Well, Hope ‘n Change yesterday confirmed the rumors: that he’s going to try to push through his own version of the New Deal. If you can get beyond your gag reflex, there’s a certain Hollywood aspect to this: just as the studios do mindless sequels and remakes (each worse than the last), Hope ‘n Change is doing a remake of his own. Or is it a sequel? The first New Deal was already a bad script and each sequel (or remake) just gets more predictable – and expensive. This one’s way over budget already. From the Politico:
President-elect Barack Obama added sweep and meat to his economic agenda on Saturday, pledging the largest new investment in roads and bridges since President Dwight D. Eisenhower built the Interstate system in the late 1950s, and tying his key initiatives – education, energy, health care –back to jobs in a package that has the makings of a smaller and modern version of FDR’s New Deal marriage of job creation with infrastructure upgrades.
The president-elect also said for the first time that he will “launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen.”
“We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms,” he said in the address.
The president-elect is bringing new elements of his domestic agenda into his economic recovery plan, committing to a path toward giving every American access to an electronic medical record as part of an “economic recovery plan … that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives.”
Let’s see. Hope ‘n Change wants to pour our money into (1) roads and bridges (been there, done that), (2) schools (already have the t-shirt), (3) improving broadband access (I already tipped you off to that one), and (4) connecting hospitals and their records through the Net (already happening in the free market).
But back to the really important question: is all this a remake or just a sequel? I say remake. Even with a sequel, there’s some originality. But this has the feel of a remake and the original was strictly a B-movie. Like Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Here’s another remake in production: the Depression of 2009. And this one’s strictly big-budget. Consider these news items:
California. It’s nearly broke. As in flat busted, out of cash. The state’s thinking of issuing IOUs – only the second time since the Great Depression.
Rhode Island. The state’s so broke that there’s no money in the transportation budget. The solution? Tax residents on the mileage they drive. And build toll booths everywhere in a state you could spit across.
Milwaukee. Just like in the Big One, residents of this city are thinking of printing their own money.
Double Jeopardy Question: Where’s all the money coming from? The fed can only run those printing presses just so long.
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I don’t want to let the average American entirely off the hook, but our educational system and the MSM have been negligent in explaining what happens when the government spends more money. Where as the private sector has the potential of creating limitless wealth, the government can only spend our money. Since the government must take money from the private sector to finance itself, the more they spend the harder it is for the private sector economy to grow. B.O. sets himself up as our hero while he adds fuel to the fire. Will we have enough right thinking politicians to stop this nightmare? I’m not hopeful.