Please excuse me for whacking at low-hanging fruit today. Apparently the pushback du jour against the stimulus bill is that there’s no rush, and President Obama is just fear mongering.
Is this rich, or what? The same people who stampeded us into Iraq, whose biggest talking point is vote for us or the terrorists gonna GITCHA think President Obama is fear mongering.
I got the ostrich graphic from an old Michelle Malkin post from June 2007. Little Lulu was derisive and incredulous that people were not cowering in terror because of a technically impossible “plot” to destroy JFK airport in Queens. Today she’s hooting in derision at President Obama because of his “fear-mongering press conference.”
See the ostrich, dear? That’s you.
Which takes me back to one of the questions asked last night. Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press asked,
Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier today in Indiana, you said something striking. You said that this nation could end up in a crisis without action that we would be unable to reverse. Can you talk about what you know or what you’re hearing that would lead you to say that our recession might be permanent, when others in our history have not? And do you think that you risk losing some credibility or even talking down the economy by using dire language like that?
I’ll add President Obama’s response in a second, but I want to dwell on the fear thing. Speaking of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, meaning that in 1933 fear was keeping money out of circulation, and because money was not being circulated the Depression continued. Now, some might argue that the issue was somewhat more complicated then as it is now. But the basic parameters of the crises are essentially the same — lack of demand for goods and services is causing the economy to shut down.
So why couldn’t President Obama say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself? Because we do have something else to fear — the damn whackjob braindead Republican Party. As in John McCain saying it’s not a stimulus bill, it’s a spending bill. And I’m sure you heard about Michael Steele explaining that government jobs are not jobs.
So President Obama couldn’t just reassure people. He had to simultaneous reassure citizens that the economy can be stimulated while putting fear into the hearts of obstructionist Republicans that it’s time for them to haul their heads out of their asses and pay attention to the real world for a change.
Now, here is President Obama’s response to Ms. Loven’s question:
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no, no — I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of. We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough, and as a consequence they suffered what was called the “lost decade” where essentially for the entire ’90s they did not see any significant economic growth.
So what I’m trying to underscore is what the people in Elkhart already understand: that this is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession. We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve lost now 3.6 million jobs, but what’s perhaps even more disturbing is that almost half of that job loss has taken place over the last three months, which means that the problems are accelerating instead of getting better.
Now, what I said in Elkhart today is what I repeat this evening, which is, I’m absolutely confident that we can solve this problem, but it’s going to require us to take some significant, important steps.
Step number one: We have to pass an economic recovery and reinvestment plan. And we’ve made progress. There was a vote this evening that moved the process forward in the Senate. We already have a House bill that’s passed. I’m hoping over the next several days that the House and the Senate can reconcile their differences and get that bill on my desk.
There have been criticisms from a bunch of different directions about this bill, so let me just address a few of them. Some of the criticisms really are with the basic idea that government should intervene at all in this moment of crisis. Now, you have some people, very sincere, who philosophically just think the government has no business interfering in the marketplace. And in fact there are several who’ve suggested that FDR was wrong to intervene back in the New Deal. They’re fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago.
Most economists, almost unanimously, recognize that even if philosophically you’re wary of government intervening in the economy, when you have the kind of problem we have right now — what started on Wall Street goes to Main Street, suddenly businesses can’t get credit, they start carrying back their investment, they start laying off workers, workers start pulling back in terms of spending — when you have that situation, that government is an important element of introducing some additional demand into the economy. We stand to lose about $1 trillion worth of demand this year and another trillion next year. And what that means is you’ve got this gaping hole in the economy.
That’s why the figure that we initially came up with of approximately $800 billion was put forward. That wasn’t just some random number that I plucked out of a hat. That was Republican and Democratic, conservative and liberal economists that I spoke to who indicated that given the magnitude of the crisis and the fact that it’s happening worldwide, it’s important for us to have a bill of sufficient size and scope that we can save or create 4 million jobs. That still means that you’re going to have some net job loss, but at least we can start slowing the trend and moving it in the right direction.
