Obama urges patience, Republicans respond with histrionics
Yesterday in his radio address President Obama stated that the stimulus plan was working as intended and that patience is required to see real economic recovery. The Republicans responded with politically charged misstatements and exaggerations.
As described here on Wednesday, there is effectively no "stimulus" plan underway, if "stimulus" is intended to mean new growth and opportunity as opposed to stopgap measures. The reasons for this are many, but one thing for sure is that it's by no means Obama or his administration that gets full responsibility for this. Dysfunction, acrimony, and incompetence have taken years to build up within our system and Obama's totally right in saying that patience will be required. He is, however, not at all forthright about addressing the status of "stimulus". He would rather, it seems, move on to health care, the environment, and other admittedly important issues than discuss what is required for economic recovery, what will work and importantly what will not work no matter how much people want to believe that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again.
Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican spokesperson who responded, said that the stimulus plan was "full of pork barrel spending" --- $7 billion our of $787 billion is not bad and it's on the record that Republican's got a faceful from this trough as well --- "full of government waste" --- just as catch-slogan from the years of Bush incompetents running all major facets of our government --- "and massive borrowing cleverly called stimulus" --- Fed borrowing is part of their mandate as managers of the monetary system and these short term liquidity injections have been vital to getting world capital markets functioning again, albeit still not as smoothly as one could hope for. This has never been part of the stimulus plan nor has it been disguised as such. Cantor went on to say that the Obama administration's "economic decisions have not worked". What school of economic thought does this "rising star" among Republicans subscribe to, what economic plan of any type could work in the world's largest economy in four months.
Obama may not be completely straightforward or focused enough, but the segment of Republicans that Cantor represents are obstructionist. A strong reaction would suggest that they are shameless liars while a more moderate one would be that they are just old style politicos who refuse to join any coalition of sentiment or action to get this economy going again. It almost seems that they want failure,no matter the consequence.
They are informative in the sense that they are emblematic of the dysfunction within our system with their political mantra of keeping the message "simplistic, hostile, and personal".
Many Dems do the same dance but on corporate America.
As described here on Wednesday, there is effectively no "stimulus" plan underway, if "stimulus" is intended to mean new growth and opportunity as opposed to stopgap measures. The reasons for this are many, but one thing for sure is that it's by no means Obama or his administration that gets full responsibility for this. Dysfunction, acrimony, and incompetence have taken years to build up within our system and Obama's totally right in saying that patience will be required. He is, however, not at all forthright about addressing the status of "stimulus". He would rather, it seems, move on to health care, the environment, and other admittedly important issues than discuss what is required for economic recovery, what will work and importantly what will not work no matter how much people want to believe that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again.
Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican spokesperson who responded, said that the stimulus plan was "full of pork barrel spending" --- $7 billion our of $787 billion is not bad and it's on the record that Republican's got a faceful from this trough as well --- "full of government waste" --- just as catch-slogan from the years of Bush incompetents running all major facets of our government --- "and massive borrowing cleverly called stimulus" --- Fed borrowing is part of their mandate as managers of the monetary system and these short term liquidity injections have been vital to getting world capital markets functioning again, albeit still not as smoothly as one could hope for. This has never been part of the stimulus plan nor has it been disguised as such. Cantor went on to say that the Obama administration's "economic decisions have not worked". What school of economic thought does this "rising star" among Republicans subscribe to, what economic plan of any type could work in the world's largest economy in four months.
Obama may not be completely straightforward or focused enough, but the segment of Republicans that Cantor represents are obstructionist. A strong reaction would suggest that they are shameless liars while a more moderate one would be that they are just old style politicos who refuse to join any coalition of sentiment or action to get this economy going again. It almost seems that they want failure,no matter the consequence.
They are informative in the sense that they are emblematic of the dysfunction within our system with their political mantra of keeping the message "simplistic, hostile, and personal".
Many Dems do the same dance but on corporate America.
posted by John Borden at 11:18 AM
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