Maybe A Mirror Would Be Better

For nearly 5.5 years now Barack Obama has been blaming Dubya for the condition of the economy.  In some cases, to be fair, he’s right.  Dubya and the Republicans had control of things for a number of years and they all spent like massive fools.  They deserve their share of the blame.

The strategy has run it’s course.  Except for the far left Liberati, the idea that Bush is to blame is a Trivial Pursuit answer; next to meaningless.  The current administration has had time to try their grand experiments, the results are in and stock must be taken.

Obama has to see that what he’s doing isn’t working.  In fact, what he’s doing is making it even worse.  In short, he’s taken a bad, very bad, situation, and simply done wrong.

Obamacare – an economy killing piece of legislation.  Feel good?  Free rubbers for everyone?  Sure; maybe.  But a jobs driver?  Not so very much:

From the post:

Correlation is not causation, but in fact we have a lot of independent evidence (including my own experience) that many small and middle sized companies have changed their hiring plans based on costs and uncertainties of Obamacare.

Say what ya want.  Data seems to be adding up that kids of socialist Marxists growing up learning to despise colonizers who then go to liberal law schools and organize the poor while never holding a job that demands results within the context of larger organizational constraints don’t make good Presidents.

I’m just sayin’.

5 responses to “Maybe A Mirror Would Be Better

  1. There is absolutely no basis for attributing the stagnant economy to the health care law, especially given that the health care industry continues to thrive and many of the laws requirements don’t go into effect until 2014. I don’t think you can fairly say that Obama has had his chance. The Republicans handicapped him and then turned around and called his policies failures when they helped to ensure they weren’t as effective as they could have been. There is no mystery here, they telegraphed their plan for all to hear. They wanted the president to fail, and economic stagnation was viewed as the price they’d have to pay to make that happen.

    As for the claims re the health care bill, that post should have read “Correlation does not equal causation.” Full stop.

    We are witnessing economic stagnation that is in part attributable to the loss of public sector jobs which has resulted from states and municipalities having to cut their work forces, with little to no assistance coming from Congress. The economy still hasn’t gotten over the collapse of the housing/real estate market (which happened before Obama took office). The problem there is that we can’t just go back to the old real estate market which apparently thrived on a combination of highly risky/speculative development leveraged by highly complex (and also risky) investments from Wall Street.

    • There is absolutely no basis for attributing the stagnant economy to the health care law, especially given that the health care industry continues to thrive and many of the laws requirements don’t go into effect until 2014.

      I think you can reasonably say uncertainty causes a pause, or hesitation.

      The Republicans handicapped him and then turned around and called his policies failures when they helped to ensure they weren’t as effective as they could have been.

      The Democrats had a super majority for awhile, and then just a really big majority for the next while. It’s hard to say that the Republicans could do much of anything.

      We are witnessing economic stagnation that is in part attributable to the loss of public sector jobs which has resulted from states and municipalities having to cut their work forces, with little to no assistance coming from Congress.

      To be fair, those jobs were there because the government stimulated them there. We’re just now shedding the government jobs that we didn’t have before the stimulus.

      The economy still hasn’t gotten over the collapse of the housing/real estate market (which happened before Obama took office).

      Yes and no.

      For sure the crisis hit before Obama. But his activities since then have prevented that crisis from healing fully.

  2. The health care is, I think, irrelevant to the current economic crisis. I also do not blame Bush any more than Clinton, Bush the Elder or Reagan — or the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Obama is a bit less to blame since it hit after he took office, but unless he can find a way to strike that big $4 trillion deal, he’s not doing enough.

    No, this is a major debt crisis that has been brewing since we choose ‘borrow and spend’ to get out of the last recession. From 1980 to 1990 debt to GDP ratios went from 30% to 60%, and are now at 100%. Private debt has grown just as fast (it’s not just government). There was virtually no credit card debt in 1980, now it’s $1 trillion. Private debt is near 400% of GDP. Foreign debt total (public and private) is 100% of GDP, between $14 and $15 trillion. Thirty years of borrowing, fooled by bubbles like the dot.com craze and housing bubble, with much more consumption than production in the US has created a major depression-like crisis. Obama can’t get us out of it because no one can — it’ll take a rebalancing of the global economy to shake all the debt related problems (here and in the EU — and Japan) out and allow stable growth again.

    The only way out is: cut spending, reform entitlements, increase taxes and devolve government functions more to state and local levels with technology allowing policies to better fit local conditions (rather than a large bureaucratic SOP). We can solve this and go more to the left (Scandinavia is doing well), or to the right. This problem does not have a left-right solution, but a practical solution. That’s what is frustrating — the left and right want to blame each other and say they have the solution. No. They both caused it, and neither side has the one ‘right’ solution.

    • That’s what is frustrating — the left and right want to blame each other and say they have the solution. No. They both caused it, and neither side has the one ‘right’ solution.

      Well said.

  3. Pingback: Regulatory Uncertainty in the Obama Administration | Reflections of a Rational Republican

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