Now, the recovery and reinvestment package is not the only thing we have to do — it’s one leg of the stool. We are still going to have to make sure that we are attracting private capital, get the credit markets flowing again, because that’s the lifeblood of the economy.
And so tomorrow my Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, will be announcing some very clear and specific plans for how we are going to start loosening up credit once again. And that means having some transparency and oversight in the system. It means that we correct some of the mistakes with TARP that were made earlier, the lack of consistency, the lack of clarity in terms of how the program was going to move forward. It means that we condition taxpayer dollars that are being provided to banks on them showing some restraint when it comes to executive compensation, not using the money to charter corporate jets when they’re not necessary. It means that we focus on housing and how are we going to help homeowners that are suffering foreclosure or homeowners who are still making their mortgage payments, but are seeing their property values decline.
So there are going to be a whole range of approaches that we have to take for dealing with the economy. My bottom line is to make sure that we are saving or creating 4 million jobs, we are making sure that the financial system is working again, that homeowners are getting some relief. And I’m happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested and they have failed. And that’s part of what the election in November was all about.
To the same question, would George W. Bush have managed even one coherent sentence? Would he have said anything other than “I disagree” and “I’m workin’ hard and makin’ tough decisions”?
See also Bob Herbert, “The Chess Master.”
To the same question, would George W. Bush have managed even one coherent sentence?
No, but be fair – he wouldn’t have managed a coherent sentence as an answer to any question.
I still haven’t gotten over the novelty of a President who isn’t just some sort of nouveau-aristocratic figurehead.
Oh, he would have managed quite a few sentences, all of them about how the opponents were “unAmerican” and how they were trying to “destroy America” and how they were “unpatriotic” and how they were “not supporting the troops” and…
Oh wait, my bad, you said “coherent.”
“To the same question, would George W. Bush have managed even one coherent sentence?”
Of course not. Even worse, just imagine the absolute agony we’d be feeling had the last election turned out differently. By this point, McCain would have “suspended” his presidency to spend all his time searching for Bin Laden (I imagine McCain locked away in the basement of the White House, wearing a Napoleon hat, and pushing little plastic soldiers, ships, and tanks around on a large map table). Because of her vast executive experience as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin would’ve been designated to handle the economic crisis and, I imagine, her answer to the question would have been:
“But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the–it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.”
Sometimes it’s encouraging to take another look at the horror that could have been ours to share.
Last night we saw a room full of MSM questioners who were in way over their heads. I doubt most of them have even figured that out yet.
There’s such a tremendous drag coefficient on Obama’s ability to make progress: Congressional Republicans, Michael Steele, professional dumbasses like Rush and Lulu, whining bank executives, and a national news media made thick as a wall of bricks by eight years of reporting on Dubya. It’s going to be a real white-knuckle bitch landing this puppy safely. Obama could use Sully for his co-pilot on this one.
Do see Robert Reich’s Why Republicans Won’t Support the Stimulus. Excerpt:
“Republicans don’t want their fingerprints on the stimulus bill or the next bank bailout because they plan to make the midterm election of 2010 a national referendum on Barack Obama’s handling of the economy. They know that by then the economy will still appear sufficiently weak that they can dub the entire Obama effort a failure — even if the economy would have been far worse without it, even if the economy is beginning to turn around. They’ll say “he wanted more government spending, and we said no, but we didn’t have the votes. Elect us and we’ll turn the economy around by cutting taxes and getting government out of the private sector.”
It’s all about 2010, and recapturing Congress a la 1994, so they can stymie health care and other big Obama plans.
I think the fear that Obama is instilling is in the hearts and minds of the wing-nuts and righty media bobble heads. Having an articulate and somewhat charming president talking directly to the media and the American public (actually making sense) scares the shit out of them. His clarity of message completely drowns out the wing-nuts “he gonna ruin the country” mantra. If only the house and the senate could put forward some leaders that could argue their cases so persuasively, Harry and Nancy just aint cuttin it! I think the democrats have a real crisis of leadership in the congress.
Gee, Lulu seems to be having difficulty making the transition in accepting an Obama presidency. I could be wrong, but labeling Obama as the Savior- in- Chief kinda seems like she’s got an attitude and isn’t happy with America’s choice for our President.
