Obama’s ‘Shock and Awe’ Spending Campaign
The question keeps coming up with increasing frequency and alarm these last several weeks. Does Barack Obama know what he’s doing?
The entire country has been, until recently, frozen in amazement by the tactics used by the administration to ostensibly address our financial problems. The most discussed of these is amazingly similar to the one used by the American military in our invasion of Iraq. The tactic, called “shock and awe,” was to hit the enemy with such an impressive display of firepower as to bewilder and confuse them. It left the Iraqi military not knowing where the attack was coming from, with no clue as to how to respond to it.
I’m sure the reader will agree that a trillion dollars worth of deficit spending — the largest single discretionary spending bill in history — is certainly substantial firepower.
However, polling data has started to suggest that people are waking up. That data says that in the estimation of most Americans the president’s aim is off the mark — if solving the current financial crisis is the goal.
They’re correct. Only a very small percentage of the amount of taxpayer money being thrown around by the federal government since the inauguration is actually going to places where it would address the crisis. Most of the spending appears to be simply typical far left agenda items writ large under the banner of “financial crisis.” In retrospect, it seems rather opportunistic of Obama and Rahm Emmanuel, both of whom suggested we should never let a good crisis go to waste.
The president simply tossed the money to House Democrats, who promptly porked up their own pet projects rather than solve the financial issues at hand. Someone who has spent any amount of time at all with the federal government should have been able to figure out what would happen if Congressional Democrats were given free rein in writing the largest single discretionary spending bill in history. One can only assume that Mr. Obama understood this beforehand. If he didn’t, then he certainly does now, and yet there’s Stimulus II on the horizon.
His bank bailout plan is similarly wide of the mark. Mr. Obama has seemed intent thus far on writing bad checks to prop up the banks that were broken by Democratic policies on housing and credit. The “new” Geithner plan, as liberal economist Paul Krugman calls it, is no better. The new plan is essentially the old plan. Even Krugman acknowledges this point:
The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago. The zombie ideas have won.
The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.
The automotive industry is also suffering under decades of governmental over-control. Union domination is sucking up massive amounts of government money, but despite the massive spending, the original problems remain unaddressed.
I suspect many Americans are overwhelmed by the sheer AMOUNT of money. How much and where it’s all going and exactly WHICH vast some of money are we talking about. Is the money a part of;
A Bailout? A Stimulus Plan? Omnibus Spending? TARP? The Fed Plan?
BTW- Trillion is the new billion.
There is only one way sure way the economy can improve: Barack Obama must be a political loser. We must indeed hope that he personally fails—if the nation’s economy has any chance whatsoever of improving. Obama must be marginalized and rendered politically impotent. That is our number one immediate goal.
“We should have seen it coming.”
48% of us did see it coming. The only consolation is that the 52% that voted for him and his lefist agenda will have to pay, pay, pay just like us.
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Who is John Galt?
Overwhelmed, indeed. All of the bailouts, stimulus bill, omnibus spending & tarp are blurring together in one massive hole. I’m hoping those that don’t normally pay attention to anything “political” are beginning to open their eyes at this point. I have a friend who is a diehard Obamabot and even they are sensing serious financial doom on the horizon. Question is…can they attribute this coming Obacalypse to Obama & the Dems?
Indeed, that’s part of my point, Craig; No mere mortal can keep track of it all. Interestingly, the ones with the greatest chance of it are the ones who didn’t bother to read the bill they voted into law.
The intended thrust of the piece, though, is the pattern we’re confronted with, in combo with the inability to track and control where the money’s going. That pattern has always been at the least a high degree of waste and graft, and a very low degree of actually solving the problems the spending was ostensibly intended to solve. That’s particularly true when the political figures encouraging such spending are seeing their political futures (or their legacy) furthered by such spending.
I suggest the attack is well-reasoned, well thought out. They knew they couldn’t brook any debate on the spending they wanted to do, and on the big government actions they wanted to take, lest the public actually find out what tey were doing and put a stop to it. So, the administration crammed this one through so fast even Obama supporters didn’t know what they were voting on.
It’s interesting. Usually, the government moves in small enough steps that public understanding of an issue is pretty well ensured by the time a choice is made. What we’re seeing now, with ‘shock and awe spending’ is that the Democrats are moving so fast on this thing, even Bloggers can’t keep up with the nuance of it. A number of the particulars get lost in the dust being raised, until well after the fact.
