“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”
As I watched President Barack Obama insult our outgoing president, ridicule Reagan and chastise Clinton, I could not help but wonder what “Generation O” is expecting.
Obama is walking into “the worst job in America” – an economy in crisis, a massive budget deficit and social inequality unseen in years. How can he possibly create millions of jobs, reform Medicare, close Guantanamo, jolt the economy to life and bury the bastion of partisanship that is Washington D.C.?
Obama’s eloquence and articulacy provided us with this, “in this winter of our hardship … with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter.”
If the economy could be fixed by a poetry contest, I would select Obama as my representative every time. Unfortunately, empty words solve about as much as giving up my seat on the bus to someone who struggles with their books while they text and fiddle with their iPod.
Getting back to the matter at hand, Mr. Obama offered very little in the way of substantive suggestions.
“The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth,” he said.
O.K., that sounds fantastic. Swift, bold, growth, jobs (you’d almost think he channels FDR). I will gladly take a slice of the $825 billion stimulus package the Congress is working on.
Except it won’t be going to you and me – the Congressional Budget Office has reported that less than half of that money will be spent by October 2010.
As the package stands now, only half of the money slated for school construction will be spent by 2011. By that time, only $4 billion of the $30 billion for transportation and less than $3 billion of the $18.5 billion for renewable energy will be spent.
The problem with this stimulus package is that it lacks direction. To appease the American public, the Democrats are trying to throw almost $1 (WHAT?) dollars into the abyss – have we learned nothing from the banks?
Is the package totally off the mark? No. Temporarily cutting payroll taxes will put a lot of money back in the hands of the average American consumer. Health care infrastructure has been hurting for decades, it desperately needed to modernize (it looks like it will get several billion to do just that).
Obama is standing at an incredible moment in history – the right package will put America back on the rails of economic growth, the wrong package will only serve to increase the burden of the national debt on our children, and our children’s children. (Isn’t that just our grandchildren?)
Hopefully, Obama will discern wisely, for all of us, and our children’s children’s children.
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