Surprise, Surprise

The states hit hardest by the recession are getting the least amount of “stimulus.” Well, what else would you expect from Barack Hoover Obama?

[Mid-morning update]

Or is he Jimmy Carter? At this point, that’s a best-case scenario, I think.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 7:37 am by Rand Simberg and is filed under Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Surprise, Surprise”

1. Posts about Barack Obama as of July 20, 2009 » The Daily Parr Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 8:02 am

   [...] to abortion created in Roe “was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Surprise, Surprise – transterrestrial.com 07/20/2009 The states hit hardest by the recession are getting the least [...]

2. Ed Driscoll Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 8:54 am

   Mister, We’ve Got A Man Like Herbert Hoover Again!…

   In the past, Harper’s magazine has been so far ahead of the news cycle that Lewis Lapham, their venerable arch-liberal former editor, didn’t even bother to wait for the Republicans’ 2004 convention to actually occur before filing a s…

3. Alan K. Henderson Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 8:56 am

   Hoover is also the name of a vacuum cleaner…

   Obama sucks. Literally.

4. Inside the Asylum :: When comparing Obama to Carter is a good thing... :: July :: 2009 Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

   [...] at Transterrestrial we get this comment: Well, what else would you expect from Barack Hoover Obama? Or is he Jimmy [...]

5. Karl Hallowell Says:
   July 21st, 2009 at 5:57 am

   I think this quote is typical of the new attitude about Keynesian spending.

   An Obama administration official told FOXNews.com that “it is not as simple as looking where the money goes. You could have someone who lives in Maryland and works in Virginia and they are benefited from money given to the Virginia firm even though they live in Maryland.” She also noted that it didn’t really matter who got the money because “giving out money is good for everyone. If you give the money to an old person, they will spend it and that will create more jobs.”

   Just imagine that the Obama administration cut taxes (or had left the Bush tax cuts in place) instead of increased spending and had done so distributed in a similar manner as described in the Fox story. You know what we’d call that policy? Trickle down economics. It’ll be interesting to contrast this approach with the Reagan one.

   One important distinction to make is that a tax cut can be far less discerning than a spending increase and still improve the efficiency of the US economy. In other words, you can be quite casual about what taxes are cut and still get a better economy. Effectively, you’re removing an economic roadblock. There may be some odd consequences (like a reduction in capital gains tax relative to corporate and dividend taxes resulted in a boost to growth stocks), but it’s better than before.

   On the other hand, poorly thought out spending increases are likely to result in considerable unintended consequences as some parties radically change their behavior in order to exploit loopholes and get more of that money. For example, paying farmers not to farm just doesn’t make sense unless one believes as above that giving money for a perverse reason still somehow helps everyone.

6. ken anthony Says:
   July 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 am

   The government has to take it to give it and adds inefficiency every time. Basically the government acts like a slot machine. While it may point to some winners the benefits go mainly to those that don’t add to the economy.

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