I suspect we’ll be in forensics mode for years over the events of the last three months, assuming we remain as a country long enough to ask the question ‘what happened’?
And frankly, the question of our survival, given the events of these last few months is now one that gives me pause.
Why have we seen articles like this time and time again. The last set of pork bills was just like the next set of pork bills. Only the last pork was “old business.” The “Cloward-Piven” strategy (http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html)for bringing down a capitalist government has been well articulated, but fully ignored. Why? Because it presumes the enmity of President Obama toward the government he controls. He ran on “change,” but what he wants is revolution. For President Obama the worst thing that can happen is for capitalistic mechanisms to right the economy. To prevent that, he will bankrupt it instead. Then he will ask for extraordinary powers to rule a failed country, thus undermining the Constitution he swore to uphold.
President Obama’s true goals:
1) Demilitarize the United States
2) “Stop the boom and bust cycles” Stopping the business cycles is a euphemistic term for eliminating capitalism.
If he has to make America suffer in the service of his goals, so be it.
Jerry;
I read the Thinker rather a lot; but I’ll confess to not having seen that article. It’s a good one.
In answer to your implied question of why these points are being ignored, I suggest the first sentance of the last para is as good an aswer as you’re going to find; “Being good Americans, we’d like to think that Mr. Obama is, as he says, trying to solve the problem.”
That appeal we heard not so very long ago, to ‘give the man a chance’ appeals to our instinctive sense of fair play in a very cold and calculated way. Americans are already so inclined. We’re made that way.
I’m reminded of a MASH episode, where Hawkeye is haunted by nightmares. Eventually, they figure out that the issue is one of his childhood, where a cousin he always looked up to, darned near drwoned him. The problemw as caused by his not being willing to face what the older cousin was really up to. The guy was a hero in his eyes, and he couldnt… wouldn’t… believe that he would ever do anything that wasn’t in his best interest.
I suspect something of the sort is going on with many folks just now, and Obama. Even the folks who don’t have him quite so high on that pedistal, don’t want to face a painful truth.
I’m sorry, I missed that.. Did you say..
Shock and awful..?
The maount of money here is staggering, to say the least. However, all of these programs and policies are nothing new, as each thing that president Obama has done and is doing is nothing more than what former-president Bush did. President Obama is using more money than Bush, but the concepts are the same, from bailouts to government expansion, it is just a continuation of what was being done. Just with more money, and far too much mone for my liking.
No, Cindy, I didn’t. But now, I wish I had…
LOL!
4. Floradora:
Question is…can they attribute this coming Obacalypse to Obama & the Dems?
Obacalypse?? EXCELLENT!
I’m bogarting that one.
When the consequences of the One’s actions finally hits us….. People who think it’s tough right now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. For those who can remember, sing with me.
“Welcome back……”
Obacalypse OR Barackalypse? which is better?
2. David Thomson writes:
“There is only one way sure way the economy can improve: Barack Obama must be a political loser.”
..hope for his failure indeed. But I disagree that an improvement in the economy will yield a failure of Obama. I realize that you are talking that a priori marginalization of Obama would force him to keep his commie/pinko/socialist mitts off the levers and our economical engine would heal itself.
But I think that the idiot and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight have mucked up things so badly that if they take a powder and the economy rights itself, he and the sycophantic MSM will all be out there proclaiming his business prowess.
By the way, anyone heard from that ditzy broad who’s running the House recently? She must love Obumble for causing the blowtorch to be redirected from her buttocks.
Well done, Mr. Florack.
What we need to do right now is cripple the Senate. We need to start the process of recalling Democratic Senators as well as the three RINOs – they voted for the damn bills in the first place – and then to remove as many of them as possible. The remaining ones will get the message that we are irate with what is going on and will not tolerate this for a moment longer.
Know what? I’ve really had enough of these attacks on “our president” who may very well be a very sick man!
Barack, a Product of His Syndromes?II
“Some kids just never catch a break. Some get so warped by their early lives that the rest of their days are so haunted and taunted by the ghosts of their upbringing that they end up as twisted human beings hooked on drugs or with other addictions, their minds so disturbed by the experiences of their youth and childhood that they spend their dysfunctional lives harming themselves and everyone around them.”
