Obama to Address Congress on Economy:
After Economic “Stimulus” Passes?!?!?
After Economic “Stimulus” Passes?!?!?
As I was reading about the president’s address to Congress, a thought occurred.
First, about the address. According to the Washington Post’s Michael D. Shear:
President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 24, an administration official said, giving the equivalent of a State of the Union speech that promises to continue his grim assessments of the nation’s struggling economy.
Obama aides had promised such a speech but had not yet announced a date. The decision to give the speech on Feb. 24 means that he will deliver it not long after Congress considers (sic) his economic stimulus plan about ten days earlier.
Emphasis added. Delivering the speech on the economy after Congress considered the economic “stimulus”?
Maybe the strangeness of that succession is why Shear got his tenses wrong.  I mean, shouldn’t such a speech come before Congress votes on his economic recovery plan?
Twenty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan who, unlike Obama, had campaigned on an economic recovery plan very similar to that he presented to Congress, addressed Congress before the legislature voted on that plan.
And the economic situation was considerably more dire back then than it is today.
12 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
What are you even complaining about? If you were the President, or Ronald Reagan were the President, you guys could do it how you wanted. Obama wanted the bill first. What’s the big deal?
Comment by Levi — February 20, 2009 @ 1:04 pm - February 20, 2009
Giving the speech after the bill is a good idea- he can claim that he supported a stimulus bill, but not this one, thus if the economy does well, it was his doing, but if it tanks, it was because the Republicans didn’t give him his full trillion dollars to play with. Going after the bill lets him make this claim, like he was somehow reluctant to pass this particular bill. Also, he can begin work on his next stimulus bill- a bigger one that gives more wealth to him and his friends.
Comment by aconservativeteacher — February 20, 2009 @ 1:32 pm - February 20, 2009
Bruce, I remember the series of speeches candidate Reagan and then Prez Reagan gave on the economy. The night before his sweeping mandate-sized election over JimmineyCricket, he spoke on TV to Americans about hope, change, optimism, a renewal of the American Spirit and the core democratic values of our Nation. He did the same for his Inaugural. He did it again to the Nation, bypassing Congress first. A few days later, then to Congress in his State of Nation Address… and then he came back for Round 2 after the assassin’s bullet nearly destroyed his promise… and I think back on TV or Congress once or twice that first year to drive home the point.
It’s dumbfounding now that Reagan was worried about our Federal Budget deficit at the time –it stood at 80b dollars… a tad more than JUST Obama’s Housing Plan Bailout. $80 billion! 1/10th of the Democrat’s Stimulus bill.
Our entire national debt back then was $1 trillion –which I think we’ve now spent 300% of that figure just in bailouts.
The biggest difference, aside from the capability of the primary actors, was that Reagan called for reducing regulation and high taxes to get America out of the Carter Recession and Obama is calling for more regulation, greater govt interference in markets and likely increasing taxes to pay for the self-made deficits that await us all.
I take back my admonition that I thought Obama might do for liberals what Reagan did for conservatives… make a sea-change moment that realigns the political landscape. Obama doesn’t have it in him; all hat, no cattle.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — February 20, 2009 @ 1:45 pm - February 20, 2009
GPW, I wouldn’t be too sure! (also – your link needs fixing)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 20, 2009 @ 2:17 pm - February 20, 2009
Dear Leader must be pleased with Levi’s unswerving, uncritical loyalty.
Comment by V the K — February 20, 2009 @ 2:45 pm - February 20, 2009
#5 – Either that, or he is totally ignorant of the way previous Presidents used to communicate policy. (See M-Matt’s wonderful example above.)
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — February 20, 2009 @ 3:48 pm - February 20, 2009
Had you bothered to pay any attention, nitwit, you would have learned that this effort has little to do with the stim pack. The stim pack, you see, addresses the short term economic picture. Its scope is a few years (excepting that the infrastructure that gets built continues to deliver economic value for decades) while this speech is aboiut decades long economic issues.
It’s no surpise that you want to snipe at thios becasue he has the gall to be concerned about the long term. That always gets to you cons.
Comment by PeeJ — February 20, 2009 @ 3:52 pm - February 20, 2009
Well, you are talking about a president who urged all speed on passage of the bill. Too important! Too urgent! No time for discussion! No time to read it! But then it was passed and he suddenly had time for a three-day weekend back home before signing it on the 4th day after passage.
Of course the urgency was gone. It was too late for public opinion to derail it.
Comment by tim maguire — February 20, 2009 @ 3:53 pm - February 20, 2009
Does Chairman 0 really need to give a speech to give his economic vision? How long does it take to say, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs?”
Comment by V the K — February 20, 2009 @ 3:56 pm - February 20, 2009
#9 – If he’s anything like his friends Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or Kim Jong-Il, it will probably take three hours of uninterrupted coverage.
Why do leftists need to hear themselves talk for long stretches of time, and so hysterically?
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — February 20, 2009 @ 5:19 pm - February 20, 2009
Or another TV infomercial.
Comment by Attmay — February 21, 2009 @ 12:29 am - February 21, 2009
[...] But who cares about the world around us when the economy is in recession and Obama seems to take sardonic pleasure in talking it down to the alarm of [...]
Pingback by Obama Live Stream: Obama Address to Congress Live Feed » Right Pundits — February 23, 2009 @ 3:31 am - February 23, 2009