Obama’s State of the Campaign speech.

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on KTBB AM & FM, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011.

So now it’s the American Jobs Act and $400 billion in money that we don’t have to be thrown at fixing roads and bridges and job training for the unemployed. So said President Obama in a speech before a joint session of Congress last night.

After three years in office and most of a trillion dollars wasted already, the president proposes what amounts to “stimulus light” as an answer to persistently high unemployment and a flatline economy. Oh, and a backdoor tax increase for “millionaires and billionaires.” He knows that the proposal has no chance in this Congress. But he doesn’t care. The speech was a campaign kickoff event. When the Republicans rightly can the proposal, the president will campaign on their “obstructionism,” using footage of the speech in his campaign commercials.

But let’s pretend he’s serious for a minute.

Can’t you just see your $400 billion at work? Can’t you picture in your mind the images of shirtless muscular men swinging sledge hammers and driving heavy equipment as they rebuild America’s highways and buttress America’s bridges – all  the while revitalizing the economy and reawakening belief in the American Dream?

I know, we didn’t see any such images evoking the memory of Depression-era  Works Progress Administration workers come out of the first stimulus. And with nearly a trillion dollars gone one might even be tempted to ask, “How come we didn’t fix any of this stuff back then?” But asking such a question might be seen as partisan and the president specifically called upon us to quit such carping and “pass this bill right away.”

That means that you should ignore or just get over the fact, as we detailed in this space two weeks ago, that $20 million in stimulus money intended to insulate homes in Seattle has succeeded in weatherizing the entirety of three houses and employing just 14 people in a year and a half.

Nor, as we reported last week, should the fact that $535 million in stimulus money was incinerated by a now bankrupt company called Solyndra embolden you to question the president this time.

This time, using this $400 billion, it will be different. Or so the administration insists that you believe.

But don’t believe it. Instead believe this.

None of what this administration has done or now proposes recognizes an indisputable economic fact. In order for the federal government to inject money into the economy it must first take the money out of the economy – either through taxation or borrowing. Raising taxes now would be suicidal. Doing so will only further cripple an already weak economy.

Further borrowing in light of an already crushing national debt is cosmicly irresponsible.

The president has made clear that though he lacks any appreciation of how a free economy works, he does understand demagoguery and class warfare. Thus we get speeches such as the one we suffered last night.

The president’s rapidly fading chances at re-election can only be improved by a sharp recovery of the economy and a resulting rebound in hiring.

In order for that to happen, we don’t need the government to do more, as in spend $400 billion – we need it to do less. The federal government needs to become dramatically less consequential in daily life. The regulatory burden must be lightened. The evil genie that is the EPA needs to go back in his bottle. The micro-management of the banks must stop. And America’s world-beating oil and gas industry must be set free to produce the energy a growing economy cannot do without.

You heard no such proposals from the president last night and you never will.

The podium of the House of Representatives, fabulous campaign speech venue that it is, cannot overcome tired, discredited content.

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Paul Gleiser

Paul L. Gleiser is president of ATW Media, LLC, licensee of radio stations KTBB 97.5 FM/AM600, 92.1 The TEAM FM in Tyler-Longview, Texas.

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5 Responses

  1. Bill Brazos says:

    I hope he is serious about additional tax cuts for small business and workers, but the infrastructure, retraining spending is a no-go. I hope Republicans quickly and publicly take him up on his offer re: the tax breaks.

  2. Linda E. Montrose says:

    The way I see this speech is one that a drug dealer would use to recruit a small time dealer to push the main dealers wares. If you will sell my drugs for me here in your neighborhood, I will GIVE you some for yourself to use however you want. You can use it yourself or you can sell it, whatever you want to do with it, it is yours. Once the poor fool is hooked on his drugs, which he KNEW would happen, he informs the small timer that he can no longer GIVE him drugs, that he will have to sell them to him from now on. The intention all along was to get the poor fool hooked, just as these stimulus plans have been nothing more than worthless drugs injected into the veins of a failing economy to hook people on the government dole. NOTHING obama suggested last night was anything new, not even wrapped in a new package. It is the same dribble he has spewed from day one…what is it said about insanity? Doing the same ole thing over and over again expecting different results, as being insanity? We still have not seen results from the first TWO stimulus plans…could we say that it is “sane” to expect results from yet another one???? It is time to get off the merry-go-round and put a stop to the insanity!

  3. Rick Armstrong says:

    Spend, Spend and then spend some more. The man, who has NEVER held a real job…has never had to meet a payroll…has not a clue what it takes to operate a business is telling America how HE is going to save us all. Pardon the comparison; but, isn’t that like the Pope telling folks how to have sex? I mean, if you no playa the game, you no can makea the rules.

    Sorry, but it fits perfectly.

    Seriously, Mr. Obama is doing what is expected of him…offer a lame plan with no details on how it’s going to be payed for and then blame Congress and the Tea Party when no one takes you seriously. He is following the Cloward and Piven playbook to the letter and continues in his attempt to destroy America by collapsing the system. Then he and his Socialist buddies can ride in and Save the Day with bigger government and totalitarian rule. Don’t be fooled, America. He is going to continue his efforts to destroy this nation.

  4. Matt McCauley says:

    All humans are born with the 5 senses of taste, touch, sight, smell and hearing. Life gives us 2 more, those being common sense and horse sense. Common sense feels the rain on the back of our neck, sees the lightning and says get inside. Horse sense sees the clouds, hears the thunder and gets one inside before the rain starts falling.

    Neither common or horse sense seems evident with Obama or nearly all our congress. For DECADES the clouds of a debt storm have gathered and nothing was done, and Horse sense Americans have done the best they can to protect themseves with their own financial umbrellas. It came to a head just recently and the Republicans barely stood up to Obama with the Debt ceiling issue. The rain is now falling and Obama does not have the common sense to see that taking a dollar from a taxpayer, running it through Washingtons grubby hands and then giving substantially less of that dollar to ‘shovel ready Sam’ on the bridge or road crew will stimulate the economy? It’s the same taxpayers dollar, and less of it gets to Sam’s hands! All it does is create a temporary job and does zilch to stimulate the economy, I would argue that it’s actually a burden.

    I’m not the strongest or smartest horse in the paddock, but might I suggest a little something on how to stimulate the economy? Lets keep it realllllly simple.

    What if, say 5 million of the approx 180 million tax filers were able to keep 400 dollars a month of their tax dollars by way of a tax cut? That would be 2.0 Billion dollars a month that us horse sense Americans could use to buy goods and services from each other, pay sales taxes, the companies selling the extra to pay more corporate taxes and the dollars flow where the market leads, not where the Federal government controls? Is 2 Billion not enough? What if just 10% of the 180 million taxpayers kept $400/month? That’s $7.2 Billion/month! Is that ‘real’ money. Ask your favorite small businessman or woman!

    Truth is, Americas entrepreneurs with the incentive for profit, work harder, think smarter, and are more motivated with their money than any Federal or even State government will be with money to which they think they are entitled. It’s time to harness American Horse sense……but alas is it possible when the occupant of the White House and the Sentate are politicking under a party banner represented by a Donkey?

    Matt McCauley
    Bullard, Texas
    903 445 2092

  5. Matt McCauley says:

    Small Correction

    In 2007, 154,000,000 Americans filed returns, not 180,000,000 as I wrote. So in the above example the 10% of Taxpayers saving $400/month calculates to $6.16 Billion/month.

    Heck if all tax filers saved just 100/month for a year, we pump $15 Billion per month back into our economy! Stimulating? Beyond doubt? Realistic? Perhaps not. Horse sense still rules the day.

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