Initial Remarks. "...we need to put this recovery plan in motion as soon as possible." WRONG!
First of all, it assumes that government spending is the solution. In fact, last year's stimulus checks were mostly saved, not spent; I believe if anything there's been an overdependence on the American consumer to spend beyond his means, and it looks like Obama is trying to bolster exactly "more of the same" misguided focus on getting a tapped-out American consumer to spend (vs. others, including business spending and investment). It assumes that all increased social spending is equally stimulative and better at generating jobs than decreasing business and investment taxes, eliminating bureaucratic red tape and government barriers to new business formation (e.g., onerous reporting requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley).
I have no problem with increased relief spending in a tough economic environment, but Obama, I think, puts the cart before the horse: government spending is a more scattershot approach to creating jobs: maybe you sell a few more widgets, but you may not expand hiring if you think the boost temporary in nature.
Second, it assumes the plan has been efficiently designed. As a matter of fact, Obama was pitching a plan that spent almost $800B, most of which would be spent not in this fiscal year--but AFTER the fiscal year, and hence not related to any short-term stimulus, but Democratic spending priorities. What other conclusion can you make of Obama's promise of transparency when he and the Democratic-controlled Congress pushed through a huge bill in less than a month from the get-go, with nobody quite sure of the details, the Democrats refusing to let the bill get read? This is the antithesis of transparency. It's like a sleazy used car dealer saying that the most important thing is seeing you behind the wheel of that creampuff, but it won't last long at this price. (Have your own car mechanic check it out? No need.) "Haste makes waste."
Third, Obama makes a tacit assumption that I don't accept: that government action is better than inaction. Pro sports is full of stories of athletes coming back from injury too soon and actually worsening their condition. We haven't let the market find a bottom, and it's very possible, if not likely, Obama's actions will be counterproductive and prolong the recession.
Finally, Obama has been talking down the economy; I personally believe he is purposefully doing that to garner political support for massive social spending. The tragedy of this is that his talking down the economy is becoming a self-fulfilling policy as companies engage in a bandwagon effect shedding workers.
"...there's no such thing as a free lunch..." Unless you're part of the 40% which pays no federal income tax but gets an Obama "tax cut"....
Questioner Julianna Goldman (question regarding sufficiency of remaining TARP funds).
"I don't want to preempt my Secretary of the Treasury; he's going to be laying out these principles in great detail tomorrow. " This is yet another classic Obama example of raising false expectations. Not only did Tim Geithner fail to provide "great deal", but the consensus on Wall Street was its lack of specificity, and the market tanked as a result.
Questioner Jake (question regarding metrics for success of his program)
Here Obama actually does a good job succinctly summarizing his criteria: first and foremost, stemming job losses and growing jobs; second, more bank lending; third, a stabilized housing market. One criticism I have is that his initial specification of hitting 4M new jobs is more of a long-term goal and won't happen over the coming year; Jake's question was directed more at an interim assessment allowing feedback to modify course if necessary. Second, a much clearer goal is ending the recession. Jobs follow growth. Growth goes beyond people spending and investing. Growth happens in a more stable environment, and Obama has been destabilizing the market with alarmist rhetoric; for someone focusing on job growth, he's looking more at "trickle down" consumer spending and totally ignoring business and investment taxes and related costs (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley). What he needs to do is to minimize the negative talk--lay off threats to increase the taxes of job creators, eliminate bureaucratic barriers to new business entry, make modest reforms (e.g., mark-to-market, versus the status quo which artificially understates the value of assets by assuming fire sale pricing of assets). It would also be helpful for him to ensure that Americans at least hold the line or reduce the net import of imported energy by developing all American sources of energy, including fossil fuels. Boutique energy solutions (like solar and wind) survive only because of lucrative government subsidies. Obama assumes that the American people are too stupid to realize that the same American free enterprise system which unleashed many marvelous medicial treatments and prescriptions and technology products and services has irrationally refused to address the potential profitability of green energy technology, but an inexperienced President knows the market than veteran researchers. At the same time, he could immediately increase jobs in the development and production of fossil fuels, with known, proven, profitable technology--but he refuses, wanting to pick and choose unprofitable, government-subsidized green energy, strictly for ideological reasons. "Cap and trade", massive green energy subsidies, and costly regulations and reporting requirements will sharply increase the energy bills of ordinary Americans, a cruel hoax while Obama is at the same time promising to give 95% of working Americans tax "cuts".
Ed Henry, CNN, trying to pin a withdrawal schedule from Afghanistan:
Obama did a fairly good job fending off strident liberal questions focusing on using US casualties from the Middle East for anti-war propaganda and demanding a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan, an interesting turning of the tables on Obama. My principal concern here was Obama's thinly-veiled cheap shots at the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which I thought were not helpful and in sharp contrast to the spirit of international relations expressed during the Presidential campaign.
