Obama’s Change = More of the Same
Speaking to staffers at the Department of Energy yesterday, President Obama pushed his “stimulus” plan and misrepresented the ideas of his critics:
They’re rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government doesn’t have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough;
While President Bush may have premised his economic policy entirely on tax cuts, he never believed that such cuts alone could solve all our problems. And his successor would be hard-pressed to find any Republican who did. Save Congressman Ron Paul, no leading Republican believes government doesn’t have a role to play.
In elaborating on conservative ideas (without detailing any), the president really got in some strange territory given the legislation he’s been pushing:
Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed. They’ve taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they’ve brought our economy to a halt. And that’s precisely what the election we just had was all about.
Now, I agree that the notion that you can promote economic health by cutting taxes and increasing federal domestic outlays has been tested and failed.
If the president’s knowledge goes back beyond “”the last 10 years”, he would know that conservative economic policies do work. Â In the 1980s, they helped lift us out of a severe recession. And we enjoyed prosperity throughout Clinton’s tenure because that Democrat never repudiated them.
But, if the policies he’s decrying led to trillion dollar deficits and brought our economy to a halt, why then is he proposing policies which will create ever larger deficits? Does he really believe policies which expand the deficit even further will bring that halted economy back to life?
Um, Mr. President, that last election was about “change.” You should know you–and your supporters–repeated that word ad nauseum. For the past eight years, we’ve seen ever increasing levels of domestic spending. Are you saying it’s change to keep increasing such spending, only at a faster rate of increase?
Oh, and, um, did you campaign on a multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus?
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I’m of the opinion that liberals prefer malaise to economic prosperity. If it were not so, they wouldn’t be so hell bent on returning us to it.
I can’t help but conclude that anything other than depression and malaise is “evil” and “failure”. These are the same folks who apparently believe that keeping the masses stupid via public education is a great idea. They don’t offer anything else and reject proven ideas to make things better. One could add Socialist Stupidity, Medicare reform etc. They prefer to keep the Proles reliant on them. Otherwise, they’d be totally useless.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — February 6, 2009 @ 5:10 am - February 6, 2009
I’m really glad you guys at GP are staying on top of Obama and his efforts to shove his live pork-upine sandwich down our throats. Challenges like this and the Shamnesty close-call are exactly what conservative bloggers were born to take on. So, well done, GP.
This post addresses precisely the issue that I commented about in an earlier post and that I think is so terrifying about the “stimulus package” Obama is selling. The real issue is bigger than just one horrible bill passed by an elitist Congress. What the Democrats are doing is beyond contemptible, not just because the bill is a dishonest play to expand government and pay off liberal cronies with taxpayer dollars (an awful plan by itself), but because in the process, they are laying the groundwork for their alibi when it fails–that “tax cuts” are always to blame. That’s why Obama is so fired up about getting SOME Republican support. Without it, it will be harder for them to blame the inevitable fiasco on those “evil Republicans” and their “selfish tax cuts.” Any Republican who ends up voting for it should be ridiculed for the remainder of his/her term and driven from public life in shame and infamy because it will only confirm their complicity in the destruction of the party. I pray they all have the wisdom and courage to stand together and do exactly what they did last week–vote no and keep their hands clean for when the Porkfest belly-flops.
This has NOTHING to do with “helping the American people” or stimulating the economy. It’s about POWER, pure and simple. Sickening.
Comment by Sean A — February 6, 2009 @ 8:16 am - February 6, 2009
Do you mean that Bush believed tax cuts must be matched by spending cuts, so that we aren’t swamped with debt? Do you mean he believed that they must be matched by regulation cuts, so that producers are free to produce? If so, he sure didn’t say it much. Or act on it.
Because, for Democrats, the answer to everything is: increase the size of government.
It may in the short run – just like a junkie shooting his next fix will feel good, in the short run. Of course, in the long run, it will destroy Obama. (And maybe America too, but we’ll see.) The silver lining is, Obama is effectively taking ownership of these failed Bush economic policies.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 6, 2009 @ 9:19 am - February 6, 2009
Obama’s speech at the Democrat’s Versaille last night, one long anti-Republican diatribe. Does this sound like a guy who is president of all Americans? Does this sound like post-partisan “change you can believe in?”
Comment by V the K — February 6, 2009 @ 10:10 am - February 6, 2009
#3 – V, if GWB had delivered even half the type of inflammatory rhetoric to a GOP gathering, the MSM would have been on him like ducks on a june bug.
