Obama’s Second Stimulus

Yesterday I briefly mentioned the second Stimulus Obama promoted this week during a speech at the Brookings Institute.  Obama literally said that we need to “spend our way out of this recession”.  He is promoting a new jobs plan which includes….get ready for it….new spending on infrastructure, tax breaks, and tax incentives to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient.  And I swear I did not copy and paste one of his old speeches from the first stimulus.  Obama proposes we pay for this new spending with $200 billion not spent in TARP funds.  Here was one Republican’s response.

“To use TARP money in the manner that is being discussed would be a violation of the law and further erode the trust the American people have in their government.” - Rep. Pence

He mentions it would be against the law because it would.  There were taxpayer protections placed in the TARP legislation specifying that any money not used would go towards paying down the debt.  Obama I guess has chosen to ignore these taxpayer protections.  I am having a field day thinking just thinking of all the things this new Obama job plan exposes.  Here are a few to pass along to your liberal friends.

First, Obama is not serious about reducing the debt despite pledging in a recent speech to tackle out of control government spending.  Liberals see all this unused TARP money and they immediately start looking for ways to spend it.  It is just another slush fund to them.  A perfect example of the end state of government intervention.

Second, it exposes the initial Stimulus for what it was.  As pointed out by expert after expert, the stimulus had little to do with job creation and more to do with taking advantage of a ‘crisis’ to jump start his ultra liberal agenda. (For those fact lovers out there, the WSJ broke down the money and concluded only 12% could be construed as economic stimulus) But there are other common sense questions to ask.  If $787 billion used for supposedly the same things did not work, why would $100 billion?  If the money in the first stimulus was used for what they claim it was, why would we need more spending before we have used up the original amount?  The answers are obvious.  Every day more stories are coming out on the waste and corruption of the stimulus.  Just yesterday it was revealed that $6 million dollars went to Hillary Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn.  According to records, the money saved 3 jobs.  What was it used for?  An ad campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television that came out just 39 days before the switch.  An old Obama advisor, Alfredo J. Balsera, got a $70,000 kick-back out of the deal as well.  Funny how that happens.  On top of all of this, the stimulus has not created the jobs promised.

Third, it reveals, by his own admission, that he believes we can spend ourselves out of a recession.  My question is this.  Does Obama own a history book?  Or maybe I should be more specific.  Does he own a history book not written by Howard Zinn?  I just showed in an example last week the result of Japan’s disastrous attempts with this strategy.  Obama must not read by blog.  Obama believes in a flawed economic theory that has never worked.  This just exposes it once again.

And for those waiting for it, Obama did criticize Republicans for opposing all of his new glorious spending.

“And we were forced to take those steps largely without the help of an opposition party which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that led to the crisis, decided to hand it to others to solve.”

I am sorry Mr. President, but you lie.   And another.