Sam Stein, Huffington Post, on Senator Leahy's witchhunt of the Bush Administration
While Obama clearly leaves the door open for prosecution if the evidence is found, noting noone is above the law, he clearly realizes that it could be counterproductive, exasperate the bitter partisan wrangling which repudiates his own "post-partisan" vision, and serves as a distraction from his own agenda for the Democrats to launch politically motivated inquisitions. On the other hand, he clearly once again uses George W. Bush as a whipping boy, saying under Obama, "we do not torture" and "we abide by the Geneva Conventions". He's really making value judgments regarding terrorist suspects in custody, whom are not party to any convention. He's also making a thinly-veiled inference of treating all terrorist suspects, including those in a position to know planned operations against innocent civilians, under rules of warfare applied to captured enemy combatants.
Mara Liasson, noting it's easy for politicians to spend money and cut taxes, but noting how the GOP was not party to the stimulus bill, asks about how he intended to proceed wih tougher issues requiring GOP support:
This is a good question that focuses on the part that Obama did not present his own plan and then hold the line on the Democratic Congress' successful attempt to pump up non-stimulative spending. Obama is defensive and nonresponsive here. He's suggesting that that in essence the Democrats made huge concessions to the GOP for which he's not being given credit. [I suspect he's really referring to here Republican Grassley's attempt to address the alternative minimum tax reform; the alternate minimum tax was established to ensure higher-income taxpayers, after various deductions, tax-advantaged income, and the like, paid their fair share--but because of tax bracket creep, was catching some middle-class Americans.] Does Obama really expect, after campaigning for a tax "cut" for 95% of American workers, that a long-overdue measure meant to address a middle-class concern is a quid pro quo for hundreds of billions in Democratic spending priorities? Obama's untruthful, polemical response to questions on his so-called bipartisanship whereby the Democrats under Pelosi and Reid in Congress systematically excluded the GOP from any substantive role in drafting legislation is to say if he had any regrets, it was because he didn't get any GOP votes for his "concession" and if he had do it all over again, he would have held out AMT reform as a bargain chip for more GOP votes.
I find it truly remarkable that voters and commentators have paid little attention to what he said, because it reveals more of the real Obama. Either he believes in middle-class tax fairness or he doesn't. But by arguing AMT reform was a GOP priority, he's tacitly admitting it wasn't his. If it was his, why would he be arguing about using it as a bargaining chip? It would have been part and parcel of the legislation from the get-go.
Obama seems to think it's enough to have a few photo-op opportunities and high-profile meetings with Republicans, and then go out and do exactly what he was going to do anyway, disingenuously implying his lip service to bipartisanship was substantive. But then Obama makes his real feelings crystal clear:
Again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.Accusing the Republicans of being hypocrites for criticizing a bloated bill that is being misleadingly portrayed as primarily a short-term stimulus bill is sheer chutzpah. (Maybe that's the real "audacity" of so-called hope.) But while Obama scapegoats government spending in the aftermath of the Nasdaq meltdown, 9/11, financial scandals, and an ongoing war, he conveniently forgets to mention that the only Congress over the past 40 years to balance the federal budget was a Republican one. Many conservatives, including myself, are angry with Bush and the GOP leadership for their complacency during the national debt run-up.
But Obama's polemical talk goes beyond public spending:
There have been others on the Republican side or the conservative side who said no matter how much money you spend, nothing makes a difference, so let's just blow up the public school systems.This is yet another example of Obama tiresome, intellectually lazy habit of using straw man arguments. The Republican opposition to failing urban public schools is more nuanced; there's an effective monopoly and no competition. Teacher unions oppose changes to work rules, market-based salary differentiation (e.g., more pay to math and science teachers) and merit pay, and protect ineffective teachers. As Newt Gingrich noted in Real Change , the Detroit school system has proven ineffective, despite massive government spending. Whereas Obama in this press conference did touch on things like charter schools and firing bad teachers, they don't have the backing of Democratic Congressional leadership.
I hear people just saying, oh, we don't need to do anything, this is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill -- without acknowledging that by definition, part of any stimulus package would include spending.It is true that some conservatives think that the WRONG type of spending could actually be counterproductive and drag on the recession; in addition, we feel tax cuts (including business and investment) and faster writeoffs would be immediately stimulative. Obama is relying on primarily one aspect of growth, consumer spending, which, if anything, is overextended and tapped out at the expense of savings and investment.
Final Comments. Obama has had a penchant for long-winded responses, particularly early on during the campaign for the Democratic nomination. This performance lent credence to that reputation. Some of the questions were variations on others, and a few questions (e.g., steroid use in major league baseball) seemed to be of questionable priority given current economic challenges.
I don't think the journalists did a good job on following up on Obama's weak, general responses to their questions. I think Obama cherry picked the journalists, and I really didn't learn anything new that I didn't already know from listening to Obama. What did disappoint me were the cheap shots at Bush and the GOP in Congress. It's about time Obama starts acting on his promises of bipartisan negotiations and stops trying to compare himself with George W. Bush.