And I miss her The pen became a clarion marquee. It was a nice touch for her Defender of Truth mantle.
Remembering that in this ‘crisis’ 40 percent of the world’s wealth has been “destroyed,” it’s confirmed that Republicans are brain-dead if they think that Obama is ‘just playing the fear card.’
Actually, they’re also brain-dead liars. They ‘blame’ the long-lasting Depression of the ’30’s on the New Deal – wrong – to justify their objection to any government ‘interference’ in today’s mess. What they really fear is the rise of unionism out of this mess (union membership increased three-fold during the ’30’s).
“To the same question, would George W. Bush have managed even one coherent sentence?”
You practically read my mind. I was thinking, how refreshing to have a president who can give a detailed, well thought out answer, as if he had actually thought about the issues involved. I’ve missed that terribly for the last eight years.
I haven’t read Reich’s article yet, but I think he’s right on. The Republicans are praying for the economy to get worse so they can blame it on Obama. Just don’t think about the fact that we got here following republican policies like lower taxes and de-regulation. I hope the American public is not that stupid in 2010.
Yes. Obama nailed it.
To reinforce all of this, though even easier to grasp pictures would not jerk little Lulus head out of the sand, here is a graph from the Bureau of labor Statistics depicting Job Losses in Recent Recessions. Not the green line which represents the job loss in the recession in which we now find ourselves.
As one who has lost his job I submit that we err on the side of caution on this one…take a pass on the advice from economists Romney and Malkin and err on the side of caution.
http://www.speaker.gov/img/jobsrecessions.jpg
Was the problem in Japan really that their government didn’t act quickly or decisively enough? (Which I take to mean throwing enough money at the problem.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06japan.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
There’s an interesting issue playing out with Republicans. Does a Senator work for his/her State, or the USA, or the Republican party? Republicans are trying to prevent any fractures in a solid front of opposition. The cracks are there; some conservatives think government intervention is justified, and Obama needs those votes. But the GOP is trying to prevent a thinking conservative from voting for what’s best for the State they represent or the country at large, when the result might weaken the GOP in 2010.
There’s an interesting issue playing out with Republicans. Does a Senator work for his/her State, or the USA, or the Republican party?
We need to keep hitting on this… how the GOP “elected representatives” keep choosing PARTY FIRST.
And I miss [Lulu’s] The pen became a clarion marquee.
Fixed it for ya, Lulu: “Pen is envy.” –Margaret Atwood.
The Republicans are praying for the economy to get worse so they can blame it on Obama.
Some of them have even admitted this in a roundabout way, with their classic five-year-old’s retort to the very suggestion: “Oh, like you weren’t praying for bad stuff to happen while Bush was president!” Apparently they have no idea what it feels like, or looks like, to be a person of good will.
Finally: no matter how grim the forecast, I’ll always be comforted by the fact that Robert Reich is on our side. We’ve got the brainiacs, they’ve got the Lulus.
The GOP backed Bush’s disastrous adventure in Iraq, and that has cost us considerably more than the stimulus bill. Apparently they think they should support the defense contractors, military contractors, and business cronies over the needs of the American public. On a side note, I think Geithner was not the best choice for Treasury secretary, given his complicity in the financial mess and his tax problems.
I had an interesting conversation at work with a conservative friend about the economic stimulus. I asked him if the thought the New Deal was effective in ending the Depression. His answer was typical ” The War is what ended the Depression”. Typical conversation, but I did not dispute him. “OK. Think Economics. How did WWII end the depression?” He was puzzled. “What do you mean?” “Ignore the political & military aspects of WWII. What did it change economically?” His answer was honest, which is why I like him, even conservative.
“Jobs.” My answer: “Exactly. Massive deficit spending in the private sector mostly; the main difference being we were building war goods in 1945, and now we are spending it on bridges, schools, alternate energy.” And I challenged him to tell me HOW the Economic Stimulus Bill differs in economic concept from what he believes ended the Great Depression. He’s thinking about it, and his position.
Most conservatives believe that massive government deficit spending ended the Great Depression. They don’t KNOW that’s what they believe and it’s a fun conversation to show them.