Basically, because his policies are destined to prolong the downturn.
Now today's Obamacrats are apparently going to try and Hooverize President Bush in an effort to shield themselves from the potential political fallout of a prolonged recession. It will take years to fix the American economy, Obama says, and years of trillion-dollar budget deficits to do it. And everyday it seems that Team Obama tries to lower economic expectations, such as bearishly predicting that unemployment would hit double-digits.
The not-so-subtle message in the middle of all these pessimistic prognostications: When ya'll go to vote in 2010 and 2012 and a) unemployment is still as high as it's been in decades, b) income growth is sluggish at best, c) the budget deficit is running at a trillion bucks a year, and d) stock prices remain stubbornly low -- hey, don't blame us, you can't rebuild Rome in a day or even in a first term. Remember, Bush really left us a mess.
That's precisely the strategy behind leftwing lunacy like this, where Democrat control of Congress is dismissed as unimportant to the overall point that every bad thing that happens is because of Republicans.
The fact is, Obama is already warning Americans (and doing everything short of getting on his knees for Democrats in Congress) that the recession is going to get much, much worse before it gets better. I suppose he thinks if he warns Americans before January 20, they won't hold him accountable in four years when he reminds them that he warned them.
Alas, such will not be the case. If Obama and the Democrats don't see a turnaround within a year, I suspect most voters will dump Democrats in 2010 and Obama in 2012, history-making presidency or not. Americans are an impatient lot, and if unemployment gets even close to double digits, voters will be panic-stricken. We haven't seen 10% unemployment in a generation, and there's a whole bunch of 20-somethings who think having a job is a constitutional right.
The problem with Obama's
Secondly, the amount of money involved may not be enough to encourage spending. Our economy runs on consumption, and consumers aren't doing that right now. We've heard nothing but how terrible the economy is, how bad jobs are, and how we're going to hell in a handbasket for a couple of years. What do these morons who say these things think is going to happen? Outside of the hapless idiots taking out interest-only mortgages, most people have spent the last year reducing their expenses. That's what people did with the 1,200 bucks they got last spring.
If Obama wants people to spend, he's either going to have to let the cycle go (with it's obvious pain and suffering) or he's going to have to pass out such huge checks that people are comfortable spending it. I'm thinking in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $10,000. Not because I think the government should be passing out welfare to everybody, but if Democrats honestly expect people to buy refrigerators and cars, then they have to make the payoff large enough to overcome people's reluctance to let go of any extra money right now.
Finally, Obama's plans include so much radical restructuring of our economy that even people who support some of his ideas are going to balk. Lots of people lurv the idea of a single payer health care system (well, until they live with it, that is), but remaking 1/7th of the U.S. economy would cause even more turmoil, expense, and unemployment than leaving things as they are. What happens to all the insurance company employees when insurance is no longer needed? Are they all supposed to become health care workers? What happens to all the doctors and nurses who don't want to work under socialized medicine? How do we handle the radical change that's being discussed?
And, really, how can Obama avoid taking responsibility when he will be so actively meddling in the economy? It will be his decision to forego deep and permanent new tax cuts, his decision to not extend the Bush tax cuts, his decision on how to spend the remaining $350 billion in TARP money, his decision to quasi-nationalize healthcare, his decision to push a cap-and-trade carbon emission program and his decision to spend hundreds of billions on a "green" industrial policy. It might even be his decision to try and reunionize the American laborforce. Obama will "own" the battered economy, perhaps almost literally, given Uncle Sam's bailout binge.
Liberals think that every unemployed person can go work in "green technologies" and that this will fix the economy. But not all Americans will either want to work in those industries or have the skills to do so (not to mention not living where these industries develop). No matter how much the useful idiots try to blame George Bush, this recession will be Barack Obama's come January 20.
Maybe Obama needs a little help.
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