NYC Letter: The Accidental Truth Redux

Day 191 of CHOPE

Our critics, who have a lot of reason to go out there and say in four months, we haven't remade the world and -- and -- and corrected this recession, which was eight years in the making, or maybe longer -- I ask them, What would you do? What would you do, those of you who don't like the Recovery Act? Would you not help maintain and hire new police officers? Would you not fund unemployment insurance? Would you not build these roads and highways and bridges and sewer systems? What would you do? Would you walk away?

I don't think that's a rational option. Would you not give 95% of the American people, who are in desperate shape already, a bit of a pay cut [sic], I mean a, a, ibba, ibba, a cut in their withholding tax* so they'll pay less taxes.

Joe "Misunderstood" Biden,
letting slip the truth of the eventual outcome of Obamanomics
PHILADELPHIA July 28, 2009 (FNC)

* A big $10 a week. Smaller and more useless than Mr. Bush's 2008 tax rebate.

Indeed, critics of Team Barry do "have a lot of reason to go out there and say in four [sic, Team Barry has been in place for six+ months, the stimulus in force for five+] months" the world remains unremade. Team Barry over-promised and woefully underdelivered.

FIGURE 1
[Graphic Source: Job Impact Of The American Recovery
And Reinvestment Plan, January 9, 2009]

The answer to Mr. Biden's question is not "nothing" or the sillier "walk away". The answer is various critics have various remedies. What the critics remain in agreement on is that they would not do what Team Barry did, which is to say they would not sign unread a massive deficit-busting "stimulus" bill end-running the normal processions of Congressional appropriations with spending cynically backloaded to take effect in the run-up to mid-term elections -- coincident with the natural petering of the recession.

With their "stimulus" a bust, only now does Team Barry think to ask "what would you do?", having earlier shut out Republicans from its signature legislation.

By his own admission no economist, yet even Mr. Biden can fathom his critics' disappointment in a "stimulus" bill that does not stimulate.

CHOPE.

"What would you do?" "I won."