Parsing the Spendulus Speech, Part V

As you know, your Wizer likes to examine the math:

CBO estimates that enacting the conference agreement for H.R. 1
would increase federal budget deficits by $185 billion over the remaining
months of fiscal year 2009, by $399 billion in 2010, by $134 billion in
2011, and by $787 billion over the 2009-2019 period -- Congressional Budget Office, letter from Douglas Elmendorf to Nancy Pelosi, Friday, February 13, 2009

So, now, by popular demand, we hereby complete our series on analyzing the president's spendulus speech from "Fatter Tuesday "

And it’s a plan that rewards responsibility, lifting two million Americans from poverty by ensuring that anyone who works hard does not have to raise a child below the poverty line. As a whole, this plan will help poor and working Americans pull themselves into the middle class in a way we haven’t seen in nearly fifty years. What I am signing, then, is a balanced plan with a mix of tax cuts and investments.


So, does Barry really know what he signed? He was not familiar with the Gitmo order, and it was only a few pages long. This one is over 1000 pages. Anyway, his "people" have no doubt told him that this plan has balance. It really doesn't, and I know that because it doesn't have to have balance. Emanual was not going to waste this opportunity, no sir. And here he and Obama are picking and choosing who they want to put into the middle class. If they would stop trying to classify everybody, maybe they'd find out people are happy wherever they are on the economic scale.



It is a plan that’s been put together without earmarks or the usual pork barrel spending. And it is a plan that will be implemented with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability. With a recovery package of this scale comes a responsibility to assure every taxpayer that we are being careful with the money they work so hard to earn.

If it's all the same to Barry and Rahm, I'd be happy if they would carefully put our money down and back away. No, I know it's not going to happen, but the image of them being forced to back away is a powerful dream.

That’s why I am assigning a team of managers to ensure that the precious dollars we have invested are being spent wisely and well. We will hold the governors and local officials who receive money to the same high standards. And we expect you, the American people, to hold us accountable for the results. That is why we have created Recovery.gov – so every American can go online and see how their money is being spent.

Hoo boy, that will be an adventure. I'm picturing an advanced dungeons and dragonsy game where bags of gold are dropped all over the place, and then more bags, and then some more. What characters should we play? I'd like to be Spendulus. You can be Porky.

As important as the step we take today is, this legislation represents only the first part of the broad strategy we need to address our economic crisis. In the coming days and weeks, I will be launching other aspects of the plan. We will need to stabilize, repair, and reform our banking system, and get credit flowing again to families and businesses.

Translation: If that doesn't work, we'll try something else. There are still blank checks in the checkbook.

We will need to end a culture where we ignore problems until they become full-blown crises instead of recognizing that the only way to build a thriving economy is to set and enforce firm rules of the road.

The American people will settle instead for a government that does not create more problems than it solves.

We must stem the spread of foreclosures and falling home values for all Americans, and do everything we can to help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, something I will talk more about tomorrow. And while we need to do everything in the short-term to get our economy moving again, we must recognize that having inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, we need to begin restoring fiscal discipline and taming our exploding deficits over the long-term. None of this will be easy.

Oh, responsible homeowners? Okay, so you guys over there that are irresponsible, you go home. We have to leave 3 or 4 of you out to make it look like we care about this trillion dollar deficit.

The road to recovery will not be straight and true. It will demand courage and discipline, and a new sense of responsibility that has been missing – from Wall Street to Washington. There will be hazards and reverses along the way. But I have every confidence that if we are willing to continue doing the difficult work that must be done – by each of us and by all of us – then we will leave this struggling economy behind us, and come out on the other side, more prosperous as a people. For our American story is not – and has never been – about things coming easy. It’s about rising to the moment when the moment is hard, converting crisis into opportunity, and seeing to it that we emerge from whatever trials we face stronger than we were before. It’s about rejecting the notion that our fate is somehow written for us, and instead laying claim to a destiny of our own making. That is what earlier generations of Americans have done, and that is what we are doing today. Thank you.

I think Obama is smart enough to know that the American economy is likely to cycle up in three years even despite the spendulus package. He will get away with this, not because of the spending, but in spite of it. Unfortunately, the permanent damage will be extensive and unrepentantly stubborn. Everything will seem wonderful by 2012, and that will be enough to trick the people who voted for him to do it again. It's too bad he couldn't choose to have a recovery in 2010 instead, and let the economy grow from there.