So I'm refereeing kids soccer this season and some of the refs insist on factoring in the intention of the child. They are over thinking the game, a foul is a foul and a lie is a lie. For instance:
This budget builds on the steps we've taken over the last 100 days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity.
This is a lie. Read this excellent article for reality.
I expect to sign legislation by the end of this year that sets new rules of the road for Wall Street, rules that reward drive and innovation, as opposed to shortcuts and abuse.
Obama never understands the crisis, from 2007
We certainly do not face a test of the magnitude that Roosevelt's generation did.
More below on proposed regulation and bigger lies...
Rewarding "drive and innovation" in the banking industry is not going to save America from a depression. The financial sector represented 4.7% of total employment, 4.1 million workers, in 2006. Then there are the huge number employed by the housing boom. And another huge number in our war industry. These jobs were not created by any "invisible hand" - they are the direct results of government policies and programs.
This brings us to the big lie. Obama insists, beyond all reason like Bush with WMD, that stimulation and regulation are enough to revive the American economy. That we can replace enormous government employment programs in the financial, housing and military sectors with mild government encouragement in the energy, infrastructure and health sectors. But, unlike Bush, he obviously doesn't believe his own lie since the war stays on, the banks are propped up in their current ridiculous state and interest rates remain low enough for the hope of more housing bubble. If he really believes
But even as we clear away the wreckage of this recession, I've also said that we can't go back to an economy that's built on a pile of sand, on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards, on overleveraged banks and outdated regulations that allow recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of all.
then he must state what the bedrock he is building the economy on is.
If the bedrock is to be manufacturing then you end the "free trade" and "strong dollar" nonsense policies that have closed much of American manufacturing.
The percentage of U.S. workers employed in manufacturing has dropped from 16.5% in 1987 to 10.8% today. Even so, as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) points out, when you consider that manufacturing accounts for $1.5 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP), if U.S. manufacturing was a country, it would be the eighth largest economy in the world. In fact, three manufacturing sectors -- food and beverage, computers and high-tech, and transportation/motor vehicles -- account for roughly 30% of the total manufacturing GDP
Again "free trade" and "strong dollar" are government policies and programs just like interest rates and taxes - not some "invisible hand", "free market" decision made by some economic deity.
Or if we prefer the new bedrock to be infrastructure then fine but you have to get much more serious about what we are building. Is it fiber optic internet to every curb? Or trains?
Or maybe we prefer spending serious money to promote jobs in education. These are all possibilities. But Obama is telling us there is no choice to be made here and we can simply "middle of the road" lie our way out of the whole dilemma - this lie will have catastrophic results if, like Bush, he does not back down and gets a pass from the media and the American public.