HughHewitt.com
Monday, December 14, 2009
“The economic mess we inherited”
by Clark S. Judge, managing director, White House Writers Group, Inc.
On Sunday, Rasmussen reported amazing nineteen-point negative gap between President Obama’s strong favorable (23%) and strong unfavorable ratings (42%) among likely voters. In polling terms this deficit is almost as big as the trillion-dollar-plus one in his 2010 budget. To it, the president and administration have one response, repeated last night in his interview with Oprah Winfrey and summarized in five words: “The economic mess we inherited.”
But upon assuming office did he and his administration find an economic crisis that needed mending – or one for which everything had already been done that needed to be done to bring about a recovery? And if the latter, have their policies made things better or worse?…
…The measure of when an economy takes on increased risk is simple: lenders will lend fewer dollars for each dollar of reserves.
This is exactly what is happening now – and it will continue to happen for as long as the administration continues to drive the nation towards unimaginable levels of spending and deficits, makes the government debt crisis worse through its health care overhaul including through aggravating the Medicare crisis by adding millions more to the unfunded program’s rolls, piles new regulations and controls onto the economy and financial system, and bludgeons bankers and businesspeople to act against their considered judgment.
The president’s weekend talk about fat cat businessmen and his likely follow up performance when he and his team meet today to beat up bankers to lending more liberally could only make things worse…
…For a president who ran on forward-looking themes of hope and change, Mr. Obama sounds amazingly stuck in the past, in FDR’s 1930s. Yet, attitudes have changed in seven decades. James Farley’s formulate for winning elections – “tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect” – is a nonstarter today…
The entire article can be read at HughHewitt.com