Thus began Part One of this very mini series which attempts a pop-psych analysis of what makes President Barack Hussein Obama tick. There are more than a few indicators that suggest he suffers from ACS, Abandoned Child Syndrome, and from what could be called ICS, Interracial Copulation Syndrome, either of which could affect a child well into adulthood. In combination, they could make the next four years a harrowing four years should President Barack Hussein Obama truly be suffering from these syndromes.
With Part One, we described those syndromes and made a general case for Obama’s affliction(s). With Part Two we examine what he has already done, and said, which supports that theory.
Much has been made recently of what people are calling just one more gaffe oozing out of this administration, Obama’s already infamous ridiculing of the Special Olympics, thus ridiculing the hundreds of physically- and mentally-challenged athletes who compete in that annual olympiad for the disabled.
For a replay and transcript of that ”gaffe” see http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/03/obama_american_idol_special_ol.html. For additional Obamian/Bidenian flubs, replete with videos, see Toby Harnden’s view on the Telegraph.com: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/20/top_10_gaffes_by_barack_obama_and_joe_biden_.
The gaffe-meister himself, Vice President Joe Biden, is not the subject of the present study. He merits his own mini-series, or a multi-season-long study, to adequately cover his penchant for inane and simply stupid actions and slips of the lips. For now we will center our focus on the president and how he has demonstrated his possible ACS and ICS affliction.
As mentioned in Part One, Obama has sought to over-compensate, feasibly as a method of concealing those ailments. Ridiculing others, especially the defenseless such as Special Olympics’ participants, is a transparent sign of the insensitive bully who seeks to hide his own weaknesses and insecurities by demeaning those who can’t fight back. It can also reflect the defense mechanism of passive aggression.
He laughed as he joked about his bowling ability, “like the Special Olympics,” and Jay Leno, being the obsequious Democrat sheep that he is, failed to call him on it. Obama also babbled on about “moral and ethical concerns” in a different context, AIG bonuses. However, both host and guest failed to see the incongruity when they both laughed at Obama’s yuk regarding the Special Olympics after he spoke about morals and ethics.
Obama employed that same laughter on 60 Minutes…
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/.)
@ Turfmonster:
Thanks.
Careful, here. There are a lot of landmines around. While I tend to be sympathetic to the proposal, I have some problems with criminalizing what amounts to simply a differing political position.
Granted that a case could be made of voting for this nonsense being criminal malfeasance, but this is a complex case to make, and I suspect that way lies a foothold for Democrats criminalizing OUR politics.
There is certainly enough criminal activity to kneecap some of the sitting senate just now. Those with their hands in the Fannie and Freddie thing… Dodd, and Barney Frank among them. That said, eliminating that problem for their criminal behavior is not so easy, either.
The situation with Illinois should give us a clue of how much success we will have with recalling Senators. Granted, that resistance varies somewhat by state, but in each case the troublemakers are the most liberal, and are supported by the most liberal of voting districts.
Barney Frank, for example. Does anyone think for a moment that he’s going to get recalled for his part in the current financial fiasco?
Chris Dodd. He’s got even more serious and more obvious ethics issues in this thing. Yet, at the moment, I don’t even see him being recalled by the voters of his state, barring some very vocal movement taking hold there. There’s a lot of anger down there at him, but nothing quite so focused. A criminal investigation might start the pyre burning, but frankly, I don’t see that kind of investigation happening. He’s got too many political chips to call in, in that state. He’ll be there until Election Day.
(Aside: I’m hearing chatter from State Democrats there, suggesting that the best thing they could do is get Dodd to resign, or they haven’t a hope in hell of keeping that seat from going Republican in the next election. I don’t know if it’ll get to anything on the surface,, but that’s the undercurrent. )
And look; there’s something else that’s starting to surface that may impact on all of this; Fatigue.
People have been hit with so much, so fast, since the first of the year, that the level of political fatigue is on a level that I’ve not seen since the end of the Clinton administration. I have to wonder if that won’t be to the advantage of incumbents… even the ones who oughta be out on their butt for their actions.
The sheeple voted for a sheepdog and got a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Trouble is they’re too ignorant to know it.