Atop the monstrous stimulus package, last Fall's TARP legislation, and the cost of two wars, Obama wants yet another banker bailout. In His speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, Obama recycled the same arguments used for the Fall banker bailout: "[T]his plan will require significant resources from the federal government--and yes, probably more than we've already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade." Every failed action is cause for more action--that's the self-perpetuating nature of big-government in a nutshell. Maybe I'm just a worry wart. Dear Leader assures: "It's not about helping banks--it's about helping people."

The cost of inaction by government can never be underestimated. It is government action that is costly and very often inefficient if not ineffective. Always.

At some point, even really stupid people 'get it' that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and it doesn't work, then it probably doesn't work!

Of course, this is a guy and his minions who believe that what FDR was doing would have worked (eventually) if he had only spent mo' money.

Don’t you just love it when all of these phonies go overboard to elevate one of their own? I swear that there must have been an applause-o-meter somewhere in the hall because at least once a minute, they were jumping out of their seats cheering.

And I’m starting to think that in the dictionary, under the word ‘scary’, there must be a picture of Nancy Pelosi.

Do you have any doubt that if by some miricle the Rs would have won the election, that they would be doing the same thing? Assuming of course, that they were clever enough to have won.

Guido

I have no doubt that you would not have seen the same spectacle we were witness to last evening because the R's are not Marxists and would not have come up with multiple plans (within one month no less) to tax and spend us back into the Stone Age thus there would be no need for the dog and pony show to try to convince the great unwashed that our money is not being spend needlessly as a form of Democrat induced egalitarianism.

Readers here might find of interest my latest post at Borg Blog, where I review Obama's magnificently dangerous speech last night: "Obama: The Sweet-talking Socialist"

You know, I don't vote Republican but I'm sick and tired of hearing the same old crap from morons like Guido to the tune of "well, the R's would have done it if they were in power."

The Dems have been in power since 2006 - the economy has gotten remarkably worse. George Bush followed leftist economic policies on his way out and that has only further gotten us into this mess. Nancy Pelosi is writing the budgets and passing the bills by strongarming them through, so how, again, is this somehow the fault of the GOP?

At least the GOP has shame when they screw taxpayers, the Dems are doing it and demanding we smile as they do it. This is ridiculous, the Republicans are NOT as bad as the Democrats. The R's are bad, but NOTHING compared to passing TRILLION DOLLAR BILLS MONTHLY.

Hair of the dog that bit ya, right?

Ben W.,

Though I agree that Republicans tend to be potentially better than Dems, I'm not sure what comfort I'm supposed to take that they feel bad about screwing us; either way, we are screwed.

Also, it does no good to try and explain away the last two years of the Bush Administration. First, he and Republicans on the Hill worked en masse to explode the size of government during his first six years in power: the budget went from just under a trillion dollars to well over $2.4 trillion; they instituted the largest expansion of the entitlement state since LBJ with Bush's Medicare prescription drug program; the Federal role in education ballooned through NCLB; and Bush failed to veto a single bill his first six year. After the 2006 mid-terms, Bush and the Republicans improved only marginally. Bush found a couple of things to veto finally, but he signed into law every budget sent him and never offered one himself that didn't significantly increase federal expenditures. And it was Bush that led the charge to abrogate the free market in the midst of a crisis largely of his own making. He (and McCain) worked just as hard as any Democrat to nationalize firms like AIG, bailout GM and Chrysler, bailout the banks at a $700 billion price tag, encourage the Federal Reserve to pump an unprecedented amount of money into the economy, thus devaluing the dollar and threatening massive inflation here in the not-too-distant future.

So, let's stop kidding ourselves: "not as bad" still sucks really bad.

I was really happy to learn from Barackula that there are no earmarks in the Democrat's Spending Bill when all along I thought there were something like 9,000 of them.

That's a load off.

And talk about an edumacation! I learned from the Great One during the campaign that we don't have 50 but 57 states and now I've learned that the automobile was invented in the U.S. and not Germany!

Am I glad these guys are running things!

I think it worthwhile something I said in the middle of a comment I recently made here:

Now, it is far from a careless statement to suggest that McCain would have done essentially what Obama is doing (with perhaps a little lower price tag and a little different mix of Keynesian goodies meant to encourage consumption and thus "stimulate" the economy at a time when a market correction should be allowed to occur and savings should be encourages, first by example of lowering federal spending and paying down national debt). In fact, it is naive to think otherwise. After all, McCain was the biggest cheerleader for Bush's $700 billion bailout last fall. Further, his closest ally in the Senate, Lindsay Graham (R-SC) is in favor of Obama-light stimulus and even in favor of following the "Swedish model" of nationalizing the banks. And McCain is on record in his floor speech during the recent "stimulus" debate as saying the following:

"During a press conference in November 2008 to introduce the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, then President-elect Obama said that, "(T)he new way of doing business is, let's figure out what projects, what investments are going to give the American economy the most bang for their buck, how we protect taxpayer dollars so that this money is not wasted, restore a sense of confidence among taxpayers that, when we spend our money, it's on things that are actually going to improve their quality of life, create jobs that are so desperately needed, help to spur on economic growth and business creation in the private sector. That's all part of the new way of doing business."

"Mr. President, I was very pleased to hear President Obama speak those words."

