Thought Experiment: What if Obama had said this way back when?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Imagine that Barack Obama had asked Congress for a $1.5 Trillion stimulus bill right up front.

And let's say Congress had passed exactly the bill that passed. (Which we "know" they would have because the bill that passed was "the best politically possible" bill, or so the DU CW goes.)

And let's say that President Obama addressed the nation from the oval office to sign the bill on TV and explain why he was signing it.

"We are in a serious situation so I have no choice but to sign this stimulus bill. It is better than nothing.

But Congress has made a grievous error, in my view. This bill is timid and politicized... Washington at its worst. Our elected representatives must have the courage to address our nations problems. This bill is inadequate to that task.

The bill I am signing tonight will help some people and some states, but mark my words. Unemployment will continue to climb over 10%. We will show positive GDP, but not levels of growth required to create the jobs we ned and restore the American peoples confidence to return to making economic decisions driven by confidence and hope, rather than fear."

Where would he be today?

He would look like a genius and congress' neurotic deficit hawking and penny-wise pound foolish ways would be in national disfavor. People would listen to him the next time around. And congress would be afraid to oppose him, rather than afraid to support him. (The current state of affairs.)

Supporting inefficient, useless chicken-shit is not genius politics. For some reason many folks think it is. But it isn't.

______________

On Edit: As people line up to criticize the OP, is anyone willing to say that 1) this was not all knowable back at the time, and 2) that Obama's political hand would not be stronger today had he taken this approach?

[sandnsea]

1. Passage of Stimulus A First Step

He did say that, but there's nobody in the media who wants to do anything but beat the hell out of the man so a lot of facts have just been blown to the wayside.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=aBz_85YKT4pE

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Oh please...

The way you know the President of the United States holds a view is that everyone in the country knows he holds it.

If everyone doesn't know then he is doing a bad job.

This is politics, not Talmudic interpretation.

He is the fucking PRESIDENT. I am so sick of hearing about how the fucking PRESIDENT cannot get his message out.

The reason his message is muddled is that he talks out of both sides of his mouth, not because the mean media won't report what he says.

There is no argument anyone can make that isn't met with the "but he said..." game.

He says a lot of things... often contradictory things. He is an ass-coverer who wants to be all things to all people.

So yes, there is always some Obama quote on every side of every issue. That is the problem, not the solution.

[sandnsea]

Look, just because DU doesn't know something

Doesn't mean the rest of the country doesn't remember.

[ProSense]

2. Seriously, did you miss the entire debate earlier this year?

Congress couldn't pass a $1 trillion dollar stimulus. It was a non-starter. Congress cut almost 200 from the original package.

Obama was smarter he implemented it in specific packages: $787 billion stimulus, $40 billion student aid, $3 billion cash for clunkers, billions in home buyers tax credits. He has propose diverting unused/repaid TARP, about $350 billion, to small business loans. Next up, the jobs bill.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Read harder or post less.

[ProSense]

7. Take your own advice. n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. You can say that when you're President!

It will be genius politics!

[AllentownJake]

4. All the economist he surrounded himself with were projecting a lower unemployment

reaction to the recession. They asked for the amount they though was necessary. Wouldn't have happened because the conclusions they were making 9 months ago, were incorrect.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Yes. And that was his error.

The point of the OP is that Obama has handled this situation for shit every step of the way.

Part of that was picking advisors willing to tell him what he wanted to hear.

Terrible leadership 101.

Since I said everything expressed in the OP word for word back when it was going down I cannot pretend that the Condi Rice "Nobody could imagine that..." line is a usable excuse for the President, aka the smartest person who ever drew breath.

Or maybe they were not telling him what he wanted to hear. Maybe he was telling us what he wanted us to hear. The unemployment projections used were not believable at the timeand I think at least some of Obama's advisors knew that. Perhaps the blue-chip consensus estimates based on backward looking data that had already been made useless by subsequent developments were used because they were thought to be politically convenient.

But, as the OP is meant to state, they were not politically convenient. They were political poison.

[AllentownJake]

10. He's a lawyer

the man knows about as much about economics as Larry Summers understands about law.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Fair enough, but he's supposed to know politics

I posted so much stuff here back then about the purely political error being made by selling the public bogus unemployment projections...

It was always obvious that unemployment was going to exceed the admin's happy-talk and that it would be a serious political problem because at that point Obama would own unemployment.

[AllentownJake]

12. He screwed up

It's one of his character flaws. Put an optimistic picture and a pessimistic picture in front of the man, he drifts towards the optimistic picture. He's a pragmatist politically, but everything in his political life shows he will err on believing the best in people as opposed to looking at individuals pragmatically.

[DJ13]

9. I wish he would talk like that, but its not his nature

"But Congress has made a grievous error, in my view. This bill is timid and politicized... Washington at its worst. Our elected representatives must have the courage to address our nations problems. This bill is inadequate to that task."


Obama is (in his mind) a "unifier", not someone who would take on his own party directly.

Of course, thats the underlying reason his approach to our economic problems have been criticized by his own party, but he doesnt see it, so he wont change.