Economic Wartime Presidency
He didn’t seek this crisis any more than George Bush sought 9/11. It was thrust on him. With the $787 billion Democratic economic stimulation plan, and the $75 billion to homeowners in financial distress as well as those currently just having fits of pique,* Obama in less than a month is closing within a couple billion of George Bush’s seven-year GWOT tab.
Apples and oranges, sure. George Bush’s $864 billion got us not blown up again, toppled a terrorism-harboring regime, decimated and scattered the chief terrorism organization, eliminated one WMD-lusting terrorism-backer, scared another into giving up, and gave us a strategic foothold in the Middle East that has boxed in and scared the heck out of Iran, with a side benefit of democratic government for 50 million people who were previously unfamiliar with the concept. Widely denounced as a horrendous waste, picked apart and examined in detail for its faults. You can download your own counter to stare at in impotent rage, as it continues to click over like mad even after Obama’s ascendance. The economic stimulus plan, on the other hand, is underwriting health-care initiatives, restoring long-lost welfare benefits, saving a mouse and a raft of other Democratic agenda items.
We could dicker all day about whether George Bush’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks was appropriate, proportionate, all that. We could argue all day about the same on Obama’s plan. No one sane thinks either man should not have responded in some way. It’s a question of how, how much, and what it gets you. At the current rate, Obama’s economic war will make Bush’s shooting wars look like an exercise in fiscal restraint and a bargain. If Obama’s plan works, fine. War’s over, we all go home. But at what point does Obama’s econ war get a downloadable counter, and when does Congress and the national media start squawking and declare a quagmire?
* Hey, I think I might be one of those. I’m really annoyed about all the money they are giving away. May have to look at how to grab some of that, as long as they’re giving it away.
Topics: Bush, GWOT, Obama, money
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 3:58 pm Comments (4) on Wednesday, February 18, 2009
4 Responses to “Economic Wartime Presidency”
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February 18th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
One of Saul Alinsky’s fundamental premises was to always ‘Attack, Attack, Attack’. To do so requires the ‘Attacker’ to declare ‘War’ (as the noted Socialists Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson did) to justify the horrific draining of the country’s Treasury. President Hussein al-Chicago and his Democrat Party Quisling allies, have declared ‘economic war’ . The question at the outset of this ‘war’ is:
‘Who’s the enemy?’
Rational thinking people KNOW who to blame (Congress – especially the Banking Queen Barney Frank and her Lordly concubine Christopher Dodd).
They are the true ‘wartime enemies’.
When this ‘war’ is over, the winning side (freedom loving Americans) may well hold ‘War Crimes Tribunals’.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
We survived FDR’s socialism, and we survived LBJ. We’ll survive this, too. In a way, it’s probably better that the Dems tipped their hand so strongly, and so quickly. Assuming that we get to work to fixing the damage in 2-4 years, it’s preferable to a slow bleed like we’ve seen in the UK and Japan that can last for decades (and frankly, was already underway with Bush, the last Republican Congress, and their addiction to domestic spending that led us up to this moment.)
February 19th, 2009 at 12:56 am
“He didn’t seek this crisis any more than George Bush sought 9/11.”
The hell he didn’t: He ran for the office he’s now in, and this problem has been building for years. In fact, Juggy had a hand in helping create it, both in w*rking with Acorn and by helping block efforts to tighten the mortgage market, so yeah, this one has his name all over it, and he owns it free and clear, just as he will the absolute and abject failure his policies will result in.
Hope ‘08 is going to become Fail ‘09
February 19th, 2009 at 9:48 am
I’m prepared as of today for whatever quagmire tomorrow may bring:
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/driveby/_pdf.php