McCain has been and ever will be a hard-core statist. He is not a conservative, except in his opposition to pork. His track record of supporting Keynesian stimulus plans and bailouts goes way back. And here he is saying that he applauds Obama's objective to increase gov't spending to "improve their quality of life, create jobs that are so desperately needed, help to spur on economic growth and business creation..." As if government can ever create without first destroying market capital.

As said, McCain would do essentially what Obama is doing, though in perhaps a different mix and maybe multiple packages as opposed to one. And the Republicans would have voted at least 50% with him. And the roll of Republicans would prove to remain as it has usually been: to bring legitimacy to every advance of the State and new set of interventions in the economy. The Dems advocate socialism, and the GOP thinks it is "conservative" by offering socialism-lite in its place. And the line moves one step closer to serfdom, never to be erased because the elephant writes in ink.

Sorry, forgot the link: context of preceding remarks was orignially here: http://www.flynnfiles.com/archives/politics2009/the_787_billion_sedative.html

It's just amazing how prescient you are. You can tell what McCain would have done even though he’ll never be in the position to do it. Incredible!

I think you jilted Conservatives are worse than the Democrats in your hatred for Republicans or anybody with an R next to their names who don't stringently conform to absolute Conservative principles.

In my perfect world, they would. But I hate to say that ALL candidates, by degree, will disappoint once in office and I doubt anybody could maintain the high and ideal standards set by some.

That said, McCain really $ucks. Bush, for me, to a lesser degree. But I can only judge on what they’ve done not guess at what they might do.

I'm still waiting for that website number.

It's called an educated guess, ASDF. You made the same re: Obama during the campaign. All informed voters do; that's part of their vote decision process. The best predictor of future behavior (or of what would have happened) is past behaviour. McCain's should have given no free market conservative any hope and much to fear - esp. with his top cheerleader role for the Bush bailouts.

Obviously, I've judged McCain and Bush on what they have done. (McCain is even worse than Bush because of his massive infringment of political speech that Bush said he would veto... oh, wait, Bush ended up signing that, too!) They have both been disasters on any number of counts. And no one has done more to undermine the free market than Bush -- by the very fact that he falsely claims and is incorrectly believed to be by most Americans a free market acolyte. No one confuses Obama's socialism with the free market. Lots of people confuse Bush's corporo-fascism with the free market. Blame thus gets falsely atributed and the exact wrong solutions become politically favored. So you are darned right a bunch of us who really are believers in the free market are pissed.

I was really happy to learn from Barackula that there are no earmarks in the Democrat's Spending Bill when all along I thought there were something like 9,000 of them.

Yeah, Thomas, I was amazed at that blatant lie when I heard it, too.

Here's the exact quote from the speech: "I’m proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks..."

What a load of crap! Heck, Chuch Shumer conceded how laden it was druing the "stimulus" debate, saying that Americans don't care about pork.

I posted on this article ( "Enemies of Capitalism") at my blog a month ago, but figure it would be useful here as it captures exactly why it is that principled conservatives like myself (as opposed to political "Conservatives" who lust for Party power over all else) have such antipathy for the likes of former President Dubya:

"New Rule: neomercantilists, neoconservatives, and statists are no longer allowed to call themselves 'free marketers.' People who call themselves free marketers such as Bush, Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke are the primary threat capitalism faces. These false prophets of capitalism are the greatest friends that proponents of socialism have."

Read the rest of this excellent article here.

If Obama had not been elected, any attempt to infer that he would have done what people thought he might have done would not matter one iota. I’d apply the same thought process to discussing what the ultimate loser would have done.

I understand where you’re coming from and to an extent agree. But I think that you’ll be waiting a long time for your prince to come. In the meantime, considering that we have the most left leaning politician ever to hold high office as a representive of a mainstream party, I hope we have a country left in another four years. You may not have to worry if the next guy is a Conservative, Republican or a RINO.

I believe that are three primary groups who are responsible for O getting into office: guilty liberals; under-educated kids; women. Now I would add another group: jilted Conservatives.

You confuse principle with an obsession with purity. How about a candidate that would actually move us in the right direction, instead of only maybe slowing the descent to socioeconomic hell in one direction while accelerating it in others? The way I see it, the question isn't whether we have a country left in x number of years; the Republic long since ceased to be, in large part b/c of pretend conservatives like Bush, McCain, ASDF, etc. I just want to get it back.

The context my point about what McCain would have likely done was in response to you, remember, about whether the alternative would have been worse. I made case in response that the prospects of conservatism, and thus of America, would have been worse under McCain and explained why I thought that. Obama is doing almost exactly what I figured he would before the election; I am just applying same reasoning now as I did then re: what a McCain presidency would look like.

Only someone who has a deranged GOP entitlement mentality (that all conservatives *must* vote elephant) could believe that "jilted conservatives" are responsible for Obama being in the White House. Rather, he is there because of electoral backlash to Bush and his so-called "conservative" enablers who have so unjustly tarnished the idea of a free market and freedom in general through their rampant statism the past eight years.

The fact that you wouldn't include Bush and his minions in your list of why Obama one is exactly the problem I have with so-called conservatives like you. You still can't call a spade a spade because of your elephant-dung colored glasses. You'd rather make yourself feel good attributing all evil to Obama, even if no one but a Hannity-or Savage-type sycophant would take such clearly incomplete and blindly partisan thinking seriously.

Did not George Washington die from leeches? He had an infection so they used leeches to bleed the bad blood out of him. When he did not get better, they bled him some more. Eventually he was bled so much that he died.

See any parallels?

Be well,

Sponge