If The Snob thinks he can embarrass the Republicans in the Senate to sign on to the porkulus bill, he’s two french fries short of a Happy Meal.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — February 6, 2009 @ 10:33 am - February 6, 2009
Mandates, mandates, mandates; presidents claim them so often I swear it sometimes feels more like a black & blue circuit party than an electoral benefit.
The truth is, there was no mandate in the election for Obama. He did win; that’s without dispute. But it won’t be a seachnage moment in American politics unless the majority of Americans join in with effort and adopt the New Order.
Bush 43 had no mandate over Kerry or Gore and the farLeft made that claim into a screech at every juncture. Clinton certainly didn’t have a mandate for anything. Nor did Bush 41.
The last guy who had a mandate was Ronnie in 80 and 84 –and that mandate was to restore American spirit, entrepreneurial resolve, military pride and the economy. He did that and a lot more.
But Obama has zippo mandates… what he has is some seriously difficult promises to keep. And therein lays the difference.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — February 6, 2009 @ 11:59 am - February 6, 2009
Can we start to list the campaign promises and committments President Obama has already broken?
1. No lobbyists allowed in his administration (there are already over a dozen)
2. Bi partisian efforts to move the country forward ( no Republicans invited to craft the porkulus bill in the House)
3. Swearing in done behind closed doors with out a bible or TV media allowed (no transparency)
4. Two small children going to toney and expensive private Sidwell Friends school (instead of attending the regular peoples public DC schools)
5. Won’t talk down to Americas, we are all in this together (then calls most of us “ordinary folk)
6. Will immediately close GITMO ( signs a paper to close GITMO in a year if possible)
7. Says he will fight terrorism without the constitution shredding BUSH iniatives. ( continues the right and ability to use rendition for terror prisoners)
8. Says he won’t sign a bill that has any pork in it (Is working hard to sign the porkulus bill which has at least 500 billion dollars of pork in it)
9. Promised to hit the ground running super prepared to act to prevent an economic melt down. And that his administration would be super productive. Especially after he said the Bush admin did a tremendous job cooperating on the transition during the past 90 days. (possibly 4, FOUR cabinet nominess are tax cheats. Many head positions go unfilled due to the poor job of vetting. Dispite the fact that Obama agreed he “screwed up” and took an unusual lot of pride in admitting that fact.)
10. Be super prepared, super productive.( not so in the TN KY ice storm disasters. Only now is the administration trying to figure out what went wrong with the federal response. Obama being totally insensitive to the white people devistated by the disaster)
11. “I will lead” (then lets the Pelosi nutts craft the first “stimules” porkulus bill and it turns into a nightmare)
Please feel free to add to the list….
I mean am I wrong here? Shouldn’t the MSM be reporting on this and not referring to these as bumps in the road for the chosen one? It is hard to not come to the conclusion that these people are disingenuous and out of their depth as well.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — February 6, 2009 @ 12:14 pm - February 6, 2009
In the 1980s, [conservative economic policies] helped lift us out of a severe recession. And we enjoyed prosperity throughout Clinton’s tenure because that Democrat never repudiated them.
You mean when Reagan raised taxes? And Clinton did the same on the rich? And we then enjoyed unparalled prosperity? And Obama campaigned on doing just that – raising taxes on the rich? And Bush 43 lowered taxes on the rich but raised spending like crazy and the economy fell out? And we may have to put those taxes back once we get the depression under control?
I agree GPW. Well thought out. Good to hear a fellow conservative admit some basic financial truths for a change.
Comment by torrentprime — February 6, 2009 @ 12:29 pm - February 6, 2009
“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” ~Roger Daltry
Comment by Sharp Right Turn — February 6, 2009 @ 3:23 pm - February 6, 2009
[...] Obama’s Change = More of the Same [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Is Obama’s Divisive Rhetoric & Scare-mongeringthe New Kind of Politics he Promised? — February 6, 2009 @ 6:34 pm - February 6, 2009
And Obama campaigned on doing just that – raising taxes on the rich?
Of coure Obama did; he and his fellow Democrats never pay their taxes.
Which of course you support, torrentprime, because you yourself are a tax cheat, just like Obama, just like Rangel, just like Daschle, just like Solis, just like Geithner, just like Franken…….
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — February 7, 2009 @ 6:45 pm - February 7, 2009