- Oct 7, 2011
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President Obamas campaign speech on the economy today was an utter disaster for him. It was a bromide of tired old arguments, pathetic blame-placing, and shopworn con tricks. And even liberals like Jonathan Alter had to admit that it was, overall, a dramatic failure.
He began where he always does: with blame. Weve been wrestling with these issues for a long time, he said. The problems were facing right now have been more than a decade in the making . For more than a decade, it had become harder to find a job that paid the bills, harder to save, harder to retire, harder to keep up with rising costs of gas and health care and college tuitions. Translation: Blame Bush.
The Blame Bush nonsense continued:
We were told that huge tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest Americans, would lead to faster job growth. We were told that fewer regulations, especially for big financial institutions and corporations, would bring about widespread prosperity. We were told that it was OK to put two wars on the nations credit card; that tax cuts would create a enough growth to pay for themselves.
Fact: huge tax cuts did lead to greater job growth. Bush oversaw 52 consecutive months of job growth under his watch, beginning in September 2003 and December 2007.
Fact: tax cuts did begin to pay for themselves. The deficit began to shrink under President Bush between 2005 and 2007 thanks to increased tax revenue generated from economic growth.
Fact: fewer regulations did create widespread prosperity. What led to the economic meltdown was government pressure on private institutions to make shoddy loans to subprime borrowers.
Later in his speech, Obama rewrote history to turn this into malfeasance solely by Wall Street: Without strong enough regulations, families were enticed and sometimes tricked into buying homes they couldnt afford. Banks and investors were allowed to package and sell risky mortgages. Huge reckless bets were made with other peoples money on the line. And too many, from Wall Street to Washington, simply looked the other way. Nobody was suckered into buying a home they couldnt afford. They simply made bad decisions, incentivized to do so by the federal government...
Read More:
Obama's Big Economy Speech: No Hope, No Change
He began where he always does: with blame. Weve been wrestling with these issues for a long time, he said. The problems were facing right now have been more than a decade in the making . For more than a decade, it had become harder to find a job that paid the bills, harder to save, harder to retire, harder to keep up with rising costs of gas and health care and college tuitions. Translation: Blame Bush.
The Blame Bush nonsense continued:
We were told that huge tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest Americans, would lead to faster job growth. We were told that fewer regulations, especially for big financial institutions and corporations, would bring about widespread prosperity. We were told that it was OK to put two wars on the nations credit card; that tax cuts would create a enough growth to pay for themselves.
Fact: huge tax cuts did lead to greater job growth. Bush oversaw 52 consecutive months of job growth under his watch, beginning in September 2003 and December 2007.
Fact: tax cuts did begin to pay for themselves. The deficit began to shrink under President Bush between 2005 and 2007 thanks to increased tax revenue generated from economic growth.
Fact: fewer regulations did create widespread prosperity. What led to the economic meltdown was government pressure on private institutions to make shoddy loans to subprime borrowers.
Later in his speech, Obama rewrote history to turn this into malfeasance solely by Wall Street: Without strong enough regulations, families were enticed and sometimes tricked into buying homes they couldnt afford. Banks and investors were allowed to package and sell risky mortgages. Huge reckless bets were made with other peoples money on the line. And too many, from Wall Street to Washington, simply looked the other way. Nobody was suckered into buying a home they couldnt afford. They simply made bad decisions, incentivized to do so by the federal government...
Read More:
Obama's Big Economy Speech: No Hope, No Change
