WEBCommentary Editor

Author: Bob Webster
Date:  February 25, 2009

Topic category:  Other/General

Obamanomics and The Pep Rally


Obamanomics: The belief that government can create economic prosperity by spending money it doesn't have. See also, "tooth fairy" and "pipe dream."

Obamanomics: The belief that government can create economic prosperity by spending money it doesn't have. See also, "tooth fairy" and "pipe dream."

President Obama's Tuesday evening speech was short on serious economic solutions and far too long on impossible promises, contradictions, and non-solutions delivered with all the fervor of a college pep rally.

Conspicuous by its absence was any talk of stopping the precipitous decline in stock values as indicated by the enormous market decline that has accelerated since Obama's election. Clearly, while political pundits and dogmatic Democrats may be buying into Obamanomics, the stock market is not. We're not just talking Wall Street, either. We're talking global markets. The reaction of the real economy is not being kind to President Obama. Then again, neither is Obama being kind to the markets with his socialist rhetoric and complete disregard for the decline in 401K values.

It isn't so much that Obama is a liar or incapable of understanding the enormous liabilities of the approach his administration is taking to dealing with our economic decline. The real concern is that Obama seriously believes his own speeches and really has no comprehension of the obvious impossibility of his proposed solutions to actually produce anything positive.

Fundamentally, Obama's economic plan ("Obamanomics") is to spend money the federal government doesn't have in order to "stimulate" the beginning of a sustained economic recovery. The problem with Obamanomics is that it's been tried many times before and failed every time.

Ever since the first "stimulus plan" last summer, Washington politicians have been complaining about how the money has been used while sternly wagging their collective finger at bankers, corporate executives, "Wall Street", and, of course, the forever favorite target "the Bush administration". In doing so they've had some success trying to deflect criticism where it really belongs -- directed squarely at an irresponsible Congress using economic downturn to feed their own favorite "pork" projects by piling thousands of "earmarks" for funding to their favorite donors and their own constituents (often two distinctly different groups).

Yet there are two elementary facts that should have the public wagging their finger right back at the politicians. In every one of the "stimulus" spending bills:

  1. Congress included no strict guidelines controlling how funds were to be used, and,
     
  2. Congress included no strict accountability procedures upon which receipt of funding would be conditional.
This congressional laxity coupled with the obvious impossibility of members to actually read any of the bills they were approving, is sufficient to indict every one of these so-called representatives for criminal conspiracy to defraud the public.

On top of this gross congressional incompetence, there is the huge matter of arrogant congressional "pork" spending and deceitful attempts to pass blame on to others!

Of course, all these spending sprees known as "stimulus plans" were approved by both Presidents Bush and Obama. This is "change"?

So last night's Obamanomics speech might have been a refreshing indicator of "change" if only Obama had wagged his finger at his audience, pointed out that their earmark pork spending was bankrupting this nation and that continuing to spend money we don't have with no hope of financing that debt was highly irresponsible. Instead, Obama had the audacity to claim that there has been no "earmark" spending under his watch (either he is grossly ignorant of what has just happened, or he is lying -- take your pick).

Instead, we witnessed a campaign stump speech, promising everything to everyone at no cost. Yes, we'll control emissions and we'll spend whatever it takes to bring about "green" energy and we'll see that everyone has access to health care, blah, blah, blah, and someone else will pay for it because we'll just raise taxes on "the rich." Pure Obamanomics. Pure, unadulterated nonsense.

Folks, if more federal spending produced greater prosperity and reduced federal deficits, we'd have no deficit by now and be in an economic boom the likes of which we've never seen. But reality has a habit of dashing even the most pleasing of political fantasies.

Some nasty little reality tidbits about Obamanomics:

How much more of a decline in 401K values, how many more jobs must be lost, how many more companies must go out of business, how many more unfunded trillions must Obama spend before people wake up and realize his administration hasn't a clue about what makes an economy healthy. Certainly, continuing to destroy any chance for recovery by insane federal spending (among many other idiotic earmarks, for frisbee parks!) is not the path to follow.

There is little chance that Obamanomics will bring anything better than a return to Carter-era stagflation ... rapidly rising interest rates coupled with skyrocketing inflation.

Is this the "change" people wanted?

Bob Webster
WEBCommentary (Editor, Publisher)


Biography - Bob Webster

Author of "Looking Out the Window", an evidence-based examination of the "climate change" issue, Bob Webster, is a 12th-generation descendent of both the Darte family (Connecticut, 1630s) and the Webster family (Massachusetts, 1630s). He is a descendant of Daniel Webster's father, Revolutionary War patriot Ebenezer Webster, who served with General Washington. Bob has always had a strong interest in early American history, our Constitution, U.S. politics, and law. Politically he is a constitutional republican with objectivist and libertarian roots. He has faith in the ultimate triumph of truth and reason over deception and emotion. He is a strong believer in our Constitution as written and views the abandonment of constitutional restraint by the regressive Progressive movement as a great danger to our Republic. His favorite novel is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and believes it should be required reading for all high school students so they can appreciate the cost of tolerating the growth of unconstitutional crushingly powerful central government. He strongly believes, as our Constitution enshrines, that the interests of the individual should be held superior to the interests of the state.

A lifelong interest in meteorology and climatology spurred his strong interest in science. Bob earned his degree in Mathematics at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1964.


Copyright © 2009 by Bob Webster
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