The Truth Is………….
The truth is that everything I am about to say is a lie.
That is pretty much what I took away from VP Joe Footinmouth’s recent foray onto the cable news channels and network news shows. Big Joe, it seems, is becoming the point man for the Obama administrations newest “The dog ate my homework” excuse-a-thon.
Amazingly the Veep was able to keep a straight face as he wound his fairy tale of blameless surprise to the receptive ears of the ABC (All Barack Channel) News. Having spent over a year describing the economic conditions as “the worst since the Great Depression” Joe now stated “The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited.” Footinmouth used the phrase “the truth is” numerous times, almost as if he was trying to get himself to believe it.
Just to make a quick counterpoint to the Vice President’s hand-washing economic description, the economy we have today is not the economy the Obama administration inherited. It’s worse. A lot worse.
Obama spent almost the entire last year of the campaign hammering away at how truly dismal the economy was and how he and his economic plan were the only salvation to avoid double digit unemployment and national economic ruin. The Chosen One touted his powerhouse roster of economic advisors including Wall Street icon Warren Buffet as being on board to help guide him through these murky waters. Are we to understand now that these economic guru’s misled or misread the economy? Are we to believe that Obama was somehow kept in the dark about the economy he was describing as catastrophic on a daily basis? Is Big Joe now telling us that Congress and the Obama administration passed a 1500 page, $787 billion “stimulus” bill without knowing what shape the economy was in? Perhaps my age is catching up with me but I thought I remembered something about a really bad economy being the reason for the stimulus.
The justification for the passage of the biggest government spending debacle in history was that without it the economy would continue to decline. The spending bill passed and the economy has continued to decline unabated. We needed it to keep unemployment from surpassing 8%. The current unemployment rate is 9.5% and rising. We needed it so that a myriad of “shovel ready projects” could get the immediate funding necessary to save jobs. Since its passage the country has lost an additional 2 million jobs and only a small fraction of the money (about 7%) has been made available.
Every ominous warning about this drunken sailor spending spree undertaken by the Obama administration is coming to pass with even more dire consequences than anticipated. The Congressional Budget Office warned prior to passage that only 20% of the money designated for “shovel ready projects” would be available prior to the close of the fiscal year. In fact it appears that number will be closer to 11%.
The so called stimulus has done nothing to improve the economy and if anything has made the economic forecast worse. Even in the face of improved manufacturing forecasts, companies are laying off workers rather than rehiring them out of fear of the impending multi-trillion dollar deficit. Liberals may be fooled into believing that government spending is paid by magic but businesses know the money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the taxpayers’ and businesses pockets. Less money in the consumer’s pocket means less spending on the businesses products and more taxes on the business means less money for payroll.
And how does the Obama administration justify the failure of this multi-trillion dollar debt and non-stimulating stimulus spending package? By avowing that they didn’t know the gun was loaded and now, in an act of incomprehensible ineptness, suggesting yet another untenable stimulus spending package is in order.
The truth is you cannot spend your way out of debt.
The truth is that the more money the government pulls out of the economy to pay for their spending spree the longer it will take to recover.
The truth is that this administration left unchecked has the real possibility to not only delay economic recovery but collapse the economy all together.
That’s the truth, Joe.
