Promises and Ponzi Schemes

I'm taking a break from my break long enough to comment on the latest news . . ..

President Obama's speech last night laid out $447 billion in tax credits for businesses to hire new workers, spend more money on highways and bridges, and extend payroll tax cuts with the cost for the package to be paid for with future spending cuts to keep the debt and budget deficit down. If the speech was an effort to show that he is committed to solving the nation's employment crisis, Obama succeeded. If it was an effort to get something done, of course the Republicans will never go along with it. If the bipartisan proposals in the speech were meant to make the Republicans pay a political price for inaction, well, that might work. But then the Dow lost 303 points, in part because of more fears about European debt, but also because no one expects any of these proposals to pass, indicating that none of Obama's initiatives may matter much.

Eighteen years ago, when Bill Clinton first entered the White House, I would have heard a speech with economic proposals exactly like Obama's (I probably did) and reacted by saying "Sounds good!" After hearing excerpts of the speech after the fact (I didn't get to watch it live) I didn't want to get up and cheer. In fact, I didn't want to do anything. I simply went about my normal life.

Though, tonight, Chris Matthews declared the speech passionate and pointed, and he predicted Obama may have turned a corner. He may be right. But he may also be right when he suggested that Rick Perry could easily beat Obama in November 2012, if the economy remains bad enough.

Speaking of which, the big news to come out of the Republican presidential debate was Perry's insistence that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, which encouraged right-wing commentators to parrot their agreement without explaining what a Ponzi scheme is. A Ponzi scheme, for the record, is, according to Wikipedia, "a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors." By the way, Social Security is in surplus right now and will be for several years, and when there are fewer workers paying into the system, a few minor adjustments can be made to keep it going well into its second century.

Change We Can't Believe In

For those wondering when Barack Obama would reach the point of irrelevance, the suspense ended with his descent into it this week.  First of all, he tried to schedule his much-ballyhooed jobs speech before Congress next week on Wednesday, September 7, to give the Republican presidential candidates (who are debating on MSNBC that night) some politically charged competition.  House Speaker John Boehner said no, though, and so the President gave in (again) and agreed to have the speech the following night . . . at 7 P.M., when few people even bother to watch political speeches - especially when more attention will be paid to the opening of the 2011-12 football season with a game between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints that night.

Also, President Obama overruled his own Environmental Protection Agency leadership and decided not to implement anti-smog regulations, saying they would adversely affect the economy and would be too costly. This sounds like something a President McCain would have said and something a President Reagan did say. (Reagan vetoed a clean water bill in 1987 citing the cost involved; his veto was overridden.)

Finally, the economy is not improving. A net gain of zero jobs - zero, nothing, nada - was created during the month of August 2011, and the President's jobs speech - for which expectations have already been lowered by several thousand feet - is almost certain to be a major letdown, likely offering few if any new and inspiring ideas.

So, it appears that there's a lot that Obama simply cannot and will not attempt to do, anything he has done hasn't been been enough, and what he has accomplished will be torn out by the roots when President Perry takes over in 2013.

Please don't bang your head against your PC monitor, dear reader . . ..