Barack Obama Succeeded In Getting HIs Stimulus Plan Through Congress. Now America Fails.
On January 10, 2009, Barack Obama delivered his Weekly Address to the Nation as the then President-Elect.
He said
We start this new year in the midst of an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime. We learned yesterday that in the past month alone, we lost more than half a million jobs – a total of nearly 2.6 million in the year 2008. Another 3.4 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs. And families across America are feeling the pinch as they watch debts mount, bills pile up and savings disappear.
Then he went on to say
It’s not too late to change course – but only if we take immediate and dramatic action. Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again. This is an extraordinary challenge, which is why I’ve taken the extraordinary step of working – even before I take office – with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will call for major investments to revive our economy, create jobs, and lay a solid foundation for future growth.
Eight days later, Larry Summers, Barack Obama’s head of the National Economic Council, told the world that Barack Obama would keep unemployment below ten percent.
Incumbent on keeping unemployment below ten percent was Obama’s stimulus plan.
Summers said that Obama has received a “terrific response” from Congress on his plan for a massive stimulus to pump money into the economy mainly by investing in infrastructure, alternative energy, education and healthcare.
The rest is history. Barack Obama got his stimulus plan. He got everything he wanted. He did so without a single Republican vote in the House and only three in the United States Senate.
Rush Limbaugh, me, and others have said all along that if Barack Obama were successful, America would fail. We were savaged. We were criticized. We even saw some Republicans and alleged conservatives try to marginalize us. “No, no, we want Barack Obama to succeed,” they said.
Well, Barack Obama succeeded. He got what he wanted. And the results speak for themselves. It’s just another example of Rush being right:
The U.S. economy will continue to contract “for some time to come,” said Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council. “I expect the economy will continue to decline,” with “sharp declines in employment for quite some time this year,” Summers said today on “Fox News Sunday.” The International Monetary Fund, which held meetings last week in Washington, cut its forecast for each of the Group of Seven economies for this year and next. The IMF, established in 1944 to aid countries in financial crisis, said the U.S. economy would shrink 2.8 percent this year and have no growth in 2010, with unemployment rising to 10.1 percent.
Because Barack Obama succeeded, our economy will collapse this year, be stagnant next year, and see double-digit unemployment. Way to go, Barry!
Obama admits using tax policy to promote “fairness” not revenue
Ladies and gentlemen, when Barack Obama succeeds, the country fails. Look no further than this interview with Charlie Gibson:
GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton,” which was 28 percent. It’s now 15 percent. That’s almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent. But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent. OBAMA: Right. GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. OBAMA: Right. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected? OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.
There you have it. Barack Obama is not interested in raising revenue to fund the government. He is interested in to keep people from making money — because it is fair.
What’s worse is Obama goes on to prove how terrifically academic he is and has no grounding in real world economics. Gibson challenges him again:
GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up. OBAMA: Well, that might happen, or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.
Put it to you this way Barry: business won’t be going on at all on Wall Street if you jack up the capital gains tax.
The only refreshing thing in this whole exchange is Obama admitting he is not using tax policy to raise revenue, but rather to distribute fairness across socio-economically divergent pools of people.
Other than that, though, it is scary that the guy just over half the nation thought was qualified to be President has zero sense when it comes to fostering a healthy economy.
Obama Continues To March Toward More American Deaths
The other day I asked a very serious question: How Many Americans Will Die Because of Barack Obama’s Weak National Security Leadership?
As I noted at the time and have noted previously,
That Obama is sweeping out career intelligence officers is a clear sign he intends to clear out the policies these intelligence officers advocated and implemented — the very same policies that kept us safe for eight years. But there is an additional, very serious issue at stake here. The low level guys, the Jack Bauers if you will, are seeing all of this. They see a President right now who made tough decisions in secret and stood by those decisions when they became public, even though those decisions were hugely unpopular. The low level guys intrinsically knew they could kill bad men in undisclosed locations and be supported if the lights came on. These same men see the incoming President unwilling to stand behind one of their own — a career CIA officer in John O. Brennan. It is an unspoken message to all of them that should they take the bold action needed to keep freedom secure, they may not be backed up by President Obama should the actions come to light. They will therefore return to their state of being prior to 9/11. And darkness will again start creeping from the shadows.
Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost. Jake Tapper notes today that people inside the CIA are beginning to bristle at Barack Obama throwing them under the bus.
But some experts say the move could have a chilling effect on the CIA even beyond President Obama’s decision last week to release the so-called “torture memos.” Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs “prurient” and “reprehensible,” Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court. . . . Lowenthal said the president’s moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on “the undercurrent I’ve been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago.” “We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong,” Lowenthal says. “They don’t believe they have that cover anymore.”
That is exactly what I have been saying. Compare the left’s treatment of the present information and memoranda to Valerie Plame. She had not been an active spy for some time and the left demanded Bush administration heads for her name coming out.
On the other hand, here we have present employees of the CIA and those who, up until January 20, 2009, were making life and death decisions in the war on terror being publicly outed by the Obama administration and their compatriots in the media.
One can wonder if Obama just hopes these guys get offed by terrorists so he does not have to actually take a bold stand against the Democrats’ intended witch hunt.
The Obama Administration could do no better than it is presently doing to aid and abet our terrorist enemies without actually, you know, supporting them. When CIA agents and our military are no longer willing to do the deeds in darkness that keep us safe domestically, the terrorists will slowly start testing for weaknesses again.
