President Obama’s remarks yesterday in the Rose Garden on the passage of the debt ceiling bill left me wondering: What planet does this man inhabit?
For President Obama the hard-fought battle in Congress over the debt ceiling was not about the financial future of this country. For him it was “a manufactured crisis.”
Of course, POTUS wasn’t above using the manufactured crisis to shirk responsibility for our lousy economy: the uncertainty surrounding the debate, he said, was an impediment to “full” recovery. Does this mean that the president thinks we are in a partial recovery?
It was apparent yesterday that this is a president who lives in a bubble and who still thinks that intervention by government can solve the unemployment problem. He has some great ideas, too: one is reform of the patent office! At least, that one is harmless.
The talk yesterday was composed of familiar snippets from various Obama masterpieces we’ve had the pleasure of hearing again and again in recent weeks. I noticed, however, that yesterday the president forgot to mention those corporate jets, perhaps because the jets are becoming a joke in much the same way as of Al Gore’s famous lockbox did. (I must also note that after the Rose Garden remarks, the president boarded a taxpayer-funded jet to head to Chicago for the swanky festivities surrounding his fiftieth birthday. Those jets do come in handy when you’re in a hurry!)
As is his wont, the president then promised to pivot to jobs, though I don’t think he used the word pivot. That word, like the corporate jets and Mr. Gore’s lockbox, has also become the punch line of a joke. Speaking of job creation by the Obama administration, the Wall Street Journal has a nice piece this morning on how Lisa Jackson, the firebrand EPA administrator, hasn’t been factoring in lost jobs when she comes up with new regulations:
She thinks all regulatory costs are benefits. This certainly helps explain the weak recovery.
Also in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin numbers cruncher, wants to know,” Where’s Your Budget, Mr. President?” The Democrats haven’t presented a budget for more than two years, and the president’s February feint at a budget, voted down by both parties, wasn’t a serious effort.
Ryan thinks he knows why the Democrats are hesitant to present a budget:
Ever since they abused the budget process to jam their health-care takeover through Congress last year, the Democrats have simply done away with serious budgeting altogether. The simplest explanation-and the president’s real bluff-is that they don’t want to commit publicly to the kind of tax increases and health-care rationing that would be required to sustain their archaic vision of government.
No, Mr. President, this was not a manufactured crisis. We have some serious matters before us.