Tags: economic | stimulus

$1 Trillion Later, What Does Obama Have to Show? Nothing

Wednesday, 10 June 2009 11:27 AM EDT

The bailout. The stimulus. Porkulus. Three different words to say the same thing: the Obama plan to take your money.

Back in January when President Obama first took office, we heard that the economy would collapse if we didn't give Obama almost $1 trillion immediately.

While the United States has not fallen into utter oblivion, we must take a look at the type of logic Obama is using.

He is injecting himself into the U.S. economy and creating a causal relationship, meaning that he is the cause for things happening. The economy is safe because we gave Obama money.

Well, what if I said that unless taxpayers give me a $1 trillion, the sun will not rise tomorrow. If the U.S. government handed me a check for a $1 trillion and the sun came up the next day, I could say that the sun came up because I was given $1 trillion.

Doesn't make sense? Well, it's not supposed to, and neither does Obama's logic. So far, the U.S. economy has avoided utter collapse. That very well may have been the case if U.S. taxpayers didn't fork over almost $1 trillion to Obama in his first month as president.

The truth is, we'll never know. Obama is convincing people left and right that he is driving the economy instead of American ingenuity. Obama wants to tell you that he is saving the housing market, when it is American ingenuity that is finding ways to sell homes and restart the housing market.

Some people think Americans can't solve their own problems. Those folks say America needs an all-powerful, expansive government to do all of the heavy lifting for them. Remember, because of Obama's stimulus, he has put Americans back to work.

Hold it right there. When Obama came into office, unemployment was 7.1 percent. Last week, the national unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent, a 32 percent increase from January and a new 25-year high.

To be fair, the economy has been in recession and that problem was not created by Obama. But Obama was supposed to stop the bleeding, not let us bleed 32 percent more. If Obama wanted the money to save the economy, then it's his responsibility to perform.

The next question you might ask is, if Obama had almost $1 trillion to spend to put people back to work, what happened.

According to the government's Web site — recovery.gov — only $37 billion had been spent by May 22, a good portion of which went to Social Security recipients, selective tax relief, and social programs.

When the stimulus package was launched, I remember Obama and Vice President Biden made the public relations rounds with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, all touting the creation of 200 jobs here, 100 jobs there, selling the American people that the stimulus was the right thing to do.

The fact is that those early jobs created by the PR tour were just that, jobs created for the Obama-Biden PR tour. When you ask about all of those shovel-ready projects that the stimulus was supposed to fund, the only answer that you will find is, we're working on it.

Most of the almost $300 billion going directly to the states that was supposed to be used for creating jobs is on its way to existing government programs in healthcare, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other social services. Apparently government bureaucracy knows what is best for the American people, and that's why they are getting the money.

So how much of that $300 billion is going for Obama's shovel-ready infrastructure projects in transportation, airports, highways, and rail projects? A paltry 15 percent, according to the Federal Funds Information for States, a service of the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Of that 15 percent, much of that is back-loaded towards the end of Obama's administration in 2011, according to a recent report by the president's Council of Economic Advisers.

There was no hesitation on behalf of the Obama administration to divert billions of taxpayer money towards social programs. Those were shovel-ready from the get-go. But the jobs that would go to hardworking middle-class Americans, the infrastructure projects that would put construction workers, engineers, architects, craftsmen, manufacturers, and American men and women back to work, those jobs aren't around. The administration is still working on it.

In fact, so little jobs have been created that the administration has launched a new initiative to find someone who has a job created by the stimulus. They want to find those people so that they can tell their story. But what America must remember is that the story of one job doesn't put food on the table for the millions who are out of work. Taking someone out on the PR tour doesn't put honest American men and women back to work.

What will put Americans back on track is repairing what's hurting in America. If the government wants to spend money, then why not spend it on the automotive industry that affects every single American. Why not retail? Why not housing?

If Obama wants to spend money to repair America then at least he should spend it in the right place. Instead of closing down and abandoning auto factories, why don't we provide tax incentives for companies that want to refit and use them for another industry? Why don't we give a $5,000 tax credit for every new car purchased in America regardless of price?

If saving the economy was the top priority, then why doesn't Obama give an instant 10 percent tax credit on every single home purchased in the United States?

These are more effective ways for the government to jump-start the economy and put people back to work.

A company that buys an old Chrysler factory to refit the equipment for their industry puts U.S. manufacturers, equipment makers, laborers, craftsmen, all back to work.

Jump-starting the auto sector with a $5,000 tax credit for every new car purchased puts salespeople, dealers, managers, manufacturers, suppliers, all back to work. A 10 percent housing credit puts realtors, mortgage brokers, construction workers, engineers, architects all back to work.

Obama promised that he will increase spending in his stimulus and will create 600,000 new jobs. If I had a nickel for every promise from a politician I would probably have more money than our almost $1 trillion stimulus.

We learned that the only thing that was shovel-ready for the American people was rhetoric. We were fed a load of it, and ate it all up. We listened to the rhetoric, we listened to the PR tour, and in the end what we got was change, not change we can believe in, but change we had to swallow.

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DanMangru
The bailout. The stimulus. Porkulus. Three different words to say the same thing: the Obama plan to take your money. Back in January when President Obama first took office, we heard that the economy would collapse if we didn't give Obama almost $1 trillion immediately....
economic,stimulus
1123
2009-27-10
Wednesday, 10 June 2009 11:27 AM
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