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Obama’s ‘pass this [stimulus] bill’ speech

Unfortunately, except for the price tag, President Obama’s big jobs stimulus speech was nothing new and all too familiar and repetitive.

It really was that repetitive. Obama used some version of “pass this bill” — 17 times in his stimulus speech.

Obama claimed this latest, now $447 billion spending bill would be paid for:

And everything in this bill will be paid for.  Everything.

[. . .]

And here’s the other thing I want the American people to know: The American Jobs Act will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for. And here’s how.

The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It also charges this Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Tonight, I am asking you to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act.

Even the fact checkers at the Associated Press called Obama out on that one:

THE FACTS: Obama did not spell out exactly how he would pay for the measures contained in his nearly $450 billion American Jobs Act but said he would send his proposed specifics in a week to the new congressional supercommittee charged with finding budget savings. White House aides suggested that new deficit spending in the near term to try to promote job creation would be paid for in the future – the “out years,” in legislative jargon – but they did not specify what would be cut or what revenues they would use.

Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today’s Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.

Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.

So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.

As to Obama’s claim that this stimulus will not “add to the deficit,” the fact checkers disagree again:

THE FACTS: It’s hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery. Deficits are calculated for individual years. The accumulation of years of deficit spending has produced a national debt headed toward $15 trillion. Perhaps Obama meant to say that, in the long run, his hoped-for programs would not further increase the national debt, not annual deficits.

Or as the Wall Street Journal put it:

It will only be paid for if a committee he can’t control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future – the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals – don’t roll it back. . . . [T]here is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.

It is important to note two things that Obama did not say in his speech. First, unlike the 2009 boondoggle, Obama did not tell us how may jobs the new stimulus would create. When Mitt Romney unveiled his jobs program, he told us it would create 11.5 million new jobs for Americans within four years.

Second, following the lead of Nancy Pelosi, Obama did not use the word “stimulus” once in 4,000-odd word speech. the Obamacrats’ 2009 stimulus was such an epic failure that now they can’t even use the “s word.”

COMMENTS

  • bobojake

    for a medical evaluation. Repeating the same phrase over and over is not dementia but it has a name

    • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

      NT

  • azred

    on one of the early news releases. Probably based on the same multiplier logic that Stimulus I was predicated on.

  • Michael Dugas

    Is this another shadow bill yet to be produced or is there some legislation I haven’t heard of?

  • Next93

    Three years ago, candidate Obama told us that he could fix what was wrong with the economy, but used soaring rhetoric in place of specifics.

    A year ago, President Obama he told us he was going to apply a laser focus to jobs, and all we got was soaring rhetoric.

    Six weeks ago, President-Candidate Obama told us that he was going to have a jobs plan.

    Thursday night, Desperate President Candidate Obama told us he’ll have the specifics in a few weeks, and once more gave us glowing promises and soaring rhetoric.

    I know that he’s surrounded himself with academics, but back when I was in school, I never got so much as a 24-hour extension on a required paper, let alone three years. How long does it take this crew to come up with some specifics? Since he seems incapable of coming up with specifics, here’s some ideas for Son of Porkulus:

    1: Last time around we were told that if we only put enough money into the pockets of union teachers and construction crews, it would all spread out to us. Didn’t seem to work. How about this time, you put the money into the hands of everyone who DIDN’T get a touch of the last stimulus, and we’ll see if it trickles out to the union teachers and construction workers?

    2: Instead of spending the money on roads that don’t need more repairs, or schools that are already overspending, how about we simply fly helicopters over the country and throw out sacks of money. Then the people the money lands on can hire thier own construction crews to repair the damage done by the falling money bags?

    3: How about you send every man, woman, and child (including illegals, of course) a check for $1000 save an extra hundred billion or so.

    4: (and this is my favorite) How about you resign, or at least promise not to run for a second term, and leave MY money in MY pocket to spend as MY needs dictate?

  • the_basseteer

    If one of my grand kids swallowed a quarter, we would have to wait for it to pass. The only way the Congress should pass this bill is if they swallow the load of B.S. Obama is trying to feed it….Don’t swallow it…don’t pass it.

  • bags64

    not once did he say ‘Please’.

  • gmscan

    … pointing out that part of Obama’s plan is to DEFUND SOCIAL SECURITY!! In fact everyone refers to it as a “payroll tax” when it is really a Social Security tax — dedicated to Social Security and the only source of funding for Social Security. Providing a Social Security “tax break” is depriving the program of needed revenue when it is already in the red (spending more than it takes in.)

    If the Republicans had proposed this, the Dems would be all over it — “You’re trying to kill Social Security!” When will the Repubs start to get a clue of how this game is played?

  • willhen50

    Get rid of the multitude of regulations that is crippling business.
    Regulate the Unions.
    Repeal Obamacare on the grounds it was passed illegally and start over.
    Start becoming a self-sustaining nation and use domestic energy resources.
    Voila, over 4 million jobs created, and then other businesses will spawn from there.
    I guess Obama’s economic advisors never knew that, but business leaders know.