In his latest e-mail to supporters (or at least those who have provided their e-mail address to BarackObama.com), the president says that he is “frustrated” that Congress has not “focused on what it needs to focus on” — his as-yet unrevealed plan to “put Americans back to work.”
How Congress is supposed to “take action” on Obama’s plan before it is revealed is not quite clear.
It seems to be SOP for these clowns.
Well in order for us to know what’s in it, he has to give a speech about it. Hear that? Pomp and Circumstances is playing in the background…
Of course, he could release it today with a speech from the Oval office. I suspect that the press would cover it, if he just did it. That fact is all you need to know to realize this is about re-election posturing and not about doing his job as President.
We must support the bill before we’re allowed to read it. The narcissist-in-chief requires unconditional love.
He wants Congress to enact a plan that hasn’t been written — a blank check of executive power.
That’s so out of character for this president!
“Next week, I will deliver the details of the plan and call on lawmakers to pass it. Whether they will do the job they were elected to do is ultimately up to them.”
They were elected to pass whatever he sends them?
“And we must hold them accountable if they don’t.”
Just as he holds all those responsible for his screwups accountable (e.g. Bush, the tsunami, Rush Limbaugh, racists everywhere, Sarah Palin…buthey, rather than list everyone who IS responsible, it’s easier to just list the one and only person NOT responsible: Barack Obama).
Some Leftists think that making a speech is the same thing as taking action. Obama has taken this to a whole new level. He seems to think that announcing he’s going to make a speech on something is the same thing as taking action on it. And that Congress (which incidentally is the name of a group of babboons) is supposed to rubber stamp whatever he thinks he may want.
What exactly has Congress done to create jobs? What great Republican bill is languishing in the Senate?
Obama’s point, which requires a deliberate mis-reading of English to miss, is that we haven’t done anything to generate new jobs. Instead, we’ve been arguing about debt, the Ryan plan to gut Medicare, and attempts to repeal health care and financial regulatory reform.
Chris, the government can’t be a net creater of private sector jobs. It can stimulate jobs in one area but it destroys jobs in others at the same time. The government is very good at destroying private sector jobs but not at creating them.
The single best thing the government can do is to create a favorable tax and regulatory environment that allows private sector employers to prosper. That’s fundamentally opposed to Obama’s and the Leftist agenda. It won’t happen until he’s out of office.
Larry J – so every time the Navy orders a ship some private-sector job is destroyed?
In effect, yes because the money the government spends to buy the ship had to come from somewhere. Government economists like to attribute magic to government spending, that each dollar spent by government somehow magically produced more than a dollar of economic activity. However, this overlooks the fact that the money had to come from the economy first, either by taxation or by borrowing.
If the government borrows the money, it removes capital from the economy that could’ve been used for private investment. If the government taxed the money out of the economy, it then squandered 20+% or more on administrative overhead to support the bureaucrats working for the government, and then awarded the remainder to the ship contractor. However, had that money been left in the private sector, it could’ve created more jobs.
There is a multiplier effect for government spending. Unfortunately, it’s less than one. If government spending were all that powerful, then the trillions of deficits ran up in the past few years should’ve made us all rich. Instead, the government is on the verge of bankrupsy. Spending your way to prosperity is as stupid as drinking your way to sobriety.
Sorry about posting twice in a row, but I meant to comment on this: What exactly has Congress done to create jobs? What great Republican bill is languishing in the Senate?
At least the Republicans have tried to do something. What budget has the Senate passed in almost 3 years? What legislation have they tried to move forward this year to address jobs? The Democrats in the Senate and the White House may not like what the Republican-controlled House has done, but they have done nothing at all. Until they pass something, they don’t have any grounds for complaint.
Larry J – so every time the Navy orders a ship some private-sector job is destroyed?
In a sense, yes. Or not created in the first place. Any time the government spends money, it’s taking private wealth out of the economy, either via higher interest rates through borrowing or directly through taxes, that could have been more productively deployed. Those jobs that aren’t created are what Bastiat called “the unseen.” We may need the ship for defense, but we shouldn’t pretend it comes at no cost to economic growth.
Building a ship for the Navy doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a negative impact to the private sector. Taxes and deficit spending are not necessarily bad but either in excess is detrimental. Laffer curve right?
***
One way the Senate could act to improve the economy would be to pass the free trade agreement with Columbia. We have very few friends in S. America, we shouldn’t treat them like crap.
What exactly has Congress done to create jobs?
No government employee, right or left has ever created jobs. Taxpayer money takes away jobs.
A private company creates wealth which pays for jobs. Govt. takes wealth and redistributes it at less than perfect efficiency (much less.)
The government spends multi billions to accomplish less than SpaceX did with less than a billion. Those 1500+ SpaceX jobs did not come at the cost of other jobs (except perhaps by the governments $300m investment which did take other jobs out of the economy.)
Then look at dollars per job of the ones they say they did create. Rather than the way they invested it, they could have paid ten times as many people directly. It’s ridiculous and proves the point.
every time the Navy orders a ship some private-sector job is destroyed?
Chris, until you understand this you will never understand economics.
Chris,
we’re killing more ships than we’re building. And we have been for 20 odd years.
Currently, we have 10 ships being constructed, and 4 ordered. All the orders are attack subs. There are some more ships ‘planned’, but I’ve been planning a trip to Katmandu since I was 17 too.
IF and it’s a strong if, if there are 1500 people building each ship, do the math. Hell, I’ll double it and give you 3000 per ship, that’s a whopping 30, 000 jobs for the whole country. So the military industrial complex currently has a pretty big problem.
And aircraft, armament and electronic companies are about as low. Therefore, the military period is not creating many jobs. And this IS a sector Congress ‘controls’.
Truly though, the government isn’t and shouldn’t be about creating jobs. The government should be about staying out of the farking way so private industry CAN create jobs.
He certainly hasn’t, because it’s completely outside his — and your — frame of reference what needs to be done.
You are not a robot. You are a unicorn.
What exactly has Congress done to create jobs?
Many others have answered, but I ask, what had Obama done to create jobs? So far, we still seem to be at a net loss, and now his Labor Secretary doesn’t even know whether jobs she personally supports are in the USA or Canada.
What great Republican bill is languishing in the Senate?
Fortunately very few, since Republicans manage to work with their Democratic colleagues in the Senate. Consider as contrast, Obama’s budget which was soundly rejected by the Senate. Perhaps Obama needs to learn to work with Congress, either side of the aisle.
Also, how’s that job growth going in Illinois, Gerrib? I bet you supported the tax increase that destroying what is left of the fragile economy of that state.
Also, how’s that job growth going in Illinois, Gerrib? I bet you supported the tax increase that destroying what is left of the fragile economy of that state.
How can this be? According to the people who do static scoring, lowering tax rates cost revenue and raising rates increases it. You mean that people are changing their behavior in response to higher tax rates so the higher rates are resulting in less revenue? Who could imagine such a thing?! Why, the Democrats should claim that they have cut taxes!!
/sarc
They cut taxes alright, just not in the way they expected. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn they’ve already spend all of the additiona revenues they hoped to collect. If that’s the case, they just kept digging that hole deeper and deeper. Bad luck, indeed.
The media should always correct anyone that says taxes without including either the word revenue or rates. That they don’t says a lot.