experiement.
If we can get control of the House we have a major step in putting things right. One thing we need to do is to be less clever than Newt and make all the resolutions very clear. Don’t give ‘O’ the chance to say we’re shutting down the country. Make sure the legislation targes bureaucrats. For instance:
- When you cut the Interior Department budget, forbid them from cutting Park Rangers and Staff make the cuts in Washington.
- When you cut the Education Department Budget, forbid them from cutting money to schools and make them cut bureacrats in Washington.
- When you cut the DOT, forbid them from cutting air traffic control or DOT inspectors and make them get rid of the ‘dreamers’ planning our future transportation needs.
Every place you look you can find similar savings. Besides the cuts of personnel, freeze all non-military wages until the gov/private sectors assume balance – including benefits.
Ultimately one of the things we should advocate is decentralizng Congress. In this day and age ther is no need to have Congress in the capitol physically except for cerimonial occassions. Fear of pitchforks and torches in the front yard ought to keep the Congress more in line with the wishes of the people instead of K street lobbyists.
GRW3:
Agree with your strategy in cutting into the bureaucracy.
The fundamental problem in Washington DC, however, is that there are no constraints on the huge amounts of money hoovered up to DC. The Founders had excellent reasons for establishing different methods of voting for House, Senate and President. Before the 17th Amendment, Senators were sent to Washington by their state legislatures, to represent those legislatures. No Senator in his right mind was going to approve a budget that harmed his home state. Now Senators are loose cannons.
Repeal the 17th Amendment, restore the ability of state legislatures to appoint their states’ Senators, and you will see a vast difference
1) in the amount of money reaching DC,
2) in the kinds of Supreme Court nominees who make it through the consent process (think support for the 10th Amendment, reversing the overreach of the Commerce Clause, etc),
3) and many other areas.
States will no longer be locked into one national template: States like Oklahoma and Texas will become “Sanctuary States”, attracting productive refugees from the blue states. Blue states like California and Michigan can continue to circle the toilet, but now without the national government being able to bail them out.
Meanwhile, the INVA$ION continues… http://www.BorderInvasionPics.com
To “institutionalize” smaller government the 16th Amendment needs to be repealed, too. That doesn’t just eliminate the income tax, it rescinds the Federal Governments ability to re-distribute money (read it).
“Recovery Summer” has replaced “Mission Accomplished” and then some!
Greetings from the Vineyards!
Bambi and MOOchelle
No way has his summer failed. Progressives, Marxists, Bolsheviks, whatever you want to call it, ALWAYS resort to more force when their fantasies fail.
The long hot summer will proceed to a race war to discredit conservatives.
No doubt about it.
Look people, the “Anointed One” makes his chess move’s and us babbling humans need to realize that the unbelieving conspiracy “heathen” understate the issues when they say that Obama is a radical. Alas, they know not the secrets we are all going to witness. The “Anointed One” is amazing, he takes the people at the highly efficient Post Office and sends them right over to the Student Loan Program. The “Anointed One” knows all. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the Obama mega-money-raising engine whirred on at high speed, until the result became inevitable: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the “Anointed One.”
I am not surprised to hear these stinking lies about our “Anointed One,” it should be apparent to anyone that this was coming down the pike. I do have a couple questions about future process steps concerning these developments? When the “Annointed One” decides to start bar-coding everyone, will we get to decide if the mark is on our hand or forehead? Allot of people will prefer the hand, (especially women of course), unless your a porn actress or something along those lines. Also, my girlfriend was wondering if the Administration will be getting fashion advice from Hollyweird or the New York City crowd? We are both agree that the Administration “Maoies” as the “Anointed One ” so lovingly calls them,will be getting uniforms similar to the SS uniforms in Germany in WW2. With big letters abreviating “Barack’s Socialists.” So shall we start calling them the BS?
Relapse Summer 2010
As thousands of mortgagors, many of whom wouldn’t qualify for mortgages in the real world, line up to be bailed out by the feds, as the nation’s recession birth rate falls to 2.7%, the lowest in a century, as Joint Chief of Staffs Chairman Mike Mullen warns that the national debt is endangering national security, President Nero Obama fiddles away, chows down on shrimp and lobster, golfs, parties with the other rich and famous on Martha’s Vineyard, and generally enjoys the hell out of his sixth vacation this year.
Is anyone minding the ranch? It certainly isn’t our vice president who revels in his own non-existent, Nirvana.
It can’t yet be termed a double dipper, it certainly isn’t the Big Dipper, but VP Joe Biden’s sanguine reference some weeks ago to the summer of 2010 as “recovery summer” is turning out to be one of the dumbest and most presumptuous remarks our dumb and presumptuous vice president has made to date.
Even if Biden’s July mantra was only part of the administration’s campaign to convince the American people not to believe their lying eyes and those lying economic numbers and it wasn’t one his very original observations such as, “This is a f***ing big deal!” the term “Recovery Summer” has been hung around the VP’s neck like a dead economic albatross.
And, not only is Recovery Summer 2010 collapsing into Relapse Summer 2010 but the administration doesn’t seem to much care or notice any more than they notice former rabid supporters turning on them as if they had a terminal dose of the plague.
When the CBO announces that Obama’s stimulus “may” have added 3.1 million jobs and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 1.7% in the second quarter and is unable to substantiate either of those bizarre claims and no one is able to locate any of those phantom jobs and the Commerce Department reports a paltry 1.7% GDP increase in that same quarter, people begin to wonder as should the Obamians.
When staunch Obamian from day one, David Letterman, begins cracking jokes about the sorry state of America’s financial affairs and refers to his former hero as a one-term president, which Letterman has been doing of late, Obamians might want to consider sitting up and taking notice even if, by force of habit, Dave and his writers still reserve their most scathing rips for George W. Bush.
However, when the media mogul, gazillionaire, highly-influential Mortimer B. Zuckerman . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1867)