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Craig Pirrong says the proposed reorganization of commerce and trade duties is like rearranging the deck chairs on the “fiscal Titanic.”
Yesterday, Obama formally requested that Congress raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion. This came only days after Federal debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP–and that doesn’t take into account the vast sums in future government spending commitments, on entitlements particularly. With deficits running about 10 percent of GDP, debt will increase to about 110 percent of GDP in a year, 120 percent of GDP the year after that . . . I’ll leave the rest as an exercise for the class. In the meantime, growth remains sluggish, thereby making it progressively more difficult to pay for that mounting debt.
Meaning that the country’s fiscal situation is fraught, and only likely to become more so, due primarily to the growth in entitlement spending.
So what is Obama’s response? Supporting passage of a serious budget? Advancing a credible and enforceable plan for containing entitlement spending growth?
Surely you jest. The actual response is to reorganize the deck chairs on this fiscal Titanic: …
… Overlooking Obama’s typical defiance of Constitutional niceties (he said he’d do this with or without Congress), maybe this makes sense, when evaluated on its own merits. But any efficiency improvements that result are rounding errors on rounding errors. To say this is an irrelevance and a distraction is the understatement of the century. …
Peter Ferrara examines Obama’s economic record.
The record of President Obama’s first three years in office is in, and nothing that happens now can go back and change that. What that record shows is that President Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
The recession started in December, 2007. Go to the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org) to see the complete history of America’s recessions. What that history reveals is that before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months.
When President Obama entered office in January, 2009, the recession was already in its 13th month. His responsibility was to manage a timely, robust recovery to get America back on track again. Based on the historical record, that recovery was imminent, within a couple of months or so. Despite widespread fear, nothing fundamental had changed to deprive America of the long term, world-leading prosperity it had enjoyed going back 300 years.
Supposedly a forward looking progressive, Obama proved to be America’s first backward looking regressive. His first act was to increase federal borrowing, the national debt and the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars to finance a supposed “stimulus” package, based on the discredited Keynesian theory left for dead 30 years ago holding that increased government spending, deficits and debt are what promote economic growth and recovery. That theory arose in the 1930s as the answer to the Great Depression, which, of course, never worked. …
… Today, over 4 years since the recession started, there are still almost 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. That includes 5.6 million who are long-term unemployed for 27 weeks, or more than 6 months. Under President Obama, America has suffered the longest period with so many in such long-term unemployment since the Great Depression.
Notably, blacks have been suffering another depression under Obama, with unemployment today, 49 months after the recession started, still at 15.8%. Black unemployment has been over 15% for 2 ½ years under Obama. Black teenage unemployment today is over 40%, where it has persisted for over 2 years as well.
Hispanics have also been suffering a depression under Obama, with unemployment today still in double digits at 11%. Hispanic unemployment has been in double digits for three years under President Obama. Over one fourth of Hispanic youths remain unemployed today, which also has persisted for years.
The Census Bureau reported in September that more Americans are in poverty today than at any time in the entire history of Census tracking poverty. Americans dependent on food stamps are at an all time high as well. …
Jennifer Rubin writes about the chances of a better economic future.
Mitt Romney’s victory speech in New Hampshire was the most effective of this campaign. Clearly he aimed to defuse critics who are intent on underplaying his remarkable win. Reminding the crowd that no one other than an incumbent president has ever won both the Iowa and New Hampshire contests, he declared: “Tonight we made history!”
It was both a general election speech and a rebuke to his Republican challengers.
He began by making his case against President Obama:
The middle class has been crushed. Nearly 24 million of our fellow Americans are still out of work, struggling to find work, or have just stopped looking. The median income has dropped 10 percent in four years. Soldiers returning from the front lines are waiting in unemployment lines. Our debt is too high and our opportunities too few. And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, ‘It could be worse.’ It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse?
Invoking a campaign catch phrase, he told the cheering crowd: “The President has run out of ideas. Now, he’s running out of excuses.” …
Here is Romney’s speech.
“Thank you, New Hampshire! Tonight, we made history!
This state has always been a special place for our family. Ann and I made a home here and we’ve filled it with great memories of our children and grandchildren. And this Granite State moment is one we will always remember.
Tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we go back to work.
We remember when Barack Obama came to New Hampshire four years ago.
He promised to bring people together.
He promised to change the broken system in Washington.
He promised to improve our nation.
Those were the days of lofty promises made by a hopeful candidate. Today, we are faced with the disappointing record of a failed President. The last three years have held a lot of change, but they haven’t offered much hope. …
Andrew Malcolm notes Romney’s rise in the polls.
Mitt Romney appears to be gaining steam in a new national poll, especially among conservatives.
Former Governor Romney now leads former Representative Newt Gingrich, 34-18, according to a CNN/ORC International survey completed yesterday of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.
Last month before Todd Palin’s endorsement of Gingrich the pair were tied at 28%. In November Romney had only 20% support. …
According to Charles Krauthammer, Ron Paul has been a big winner too.
There are two stories coming out of New Hampshire. The big story is Mitt Romney. The bigger one is Ron Paul.
Romney won a major victory with nearly 40 percent of the vote, 16 points ahead of No. 2. The split among his challengers made the outcome even more decisive. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were diminished by distant, lower-tier finishes. Rick Perry got less than 1 percent. And Jon Huntsman, who staked everything on New Hampshire, came in a weak third with less than half of Romney’s vote. He practically moved to the state — and then received exactly one-sixth of the vote in a six-man contest. Where does he go from here?
But the bigger winner was Ron Paul. He got 21 percent in Iowa, 23 in New Hampshire, the only candidate other than Romney to do well with two very different electorates, one more evangelical and socially conservative, the other more moderate and fiscally conservative.
Paul commands a strong, energetic, highly committed following. And he is unlike any of the other candidates. They’re out to win. He admits he doesn’t see himself in the Oval Office. They’re one-time self-contained enterprises aiming for the White House. Paul is out there to build a movement that will long outlive this campaign.