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What I Don't Understand

Submitted by Cahnman on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 23:01
in

Why has President Obama burnt so much political capital on an economic program that is, obviously, destined to fail?

If I were a liberal and I believed that govt. spending was the best path to prosperity (as opposed to Free Market Capitalism and my favorite CNBC host) I would have been VERY careful to advocate the best possible big-govt. Keynesian 'stimulus' program I could possibly advocate.  In other words, such a program would be very long on building roads to nowhere and very short on welfare.  Instead, porkulus was very short on roads and very long on Welfare.

I'm starting to think that Ayn Rand created a Manchurian Candidate to discredit liberalism and revive conservatism after George W. Bush's highly imperfect (albeit highly courageous) eight years.

How else can we explain current events?

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Comments

In the future

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 23:31.

If you're going to make claims about there being alot of pork and little infrastructure, then you should share the numbers that show that.

And I think many liberals argued that Obama caved too much to Republicans and should have tried to ram through a liberal-only bill, then paint Republicans as 'obstructionist' if they held it up.

faulty assumption

Submitted by chemjeff on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 23:56.

Because Porkulus wasn't about prosperity, it was about "fairness" and payback to Democrat special interests.

I get that...

Submitted by Cahnman on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 03:22.

...on a certain level.  At the same time, I'm flabbergasted by President Obama's waste of political capital.  Were I a liberal, I wouldn't waste my polical capital on a porkulus bill when I want to ram sociaized medicine down the American taxpayer's throat.

Why not?

Submitted by chemjeff on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 03:49.

Why not?  Obama's ambitious enough to think he can do both.  Besides, they don't see it as porkulus.  They genuinely see it as "long overdue investment in the nation's critical needs".

Obama has pretty much answered your question

Submitted by johnson springs on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 12:57.

It is popular to ridicule and rival Obama as a socialist, a marxist, etc. But by his lights he has been very clear that he considers himself a post-partisan centrist.

So, instead of asking why he is embarking on foolhardy policies that are bound to fail, tell yourself, so this is where Obama thinks the center is. And by center I don't merely mean the political center. On the stimulus, for example, he thinks Keynesianism is at the policy wonk center. Just as on the banking crisis, he clearly does not think nationalization is the center.

Polls look good for him right now. Results have yet to come in.

He definitely believes in it . . . sort of.

Submitted by cr on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 16:26.

I do think he wanted to do something very fast and he didn't worry about all the particulars.

Although I'm against some of the things in the bill, some of it good. Surprisingly, I'm shocked at some of the stuff Reps took about like spending for schools and a new power grid. I also think he should have just stuffed the republicans. He only got three so he didn't exactly win on bi-partinsenship.

no real need to worry over the particulars.

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 16:45.

this all gets filtered through the states, anyhow, and any 'bridge funding' that lets one portion of a state keep running (like unemployment benefits), means that the state can decide where to put it's own spare dollars, assuming it has any.

do remember that less than five states in our country are solvent right now.