President-elect Barack Obama hit the airwaves and sounded a Chicken Little-esque warning to the American people:
"I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible," he said.
"If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years."
"This is a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime," he said in a speech in Virginia.
and the most dire warning:
"Every day we wait, or point fingers, or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs, more families will lose their savings, more dreams will be deferred and denied, and our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some point, we may not be able to reverse."
GREAT SCOTT!
This is so dire that if the government, the only agent that can fix this mess, doesn’t act, the entire economy will collapse.
The New York Times said: “Mr. Obama’s message was stark, warning not just of short-term pain from a recession that is already the longest in a quarter-century, but also of deep and systemic longer-term costs that could threaten American economic leadership if too little is done.”
Time asks: Will Obama’s Stimulus Package Work? They then go on to call this recession “likely to be the worst in the U.S. in three quarters of a century.”
The Arizona Republic says Obama’s plan is “a good one, but it needs work.”
Here’s a question I have about Obama’s rhetoric: Is he being realistic? Or is it just a ploy to sell his policies?
The reason I ask those specific questions is because that’s what CNN asked in 2001 when President Bush was discussing the recession he was dealing with:
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Tonight, charges that President Bush is talking down the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know better than me that our economy is slowing down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRESS: And talking up an energy crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: We got a problem with energy in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRESS: Is he being realistic? Or is it just a ploy to sell his policies?
Bill Press later said: “Every time we turn around, this guy is bad-mouthing the economy. Is that lifting our spirit or dumping on it in order to sell his tax cut?”
So why aren’t the same people saying this about Obama? Obama’s stimulus package is nothing more than his administration taking his campaign promises, repackaging them as a stimulus and then rushing it through Congress.
Neal Boortz notes that part of Obama’s stimulus package is the purchase of lap top computers for government school teachers. Neal wonders:
Even if you wait a generation for that education to pay off .. these people will have been educated in government schools. So that doesn’t seem too promising. But part of Obama’s stimulus speech was that he wants to "equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries." He also wants new computers and new training for teachers. And just how does THAT stimulate our economy? Answer: It doesn’t. It stimulates teachers and their unions. Stimulation you pay for under the guise of economic stimulation.
The economy is in bad shape and as I covered before, it is the fault of government programs, not the free market. The solution resides not in more government, but as always, in more liberty and freedom.
But the media is still in love with Obama, and refuses to ask the same type of questions they asked of President Bush. If they were not wearing the blinders of infatuation, they might pause for a moment and wonder:
Is he being realistic? Or is it just a ploy to sell his policies?
I think they’d find he was being more of the latter than the former.
