Obama’s ‘Shock and Awe’ Spending Campaign
The amount of money being tossed around by Democrats has bewildered and confused most of us.
The plans for individual mortgage bailouts also suffer from too much government management. Mr. Obama’s program excludes people who have lost their jobs. This is particularly cold when you consider that it was Democrats and their policies that talked people into getting mortgages they couldn’t afford in the first place. These are Obama voters. Amazing what vote buying with other people’s money will do, isn’t it?
Conservatives and libertarians have been saying that the solution is to get government out of our pockets, our lives, the banking business, and everything else. They suggest the problem all along has been government interference with the market, and the solution is to let a free market do its work. Clearly, that’s not the direction that Mr. Obama wants to go. That message was driven home trillions of times in the last month alone.
Despite all the evidence that Mr. Obama’s actions and plans are not going to work in solving the crisis — and are, in fact, making the situation worse — Mr. Obama keeps marching to his own tune, with our money. It seems clear he sees something the rest of us don’t.
So the question of whether or not Mr. Obama actually knows what it is that he’s doing would seem to have been answered. He does in fact know what he’s doing. It’s been planned. That’s why he has not substantially changed direction from his initial actions.
The trouble is, we don’t know what he’s doing. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that we won’t admit it to ourselves.
It’s axiomatic that the worst thing that you can give a Democrat is an actual solution to a problem. That’s particularly true when the problem can be used as a tool for advancing their own agenda.
An example of this that’s as good as any I can think of would be LBJ’s “war on poverty.” The problem was never solved in spite of (or perhaps because of) the trillions tossed at those programs over the years. Yet the spending on Democrat constituencies that came out of that made for an awful lot of rich Democrats and government-dependent Democrat voters, who never did quite get the message that the Democrats weren’t about solving the problems they were forever talking about.
Being good Americans, we’d like to think that Mr. Obama is, as he says, trying to solve the problem. Both current evidence and Democratic history, however, suggest that he is not. He is, rather, using the opportunity to move America left, regardless of the costs.
We should have seen it coming.
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Eric Florack has spent 25 years discussing politics in online forums. He’s also a veteran of some 20 years of Broadcast (radio) experience and blogs at Bits Blog.
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18 Comments
1. Craig:I suspect many Americans are overwhelmed by the sheer AMOUNT of money. How much and where it’s all going and exactly WHICH vast some of money are we talking about. Is the money a part of;
A Bailout? A Stimulus Plan? Omnibus Spending? TARP? The Fed Plan?
BTW- Trillion is the new billion.
Mar 25, 2009 - 3:55 am 2. David Thomson:There is only one way sure way the economy can improve: Barack Obama must be a political loser. We must indeed hope that he personally fails—if the nation’s economy has any chance whatsoever of improving. Obama must be marginalized and rendered politically impotent. That is our number one immediate goal.
Mar 25, 2009 - 4:35 am 3. Mike2:“We should have seen it coming.”
48% of us did see it coming. The only consolation is that the 52% that voted for him and his lefist agenda will have to pay, pay, pay just like us.
Mar 25, 2009 - 4:57 am 4. Floradora:————————————————
Who is John Galt?
Overwhelmed, indeed. All of the bailouts, stimulus bill, omnibus spending & tarp are blurring together in one massive hole. I’m hoping those that don’t normally pay attention to anything “political” are beginning to open their eyes at this point. I have a friend who is a diehard Obamabot and even they are sensing serious financial doom on the horizon. Question is…can they attribute this coming Obacalypse to Obama & the Dems?
Mar 25, 2009 - 4:59 am 5. Eric Florack:Indeed, that’s part of my point, Craig; No mere mortal can keep track of it all. Interestingly, the ones with the greatest chance of it are the ones who didn’t bother to read the bill they voted into law.
The intended thrust of the piece, though, is the pattern we’re confronted with, in combo with the inability to track and control where the money’s going. That pattern has always been at the least a high degree of waste and graft, and a very low degree of actually solving the problems the spending was ostensibly intended to solve. That’s particularly true when the political figures encouraging such spending are seeing their political futures (or their legacy) furthered by such spending.
I suggest the attack is well-reasoned, well thought out. They knew they couldn’t brook any debate on the spending they wanted to do, and on the big government actions they wanted to take, lest the public actually find out what tey were doing and put a stop to it. So, the administration crammed this one through so fast even Obama supporters didn’t know what they were voting on.
It’s interesting. Usually, the government moves in small enough steps that public understanding of an issue is pretty well ensured by the time a choice is made. What we’re seeing now, with ’shock and awe spending’ is that the Democrats are moving so fast on this thing, even Bloggers can’t keep up with the nuance of it. A number of the particulars get lost in the dust being raised, until well after the fact.
