Catastrophe Read Online Free
Author: Dick Morris
we were when he took office. That’s why it’s crucial for us to understand what he’s doing to our country—so that we can reject his socialist agenda in the congressional elections of 2010.
“NEVER LET A SERIOUS CRISIS GO TO WASTE”
—RAHM EMANUEL
Having won the presidency, carried a top-heavy majority in the House, and filled the Senate with sixty Democrats, Obama knew he could count on easy sailing in Congress. He would have no problem getting most of the new spending programs he wanted passed during his term (or two) in office. He would likely succeed where Clinton had failed and pass health care reform.
But Obama had more—a lot more—in mind. He had no interest in a typical Democratic presidency, with the focus on incremental change that characterized the Carter and Clinton years. He wanted to be a president in the mold of Lyndon Johnson or even Franklin D. Roosevelt. He wanted to pass everything, and he wanted to do so right away.
Just as the economic crisis showed him the way to win the election, now it pointed the way to pass his program. He merely had to rebrand his radical/socialist agenda as an economic recovery package.
Taking a page from Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, Obama decided he wouldn’t “let a serious crisis go to waste.” Far from being wasted, this crisis would be put to a cynical use—to catalyze the most dramatic change in American politics and economics since the 1930s. When Obama got finished “solving” the crisis, nothing would ever be the same again.
Suddenly everything was possible! No need to wait year after year to pass the programs on the environment, energy, welfare, education, health care, higher education, veterans, infrastructure, and urban problems thatDemocrats had been pushing for years. Do it all at once! Jam through eight years of new spending proposals in one year! For that matter, do it in one week!
By cramming every Democratic spending fantasy into one bill—into that Trojan horse called “the stimulus package”—Obama could have it all, up front. No waiting.
It was just like the game urban social work agencies have played for years. The antipoverty storefront of the 1960s became the community development program of the 1970s. In the 1980s it morphed into an empowerment zone. Under Clinton it became a job training center, under Bush a tutoring program for No Child Left Behind. Same storefront. Same staff. Same clientele. Just a different shingle hanging outside.
So now Obama could put his entire agenda on the table at once, declare a national crisis, and jam it through. No time for debate. No time even to print the bill so members could read what they were voting for. Emergency!
Despite the empirical evidence that spending and one-shot tax cuts don’t work, Obama couldn’t resist. He finally had a chance to take advantage of Keynesian economic theory, to get Congress to pass all of his pet spending bills—his fantasies about renovating schools, computerizing health records, rebuilding roads and bridges, spreading broadband access, widening health care coverage of children and the unemployed, increasing scientific research, building alternative energy sources, and so on in the name of stimulating the economy, and so on. Suddenly everything was a stimulus measure.
Obama must have known that his stimulus package would do little to end the recession. He must have realized that the simple Keynesian approach wouldn’t work. But he didn’t care. He wanted the spending. He wanted the social programs. He wanted government to grow, and this was his excuse for doing it.
The wonderful thing about a spending/stimulus package is that it doesn’t really matter what you spend the money on. A check is a check is a check. It doesn’t matter if you’re hiring a teacher or a cop or a scientist or an artist or a dishwasher. The goal is to spend money, and it doesn’t much make a difference what the money is buying. So Obama invited the House and Senate
“NEVER LET A SERIOUS CRISIS GO TO WASTE”
—RAHM EMANUEL
Having won the presidency, carried a top-heavy majority in the House, and filled the Senate with sixty Democrats, Obama knew he could count on easy sailing in Congress. He would have no problem getting most of the new spending programs he wanted passed during his term (or two) in office. He would likely succeed where Clinton had failed and pass health care reform.
But Obama had more—a lot more—in mind. He had no interest in a typical Democratic presidency, with the focus on incremental change that characterized the Carter and Clinton years. He wanted to be a president in the mold of Lyndon Johnson or even Franklin D. Roosevelt. He wanted to pass everything, and he wanted to do so right away.
Just as the economic crisis showed him the way to win the election, now it pointed the way to pass his program. He merely had to rebrand his radical/socialist agenda as an economic recovery package.
Taking a page from Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, Obama decided he wouldn’t “let a serious crisis go to waste.” Far from being wasted, this crisis would be put to a cynical use—to catalyze the most dramatic change in American politics and economics since the 1930s. When Obama got finished “solving” the crisis, nothing would ever be the same again.
Suddenly everything was possible! No need to wait year after year to pass the programs on the environment, energy, welfare, education, health care, higher education, veterans, infrastructure, and urban problems thatDemocrats had been pushing for years. Do it all at once! Jam through eight years of new spending proposals in one year! For that matter, do it in one week!
By cramming every Democratic spending fantasy into one bill—into that Trojan horse called “the stimulus package”—Obama could have it all, up front. No waiting.
It was just like the game urban social work agencies have played for years. The antipoverty storefront of the 1960s became the community development program of the 1970s. In the 1980s it morphed into an empowerment zone. Under Clinton it became a job training center, under Bush a tutoring program for No Child Left Behind. Same storefront. Same staff. Same clientele. Just a different shingle hanging outside.
So now Obama could put his entire agenda on the table at once, declare a national crisis, and jam it through. No time for debate. No time even to print the bill so members could read what they were voting for. Emergency!
Despite the empirical evidence that spending and one-shot tax cuts don’t work, Obama couldn’t resist. He finally had a chance to take advantage of Keynesian economic theory, to get Congress to pass all of his pet spending bills—his fantasies about renovating schools, computerizing health records, rebuilding roads and bridges, spreading broadband access, widening health care coverage of children and the unemployed, increasing scientific research, building alternative energy sources, and so on in the name of stimulating the economy, and so on. Suddenly everything was a stimulus measure.
Obama must have known that his stimulus package would do little to end the recession. He must have realized that the simple Keynesian approach wouldn’t work. But he didn’t care. He wanted the spending. He wanted the social programs. He wanted government to grow, and this was his excuse for doing it.
The wonderful thing about a spending/stimulus package is that it doesn’t really matter what you spend the money on. A check is a check is a check. It doesn’t matter if you’re hiring a teacher or a cop or a scientist or an artist or a dishwasher. The goal is to spend money, and it doesn’t much make a difference what the money is buying. So Obama invited the House and Senate
Readers choose
Charles Mathes
Julianna Baggott
J. A. Laraque
Rachel Wise
Ben Bova
Rosalie Stanton
Harper Bentley
A. Bertram Chandler
Craig Johnson
Margaret Moore