Posted by
Over the Kohls on Sunday, February 22, 2009 3:36:05 PM
Only 30 days of the Obama Administration was enough for me to come out of hibernation and comment.
Obama’s point men said that the stimulus had to be Temporary, Timely and Targeted. It was none of the above:
Temporary? - the spending, never mind the pork that was loaded into this bill, goes on for the next 4 years.
Timely? – only a small portion of the spending and tax cuts gets spent or saved in the next 3 months when it’s needed then most. Targeted? – when you look at the pork projects that this gets spread around to, targeted is not the word that fits. It’s more like scattershot.
This bill is nothing more than a payback to all the constituencies that voted for Obama. In other words, not the HOPE and CHANGE he promised but just more of the same old politics. So now after having his fondest wishes come true with passage of the Stimulus Bill, he now has to make it work. Or at least one would think he would.
But what are we hearing today? Obama’s people have leaked out plans to cut the budget deficit that he just doubled with the stroke of pen. Within four years, Obama now says he wants to cut his newly double budget in half, right back to the deficit that he inherited.
So how does he plan to do it? By de-stimulating the very economy that he is trying to stimulate. How does this make sense? Only to Democrats who have no understanding of what really makes our economy go. The stimulus was supposed to create spending by all of us slugs who are hanging on by the fingernails. So the slugs get out there and spend a few more bucks and our corner store is now getting more sales and may need to increase its inventory to meet the new demand and maybe, just maybe, the need to hire another person may be there. This is a costly venture but hey, if it helps the business bring in more sales needed to service customers, the business owner may be able to justify it. But now, just as Mr. Business Owner is about to make this key decision, Obama approaches the business owner’s newly inflated balloon with a giant pin. That pin is a new tax on the very profits that were to be generated by the stimulus. So now is Mr. Business Owner going to make that new hire? Not likely.
Conservatives believe that reduced taxes are the real stimulus for an ailing economy empowering and incentivizing people to work harder so they can keep the fruits of their labor. Democrats feel the need to punish life’s achievers. Envy and the urge to “spread the wealth” is always uppermost in their minds. But hey, give the Obama Administration points for consistency. The stimulus is a huge redistribution of wealth program taking from the achievers and giving to non-achievers and now this new tax accomplishes the same thing.
If this is what Obama calls change, what is his definition of continuity?