I suspect we’ll be in forensics mode for years over the events of the last three months, assuming we remain as a country long enough to ask the question ‘what happened’?
And frankly, the question of our survival, given the events of these last few months is now one that gives me pause.
Mar 25, 2009 - 5:13 am 6. Jerry:Why have we seen articles like this time and time again. The last set of pork bills was just like the next set of pork bills. Only the last pork was “old business.” The “Cloward-Piven” strategy (http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html)for bringing down a capitalist government has been well articulated, but fully ignored. Why? Because it presumes the enmity of President Obama toward the government he controls. He ran on “change,” but what he wants is revolution. For President Obama the worst thing that can happen is for capitalistic mechanisms to right the economy. To prevent that, he will bankrupt it instead. Then he will ask for extraordinary powers to rule a failed country, thus undermining the Constitution he swore to uphold.
President Obama’s true goals:
1) Demilitarize the United States
2) “Stop the boom and bust cycles” Stopping the business cycles is a euphemistic term for eliminating capitalism.
If he has to make America suffer in the service of his goals, so be it.
Mar 25, 2009 - 5:14 am 7. Eric Florack:Jerry;
I read the Thinker rather a lot; but I’ll confess to not having seen that article. It’s a good one.
In answer to your implied question of why these points are being ignored, I suggest the first sentance of the last para is as good an aswer as you’re going to find; “Being good Americans, we’d like to think that Mr. Obama is, as he says, trying to solve the problem.”
That appeal we heard not so very long ago, to ‘give the man a chance’ appeals to our instinctive sense of fair play in a very cold and calculated way. Americans are already so inclined. We’re made that way.
I’m reminded of a MASH episode, where Hawkeye is haunted by nightmares. Eventually, they figure out that the issue is one of his childhood, where a cousin he always looked up to, darned near drwoned him. The problemw as caused by his not being willing to face what the older cousin was really up to. The guy was a hero in his eyes, and he couldnt… wouldn’t… believe that he would ever do anything that wasn’t in his best interest.
I suspect something of the sort is going on with many folks just now, and Obama. Even the folks who don’t have him quite so high on that pedistal, don’t want to face a painful truth.
Mar 25, 2009 - 5:51 am 8. Cindy Sue Causey:I’m sorry, I missed that.. Did you say..
Shock and awful..?
Mar 25, 2009 - 5:59 am 9. RV:The maount of money here is staggering, to say the least. However, all of these programs and policies are nothing new, as each thing that president Obama has done and is doing is nothing more than what former-president Bush did. President Obama is using more money than Bush, but the concepts are the same, from bailouts to government expansion, it is just a continuation of what was being done. Just with more money, and far too much mone for my liking.
Mar 25, 2009 - 6:17 am 10. Eric Florack:No, Cindy, I didn’t. But now, I wish I had…
LOL!
Mar 25, 2009 - 6:22 am 11. Craig:4. Floradora:
Question is…can they attribute this coming Obacalypse to Obama & the Dems?
Obacalypse?? EXCELLENT!
I’m bogarting that one.
Mar 25, 2009 - 6:52 am 12. Kevin:When the consequences of the One’s actions finally hits us….. People who think it’s tough right now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. For those who can remember, sing with me.
Mar 25, 2009 - 7:22 am 13. M.:“Welcome back……”
Obacalypse OR Barackalypse? which is better?
Mar 25, 2009 - 12:50 pm 14. Войска ПВО:2. David Thomson writes:
“There is only one way sure way the economy can improve: Barack Obama must be a political loser.”
..hope for his failure indeed. But I disagree that an improvement in the economy will yield a failure of Obama. I realize that you are talking that a priori marginalization of Obama would force him to keep his commie/pinko/socialist mitts off the levers and our economical engine would heal itself.
But I think that the idiot and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight have mucked up things so badly that if they take a powder and the economy rights itself, he and the sycophantic MSM will all be out there proclaiming his business prowess.
By the way, anyone heard from that ditzy broad who’s running the House recently? She must love Obumble for causing the blowtorch to be redirected from her buttocks.
Mar 25, 2009 - 2:37 pm 15. TurfMonster:Well done, Mr. Florack.
What we need to do right now is cripple the Senate. We need to start the process of recalling Democratic Senators as well as the three RINOs – they voted for the damn bills in the first place – and then to remove as many of them as possible. The remaining ones will get the message that we are irate with what is going on and will not tolerate this for a moment longer.
Mar 25, 2009 - 4:29 pm 16. Gene Lalor:Know what? I’ve really had enough of these attacks on “our president” who may very well be a very sick man!
