MONROE NEWS STAR
By Kevin A. Unter
July 13, 2009
What do you mean the stimulus isn’t working as advertised, that we had to pass that thing without anyone reading it, or unemployment would reach 8.5 percent? Only now it’s heading into double-digit territory. The administration’s excuse? “We underestimated how bad the economy was at the time.” Please.
Then there’s this whopper that the “the stimulus has saved or created 150,000 jobs.” Meanwhile, total unemployment has jumped to 6.88 million people, the highest since 1967. Last week’s new unemployment totals were just under 578,000. At this time last year they were 367,000. So now, President Obama is talking about a “second stimulus,” you know, because the first one seems to be working so well.
Even President Obama’s own projections for unemployment figures, even with the first stimulus, do not have unemployment falling back to 2008 totals until 2013. Of course we’re seeing how well he’s doing with his projections (“did I say 8 percent? I mean 18 percent.”). Instead of more talk of failed left-wing attempts to correct the economy, how about, “we have no idea what we are doing” because that seems more accurate.
Time for one quick fact. In fiscal 2001, the entire proposed budget was $1.84 trillion. The Office of Management and Budget estimates the fiscal 2009 budget deficit will be $1.89 trillion. Hard to blame that on George W. Bush, isn’t it? But the left will try. And that’s without health care “reform” or “cap and trade.” Even drunken sailors are amazed at how much money is being spent by the Democrats.
Kevin A. Unter, assistant professor of political science, is head of the department of Gerontology, Sociology and Political Science at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.