THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 69, April 7, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
HOW (& WHY) OBAMA HAS IMPEDED ECONOMIC RECOVERY
By Alan Caruba
THE U.S. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, & THE AMERICAN ECONOMY: THE DAMAGE THAT IS BEING DONE TO THE U.S. ECONOMY
BY THE FISCAL & ECONOMIC POLICIES OF PRESIDENT OBAMA -- CONFIDENCE IN THE U.S. BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT BEING SEVERELY WEAKENED BY THREATS OF
HIGHER TAXES, THE CONSTANTLY INCREASING REGULATORY BURDEN, THE FAILURE TO PURSUE AN AGGRESSIVE TRADE POLICY THAT WOULD EXPAND
MARKETS FOR U.S. EXPORTS, & THE ENORMOUS GROWTH IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING, PUSHING UP THE NATIONAL DEBT TO LEVELS THAT PUT THE U.S.A. ON A
CRASH COURSE TO FINANCIAL COLLAPSE -- ADOPTION & IMPLEMENTATION OF ECONOMIC & FISCAL POLICIES THAT IMPEDE ECONOMIC GROWTH &, IF
CONTINUED, WILL BRING THE AMERICAN NATION TO ITS KNEES
FULL STORY:
During and after his 2008 presidential election campaign, Barack Hussein Obama was hailed as the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. History records
that Roosevelt presided over the Great Depression, begun in the previous administration of Herbert Clark Hoover, who got most of the blame. Roosevelt’s
policies extended the Depression well beyond the normal recovery from a recession.
In his book, Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century, historian Paul Kengor, wrote:
“Roosevelt won in a landslide in November, 1932. To Liberals and
traditional Democrats everywhere, he was more than just a new face
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was a kind of political savior at
the most desperate time in their lives.”
Roosevelt was immediately assailed by the Communist Party, U.S.A., as he launched his New Deal stew of programs intended to reverse the effects of the economic
crisis. As Kengor notes, “No president had ever moved so far to the Left, and so quickly, but it was not enough for the comrades.” They portrayed Roosevelt “as
a warmonger bent on wreaking havoc on the poor USSR (Soviet Russia)” because they feared the U.S.A. might go to war against it.
As we now know, some of Franklin Roosevelt’s closest advisors were either Communists or extremely sympathetic to Communism. Harry Hopkins was one of
them, and was later exposed as a likely Soviet agent. The Venona transcripts of secret communications between U.S. Communists and their Soviet handlers
revealed this.
Obama came into office following the 2008 financial crisis, which, as we know, he blamed entirely on George W. Bush. Triggered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
two government sponsored enterprises, the crisis reflected the many “subprime” mortgages they had pressured banks to make. Bush’s efforts to rein them had
fallen on deaf ears.
Like Roosevelt, Obama initiated a number of policies and legislation, not the least of which was his “stimulus” package to turn around the economy, but which has
left it with a higher level of unemployment today than in 2009-2010. His other initiative, stimulating Green energy, has cost taxpayers billions.
In New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, historian Burton Folsom, Jr., wrote of Roosevelt’s National Industrial
Recovery Act (NIRA), documenting that it and other measures did nothing more than balloon the U.S. national government, while interfering with the normal
action of capitalism to recover — as it had many times before — from financial crises.
Oklahoma's U.S. Senator Thomas Gore, first elected in 1907, summed up Roosevelt’s efforts, saying at the time:
“No depression can be ended by gifts, gratuities, doles, and alms
handed out by the Federal Treasury, and extorted from taxpayers
that are bleeding from every pore.”
As Folsom put it:
“Capitalism had failed, in Roosevelt’s view of the world, and that
opened the door for new experiments in government ownership
and government direction of the economy. Private enterprise
would become public enterprise.”
Why anyone would think that Barack Obama, a “red diaper baby,” raised by Leftists and mentored in his youth by a card-carrying Communist, Frank Marshall
Davis, would act any differently than Roosevelt, repeating all his mistakes, is to be ignorant of history.
THE WORST RECOVERY EVER
Writing in the April 3, 2012, issue of the Wall Street Journal, Edward P. Lazear, 2006-2009 Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors,
wrote about “The Worst Economic Recovery in History.” Assessing Obama’s policies, Lazear said that “our current recovery pales in comparison with most
other recoveries, including the one following the Great Depression.”
“The Great Depression started with major economic contractions
in 1930, ’31, ’32, and ’33. In the three following years, the economy
rebounded with growth rates of 11%, 9%, and 13% respectively …
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the
recovery began in the second half of 2009. Since that time, the
economy has grown at 2.4%, below our longterm trend by either
measure. At this point, the economy is 12% smaller than it would
have been had we stayed on trend growth since 2007.”
Lazear continued:
“It would be difficult to argue that government policies over the
past three years have enhanced confidence in the U.S. business
environment. Threats of higher taxes, the constantly increasing
regulatory burden, the failure to pursue an aggressive trade
policy that would open U.S. exports, and the enormous increase
in government spending all are growth impediments.”
Like Roosevelt, Obama has impeded a rebound in the growth of the economy, and he has done it by applying all the wrong, Socialist “solutions” that
extended the Great Depression from 1929 to 1941.
For Obama, this has truly been a crisis that would not be allowed to go to waste. What he has done has been to impose Obamacare in the face of massive
rejection, to oversee the loss of two million jobs, and to increase the national debt to levels that put the U.S.A. on a crash course to financial collapse.
It would be naïve to think he did not know what he was doing. If one wanted to bring the United States of America to its knees, he would pursue Obama’s
policies of the past four years. His “open mike” gaff, speaking with Russia’s President, Dmitry Medvedev, confirms his intent to work closely with America’s
longtime adversary, if reelected.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at Warning Signs, his popular blog -- and thereafter on dozens of other
websites and blogs. His monthly report on new books is posted at Bookviews.
A business and science writer, Caruba is the Founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information
about "scare campaigns" designed to influence public opinion and public policy.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity