President Obama will deliver yet another “major speech” after he returns from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation. Among other things, he promises the speech will contain details of a new “stimulus plan” for getting America’s stagflating economy back on the right track. According to the Washington Post, “Obama also plans to announce a major push for new deficit reduction, urging the special congressional committee formed in the debt ceiling deal this month to identify even more savings than the $1.5 trillion it has been tasked with finding. In packaging the two, he will make the case that short-term spending can lead to long-term savings.” Note two things here: First, spending $859 billion on Obama’s economic stimulus follies in 2009 failed miserably to get the economy growing, so the president wants to try it again in 2011. Since unemployment remains above 9 percent and millions of Americans have given up even looking for new jobs, it’s worth reviewing what he and other prominent Democrats promised the 2009 stimulus program would do.
» Obama: “It’s a plan that will save or create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years.”
» Vice President Biden: “Because this is about getting this [stimulus funds] out and spent in 18 months to create 3.5 million jobs … so the rest of the good work that’s being done here literally drop-kicks us out of this recession.”
» Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: “This bill creates 3.5 million jobs.”
» House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.: “House-passed bill/Obama plan (HR 1) creates 3.7 million jobs.”
» Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: “And it’s a very significant stimulus; 3.5 million to 4 million jobs is a lot of jobs.”
» Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.: “The House and Senate have taken a critical step forward by passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It will give our economy the jolt it needs, create jobs, and help get our country back on track.”
If these Democratic luminaries got it so spectacularly wrong in 2009 with their stimulus spending promises, why should Americans give them another shot at throwing hundreds of billions more tax dollars down this same rat hole in 2011? It cannot be said often enough: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.
Second, note the “just let us spend more now, we will cut spending later” formulation is surrounded by an appeal to the debt-ceiling deal’s supercommittee of 12 to go beyond its assigned task of finding $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. This is classic Obama rhetorical misdirection: Talk about something that sounds responsible and consistent with public opinion, even as he proposes doing something entirely different. The short-term investment of $859 billion in economic stimulus spending two years ago was also promised to produce long-term savings too, not because it actually would so but because that’s what Washington’s professional politicians always promise: Just let us spend more today and things will be better tomorrow. Well, tomorrow is here and, as the old song by the Who said, we won’t get fooled again.