Remember the scene in Jurassic Park where the raptors kept testing the electric fence to see if the power was still on? Barack Obama just turned the power off and issued a press release to tell the world.
How many Americans will die because Barack Obama just can’t help but undermine our national security?
Evelyn the Pirate
Evelyn has informed me in the most serious tone that she wants to move to Somalia so she can be a pirate and say “Argh Matey” every day.
I tried explaining that Somali pirates aren’t like the pirates she thinks of. All she knows is that they say “argh matey” and probably have parrots.
Sigh.
Challenging John McCain
I’m not a fan of John McCain. I was not a fan of his campaign for President. I think he tends to be a bully. But in the grand scheme of things, John McCain does not throw his own party under the bus as much as some of his colleagues in the Republican Conference.
2010 is going to be a tough year for Republicans to rebuild in the Senate. One seat shy of a filibuster proof Senate, we cannot afford losses and need resources to make gains.
I know there are a lot of people who think the GOP is no better than the Democrats. That’s fine. But they are full of crap and they should know it, though most of them don’t. And that is not an audience I’m writing for.
There is a difference and we should always work to refine our side to make the contrast with the Democrats better. But given the limited resources we have facing us heading into 2010, there is only so much we can do.
Given the choice between opposing John McCain with Chris Simcox in a primary or opposing Arlen Specter with Pat Toomey, I think our money is much better spent beating Arlen Specter.
We only have so much money, so many volunteers, etc. that we can put on the battlefield. And i believe, looking at the demographics of both Arizona and Pennsylvania, it is far, far more likely that Pat Toomey could win a general election than Chris Simcox.
It is also a no brainer that in a limited field, we need to pick off the worse of our side, not the guy who is mostly with us, but feels like poison ivy — we can cover ourselves in caladryl dealing with McCain. With Specter, we need to toss him because preparation-H only does so much.
So don’t expect RedState to get on the Chris Simcox bandwagon. I don’t have the energy to chase that rabbit down a losing hole.
Who Else Should Be Honored?
Macon’s City Council will be considering a resolution to make Barack Obama an honorary member of Macon’s City Council.
Who else? Let me know. I’ll be filing amendments.
Roy Barnes (again)
I’m very interested in the number of Republican funders all of a sudden getting calls from Roy Barnes asking if they might support him in 2010. The calls were happening before Cagle dropped out, but seem to have escalated given the number of people telling me about recent calls all of a sudden.
And some surprising names at that — ballsy Roy and surprising, but not actually as surprising as the number of these guys seriously entertaining your offer.
The GOP just might be surprisingly well and truly screwed in 2010.
How Many Americans Will Die Because of Barack Obama’s Weak National Security Leadership?
Let me say this without reservation, despite the left-wing assault when I twittered it: I do not doubt that more Americans will die at the hands of terrorists under the watch of Barack Obama than under the watch of George W. Bush.
Back on January 8th, I wrote
General Michael Hayden and John O. Brennan are career guys. They are not partisans. I could not tell you if either one was a Republican or Democrat or even if they voted. They are professionals. But because they are connected to the Bush administration and the War on Terror, Obama is throwing them out. These are the men who have kept us safe and alive for eight years. It was not Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld forcing policy positions on the intelligence community. It was the intelligence community making recommendations that were embraced by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and ultimately the President.
In Barack Obama’s rush to release memos outlining the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the Bush administration upon recommendation by the intelligence community and approval by the Department of Justice on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, the Obama administration has curiously refused to release two key details: (1) that the enhanced interrogation techniques were highly effective at revealing crucial, life-saving intelligence and (2) that the techniques were only approved after the events of September 11, 2001.
They want us to know that the Bush administration implemented interrogation techniques Barack Obama disapproves of, the people who allowed those techniques might be subject to prosecution, but will not reveal what data was gathered or the justification for the techniques.
Why? Because the American people might realize just how effective and the enhanced interrogation techniques were. For example, water boarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed revealed enough data to prevent a second wave attack against Los Angeles, California. In other words, without the enhanced interrogation, Jeaneane Garofalo could have been taken out by terrorists.
Falling apart
Christy dislocated her knee cap the other night and partially tore her knee ligament. I haven’t seen her in that much pain in a very long time — not since she had gall stones a few years ago.
She’s taking good medicine to deal with the pain. My wife doesn’t take pain medicine. That she wants to is a sign of how bad it hurts.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a sinus infection that feels like it’s about to push my upper teeth and eye out of my head. Quite a pair I tell ya.
So, that’s all to say, prayers are appreciated.
Obama’s House Built on Rocks Will Fail
Today Barack Obama took to the New Testament when talking about the bleak economic outlook his policies are helping create. Obama said, “There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when “…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” It was founded upon a rock.”
In fact, the title of the White House blog post is “The House Upon A Rock.” There’s just one problem. That “rock” Christ was talking about is Himself. In fact, while the King James Version of the Bible uses the phrase “a rock”, a more accurate rendering, which other versions of the Bible get right is “the rock.” Here’s the story in Christ’s own words:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
The “rock” is Christ and the Word. The “sand” is this reality — the one where Barack Obama is the secular messiah.
Barack Obama can claim to be a transformative leader. He can even steal Christ’s own words and repackage them for his own purposes. But he will fail. His policies will fail.