Quote of the Day

President Obama — Diminishing himself to serve Speaker Pelosi, Powerline Blog, Feb. 6, 2009.

Last night President Obama delivered a speech to the House Democrats in defense of their fiscal stimulus package. Obama's speech is so breath-takingly superficial and fundamentally dishonest that it must be read to be (dis)believed.
    Here is Obama's answer to the charge that the bill contains too much pork:
Then there's the argument, well, this is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one. (Applause.) And when you start asking, well, what is it exactly that is such a problem that you're seeing, where's all this waste and spending? Well, you know, you want to replace the federal fleet with hybrid cars. Well, why wouldn't we want to do that? (Laughter.) That creates jobs for people who make those cars. It saves the federal government energy. It saves the taxpayers energy. (Applause.)
    Thus Obama answers the charge that the bill "is full of pet projects" by noting that a bill of this magnitude with no earmarks is unheard of. And, in response to the dozens of pork projects idenitifed by the bill's critics, he defends one minor one.
    But Obama was only getting warmed up. His major howler was this:
So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That's the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point.
    Under this "logic," any bill that contains spending should be enacted because, by definition, it provides "stimulus." It doesn't matter how much stimulus is provided or when the stimulus will occur. This is quite possibly the most irresponsible position ever taken by a president on an economic issue.
    Just a few weeks ago, in his inauguation speech, Obama said that his touchstone for governmental action is how well it will work. Now the touchstone is whether it constitutes spending.

After 3 months of deliberation with his economic advisors, The One's™ policies can be summarized as: 1) we need to spend about $800B, 2) it doesn't matter how it is spent, and 3) anyone who opposes such profligate spending is misguided and needs to get with the program of paying-off all the Dhimmicrat special interest groups. Castigating those who wish to return to the "failed" policies of the past like tax cuts, which have successfully stimulated the economy every time in the past when they were tried, he then proposes to emulate the policies of FDR, which were a monstrous failure.