Filed under: Economy , Obama Administration , White House
Yesterday the chairman of Obama’s sublimely misnamed Council of Economic Advisers got the hell out of Dodge. In an earlier, more genteel day a cosmic failure like Christina Romer would have packed her Prius after dark and been hours out of town before the light of day. This, however, is the Age of Testimony and Validation. So Romer left after a luncheon at the National Press Club. I’ll let Dana Milbank pick up the narrative : Lunch at the National Press Club on Wednesday caused some serious indigestion. It wasn’t the food; it was the entertainment. Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her “valedictory” before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last: She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn’t understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn’t have much of an idea about how to fix things. What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: “Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare.” I suppose we should give Romer points for candor. It takes a really big person to walk away from what should be the culminating role of a career, scratching their backside and muttering. And to do it in front of the national press corps. It is also a fitting end to the Summer of Recovery . Unfortunately, it also shows the White House is, as pilots say, out of altitude, out of airspeed, and out of ideas. Philosophically they will neither cut taxes nor spending nor roll back business killing regulations. Politically they will not be able to convince the Democrat caucus in the House and Senate to fund a new round of stimulus spending. So as the world’s largest economy circles the bowl enroute to subsidizing a green job somewhere, Obama’s chief economic adviser shrugs her shoulders and essentially quotes Otter of “Animal House” on the way out.
Excerpt from:
Christina Romer Hits The Silk
We have already seen how a little inquiry can expose the grandest of claims about the fashionable if fading new label for central planning, the “green economy”. When President Obama was outed on his claims about Spain – as in serially calling on us to “think about what’s happening in countries like Spain, Germany and Japan” — he simply transitioned to “Denmark and Germany”. Well, Denmark (like Germany ) was also exposed . Then Japan’s scheme turned out to be no more than the same Spanish and German program of raising consumer energy costs to transfer the wealth to “green economy” interests, according to its own government . As a result, Obama no longer points to anywhere his model has worked. Today I see this from the MacIver Institute in Wisconsin, giving a quick if persistent pressure test to their governor’s claims about the supposed “green economy” that already exists, Exhibit A in the argument that so much more is possible if only the public acquiesce to a particular agenda. As you see, the claims are wholly unsupportable and apparently cut from whole cloth. When your ticket to the dance is exaggeration, puffery and…well, worse…your demands ought not advance one inch until you’re forced to come clean. After this, an open and honest debate must ensue. So far that is what the “green jobs” crowd desperately seek to avoid. Yet such a basic principle applies more than anywhere to the “green economy” agenda given that it also means “necessarily skyrocketing” energy prices (according to a candid Obama moment ). Politicians continue to seek to rob Peter to pay Paul, making absurd claims that do not withstand scrutiny . Thank goodness there remain watchdogs to call the bluff.
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Green Cheese
Filed under: Iraq , Terror , Obama Administration , Afghanistan , Military , Middle East , White House Meeting with U.S. soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, President Obama says he’s not celebrating the end of combat operations in Iraq — but he is thanking the troops.
Filed under: Senate , Republicans , Economy , Obama Administration , White House President Obama is accusing Senate Republicans of harming the U.S. economy by blocking a bill to aid small business.
