By Rob Janicki
A review of President Obama's proposals of last Thursday reveal either a detachment from reality or a cynical political ploy, or both, to once again tag Republicans as obstructionists, thus forcing them into going along with the Obama proposals.
President Obama has once again proposed a massive infrastructure initiative to create jobs. The problem is many faceted. First, the jobs created would be short term construction jobs. Second, Obama previously admitted, laughingly, that "shovel ready" didn't turned out to be quite "shovel ready" at all. Third, infrastructure spending projects take years to prepare for, let alone actively begin. Consequently, Obama's proposals will do absolutely nothing in the short term to stimulate job creation resulting in kick starting the economy. If Obama's proposals can do nothing in the short term to stimulate the economy, why would any rational being presume this needless spending to be a good thing in the face of a mounting deficit exponentially increased by Obama's proposals?
Consider that Obama promised every infrastructure proposal would be paid for without any deficit being incurred. Not quite accurate. Every infrastructure proposal made by Obama was a rehash of previous proposals from the White House before 2010. Obama, in his latest iteration, proposes "revenue enhancements" (tax increases) to pay for all the infrastructure job creations (think spending stimulation). We've been down this path before. Essentially, everyone of these "revenue enhancements" was rejected by a Democrat House and Senate in 2009. Why would Obama expect any different outcome with a Congress now split between Democrats in the Senate and Republicans in the House?
The answer to that question becomes readily apparent and absolutely cynical in its hoped for outcome. Obama is doubling down on the Truman paradox, whereby Truman challenged a Republican Congress to oppose his legislative proposals, in the belief that public opinion would place Republicans in an untenable position and they would have to yield to public pressure to pass Truman's legislation. Truman did prevail in that confrontation because he had far more credibility than does Obama. Obama used up all his political credibility when he pushed through the disaster called Obamacare against the wishes of the public.
The Truman outcome was then and this current Obama tactic simply won't fly today. Obama has continually demonstrated his cynical belief that all he has to do is ratchet up his rhetoric with emotion and people will rally round him in opposition to any Republican push back. Obama is the little boy who cried wolf once too often and no one paid any attention. Obama's ploy is so patently an obvious attempt to call upon the Truman paradox as to be laughable.
The question then revolves upon what the Republican response will be. Will Republicans stand up to Obama or cave in and deliver all or some of what Obama has proposed? Let's hope it is the former.
Our good friend, author, and frequent commenter Trailbee , has suffered the death of her hard drive. She sends this comment via her email machine:
ReplyDeleteHere are my two cents: O knows that the answer will probably be no. He doesn't care. His primary goal is to separate the over $250K from their money. It is what he's been trying to do since before his 2008 campaign. Nothing else. Why? Because it is the second most important requirement in the Communist Manifesto. It is the redistribution - the stealing - of the wealth, to enslave, destroy those who love to work. The stolen treasure will be given to those who are lazy, inept, irresponsible, who are always looking for a handout.
Look up No. 2 in the Manifesto.
Good luck, Mr. Turner!!!!!!!!!!!