With the economy back on the edge of a possible decline, various Democrats and their friends in the liberal media are coming forward with the explanations why the Obama economic plan did not work. John Podhoretz discusses this today in Commentary. Simply put, the coalescing position of the left is that the stimulus bill was ust too small. Instead of 800 billion dollars, the federal government ought to have borrowed two trillion dollars and spent it so as to pump up the economy.
It is an oft repeated definition of insanity that an insane person is one who does the same thing over and over expecting different results to ensue. We have seen the results of an incredibly large expenditure by the government to "stimulate" the economy. Sure, the way the funds were spent was just about the most clumsy method possible with the least chance to help the economy, but the method was tried nonetheless. The results of the stimulus were paltry indeed. Non-biased third party analysis of the results showed that the stimulus actually cost more jobs in the private sector than it created in the public sector. But we did get 800 billion dollars of additional federal debt, and we cannot forget that.
The point of the left is that we need another stimulus now! This seems to be the program for 2012. The Obamacrats know that the House Republicans will never agree to a massive increase in government spending. Their issue is how large a decrease in spending can be achieved. By claiming that another stimulus is needed, the Obamacrats can blame any downturn on the GOP for its failure to "help" Americans by agreeing to the additional spending.
My faith in the American people is such that I believe that they will not fall for this nonsense. Despite the low opinion held by the Obamacrats of the American people, I think that those people understand that the stimulus not only failed, but it failed spectacularly. They will not choose to double down on failure.
Of course, I may be wrong. I am assuming that the Obamacrats will actually present a plan for how to deal with the economy. So far, we have gone for the last two years while there has been nothing but silence coming from Obama and the Obamacrats on this point. They may decide to just try to be negative about GOP ideas until after the election.
On this last point, I also have to mention another article that just appeared on the web. Jonathan Cohn, writing in the New Republic, criticizes Tim Pawlenty's ideas as just the usual GOP fairy tale that tax cuts for the rich will mean more revenue for the federal government and economic growth. He calls that nonsense. Obviously, I do not agree with Cohn. Indeed, it seems clear to me that Cohn did not even bother to read Pawlenty's speech before he wrote his criticism. Had he read (and understood) the speech, Cohn could not possibly have said much of what he puts in his article. Nevertheless, isn't it nice that Cohn can review a rather complete plan put forward by Pawlenty and state his opinions about whether or not that plan will work. Wouldn't it be nice for the rest of America to be able to do the same with a plan offered by Obama. I realize that I keep repeating how irresponsible it is for Obama to proceed without ever telling the USA what he proposes to do to rescue the economy. The reason for the repetition is that I simply cannot believe that a man could get to be president of the United States and have so little regard for the AMerican people and for the responsibilities of his job that he can sit by and think that he need not address the problems mounting up in the economy. And, to be clear, by "address", I do not mean give a speech. We have had all of the Obama speeches that we need for a lifetime. Obama needs to come forward with a real plan of action and show it to the American people. That is his duty. That is his responsibility. Indeed, if he does not feel up to the task, he should resign and let Biden do it. Even a buffoon like Biden would be better than what we have now.
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