The press gave President Obama a pass during the campaign for offering soaring rhetoric with little applicability to reality. But just a few weeks into his presidency the clash between the two is becoming increasingly jarring.
In today’s Washington Post, President Obama defends the so-called economic stimulus plan. There are many absurd claims in this piece — like that it is somehow a new idea of “invest” in our school system and that this is somehow going to pull us out of recession: spending on public schools has soared in decades and it hasn’t resulted in improved student performance, much less helped turn around the economy.
Yet this line I found particularly laughable: “We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship.”
This bill, with giveaways to every liberal interest group, is “a good idea” and offers a “sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship?” Even many liberal outlets have been squeamish about defending this monstrosity. Support for the bill is sinking because Americans recognize that they are being pushed into buying a very expensive expanded government in the name of solving the economic emergency. This bill is the very picture of what people don’t like about Washington — it’s packed with pork and programs that have absolutely no relationship to the bill’s stated purpose.
President Obama’s flowery talk about it can’t change that reality.