My take on: Unemployment and $787B Economic "Stimulus" Bill, Part #1

Let me start out by stating that former President Bush is not the source of every single problem that our country is currently facing. Most importantly, Bush is not responsible (at least completely) for the economic recession that we are in the midst of. President Bush even tried the liberal idea of a "stimulus" package when in early 2008, he signed a bill of $152 billion in an attempt to avoid any depression. In reality, it was the lowering of housing regulations by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (pressured by representative Barney Frank, D-Mass) that caused the housing market to crash and push our unstable economy over the edge. Indeed, Frank said this about the housing market just prior to the crash: "These two entities...are not facing any kind of financial crisis.... The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing" (http://www.cnsnews.com/PUBLIC/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=46378). Therefore, it can be understood that Bush, who opposed Frank in lowering the regulations, is not solely responsible for the "inherited" debt and economic problems that President Obama blames him for.

Calling the need to recover the economy an emergency, Obama and the Democrats shoved through a massive 787 billion dollar stimulus bill. (In fact, not a single Republican in the House voted for the bill.) This omnibus spending bill supposedly included hundreds of "shovel-ready" projects that simply needed funding before they could create jobs. I won't even get into the fact that many of the projects were ones that should have been funded and organized by the local and state governments, rather than the federal. 'Obama also pledged to "slash earmarks to no greater than 1994 levels" of 1,318. Then he signed an omnibus spending bill with 9,287 earmarks -- the second most in American history' (http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed032409e.cfm).


President Obama promised that with the stimulus package in place, the economy would immediately begin to turn around and unemployment would decrease. Oh, really? Well, unfortunately for the Obama administration, that didn't happen. Unemployment has now reached 9.5 percent, the highest it has been in almost 26 years. In all fairness, Obama should not be blamed for the soaring unemployment rates, but then again, he should have never made the ridiculous promise that with the stimulus bill in place, unemployment would not rise about 9 percent. Needless to say, "the promised benefits from the $800 billion in additional federal spending and debt remain invisible" (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/02/unemployment-spike-defies-%E2%80%98stimulus%E2%80%99-claims/).

Fortunately, the American people are starting to figure out that Obama's plan for turning the economy around was a bad idea, and it is starting to reflect in the polls. (Not to mention the fact that he isn't coming close to keeping his promises.) In a poll conducted by Gallup, Obama's job approval rating is now at 56 percent, down almost 8 points in less than one month. (By the way, President Bush was still holding out at 58 percent at this point in his first term.) Looks like your honeymoon is over, Mr. President. Speaking of which, more on the outrageous love-fest between Obama and the media will be coming soon.

If you'd like to read the 1,200 page bill, including all 9,287 earmarks...here's the link: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1105

Sources:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/28/news/economy/house_vote_wednesday/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/
http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

ARC