Barack, a Product of His Syndromes?II
“Some kids just never catch a break. Some get so warped by their early lives that the rest of their days are so haunted and taunted by the ghosts of their upbringing that they end up as twisted human beings hooked on drugs or with other addictions, their minds so disturbed by the experiences of their youth and childhood that they spend their dysfunctional lives harming themselves and everyone around them.”
Thus began Part One of this very mini series which attempts a pop-psych analysis of what makes President Barack Hussein Obama tick. There are more than a few indicators that suggest he suffers from ACS, Abandoned Child Syndrome, and from what could be called ICS, Interracial Copulation Syndrome, either of which could affect a child well into adulthood. In combination, they could make the next four years a harrowing four years should President Barack Hussein Obama truly be suffering from these syndromes.
With Part One, we described those syndromes and made a general case for Obama’s affliction(s). With Part Two we examine what he has already done, and said, which supports that theory.
Much has been made recently of what people are calling just one more gaffe oozing out of this administration, Obama’s already infamous ridiculing of the Special Olympics, thus ridiculing the hundreds of physically- and mentally-challenged athletes who compete in that annual olympiad for the disabled.
For a replay and transcript of that ”gaffe” see http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/03/obama_american_idol_special_ol.html. For additional Obamian/Bidenian flubs, replete with videos, see Toby Harnden’s view on the Telegraph.com: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/20/top_10_gaffes_by_barack_obama_and_joe_biden_.
The gaffe-meister himself, Vice President Joe Biden, is not the subject of the present study. He merits his own mini-series, or a multi-season-long study, to adequately cover his penchant for inane and simply stupid actions and slips of the lips. For now we will center our focus on the president and how he has demonstrated his possible ACS and ICS affliction.
As mentioned in Part One, Obama has sought to over-compensate, feasibly as a method of concealing those ailments. Ridiculing others, especially the defenseless such as Special Olympics’ participants, is a transparent sign of the insensitive bully who seeks to hide his own weaknesses and insecurities by demeaning those who can’t fight back. It can also reflect the defense mechanism of passive aggression.
He laughed as he joked about his bowling ability, “like the Special Olympics,” and Jay Leno, being the obsequious Democrat sheep that he is, failed to call him on it. Obama also babbled on about “moral and ethical concerns” in a different context, AIG bonuses. However, both host and guest failed to see the incongruity when they both laughed at Obama’s yuk regarding the Special Olympics after he spoke about morals and ethics.
Obama employed that same laughter on 60 Minutes…
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/.)
Mar 26, 2009 - 12:23 am 17. Eric Florack:@ Turfmonster:
Thanks.
Careful, here. There are a lot of landmines around. While I tend to be sympathetic to the proposal, I have some problems with criminalizing what amounts to simply a differing political position.
Granted that a case could be made of voting for this nonsense being criminal malfeasance, but this is a complex case to make, and I suspect that way lies a foothold for Democrats criminalizing OUR politics.
There is certainly enough criminal activity to kneecap some of the sitting senate just now. Those with their hands in the Fannie and Freddie thing… Dodd, and Barney Frank among them. That said, eliminating that problem for their criminal behavior is not so easy, either.
The situation with Illinois should give us a clue of how much success we will have with recalling Senators. Granted, that resistance varies somewhat by state, but in each case the troublemakers are the most liberal, and are supported by the most liberal of voting districts.
Barney Frank, for example. Does anyone think for a moment that he’s going to get recalled for his part in the current financial fiasco?
Chris Dodd. He’s got even more serious and more obvious ethics issues in this thing. Yet, at the moment, I don’t even see him being recalled by the voters of his state, barring some very vocal movement taking hold there. There’s a lot of anger down there at him, but nothing quite so focused. A criminal investigation might start the pyre burning, but frankly, I don’t see that kind of investigation happening. He’s got too many political chips to call in, in that state. He’ll be there until Election Day.
(Aside: I’m hearing chatter from State Democrats there, suggesting that the best thing they could do is get Dodd to resign, or they haven’t a hope in hell of keeping that seat from going Republican in the next election. I don’t know if it’ll get to anything on the surface,, but that’s the undercurrent. )
And look; there’s something else that’s starting to surface that may impact on all of this; Fatigue.
People have been hit with so much, so fast, since the first of the year, that the level of political fatigue is on a level that I’ve not seen since the end of the Clinton administration. I have to wonder if that won’t be to the advantage of incumbents… even the ones who oughta be out on their butt for their actions.
Mar 26, 2009 - 7:58 am 18. Will:The sheeple voted for a sheepdog and got a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Trouble is they’re too ignorant to know it.
Mar 29, 2009 - 12:01 am