Tonight President Obama addressed the nation in a 20min speech about his economic recovery package. Admittedly, he sounds passionate about his appeal, however it really lacks much in the way of actual content. It’s more of an emotional plea to support his bill, based in fear rather than actually explaining how it helps us. He made his case that we will be in very dire circumstances, much more than what we already are, if we don’t pass this recovery bill soon. It sounds alot like what the Bush administration did at the end of 2008 which didn’t turn out to be very effective.
Now Obama tries to sound bipartisan, saying that Americans don’t want a republican or democratic solution, that they want an “American” solution. But he goes on to say that the voters decided what they wanted last November, and that’s what he intends to give them. This is a very partisan approach, which he seems very comfortable with; however he keeps trying to paint it as bipartisan. You can’t get bipartisan support for a bill if you don’t make the bill appeal to both democrats and republicans alike. And as I understand it now, there’s so much spending in the bill on stuff that won’t stimulate the economy that it is the furthest thing from what republicans will support.
But here’s where I have my biggest problem with Obama. He keeps saying that we can’t use the same old tired tactics of the last 8 years that got us into this mess. But what this proves to me is that he is clueless on what did get us into this mess. I’m not saying that he last 8 years of increased spending didn’t contribute to this financial debacle, but it was the mortgage crisis that started in the mid 90’s under Clinton’s watch that really caused this fiasco, and it was primarily the democrats who caused it. And it’s because of this that he looses all credibility in his argument to spend spend spend to fix the economy.
Now I’m not saying that spending at all is a bad idea, but again, there is so much pork in his bill and it won’t do anything but stimulate his ego and push the economy deeper into a recession or possibly a depression. And until he fixes the bill so that it does stimulate the economy he won’t get much in the way of bipartisan support.