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| Economy |
| The Last Refuge Of The Incompetent |
| 2010-07-03 |
| With their own economic policies in complete disarray, Democrats have turned to a tried-and-true tactic: Blame the opposition for your failure. It may be too late -- their incompetence is starting to show. Recent events, along with the continued bleeding of the U.S. economy and Wall Street, underscore the desperation of the party in power to escape responsibility for its failures. Case in point: The president, speaking in Wisconsin on Wednesday, lashed out at Republicans: "We already tried the other side's ideas. We already know where their theories led us. And now we have a choice as a nation." We must have missed the Democrats' attempt to enact broad-based tax cuts, for instance, to boost the economy like they did each time they've been tried in the past. Truth is, "the other side's ideas" have been studiously ignored in our financial crisis and recession. Unemployment remains close to 9.7% and, based on even White House estimates, is unlikely to improve much. Vice President Joe Biden himself has noted that, under current Democratic policies, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession." Of course, he too blames the GOP, though his party has controlled Congress since 2006 and its earlier policies, such as the Community Reinvestment Act and the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were responsible for the 2007-08 financial meltdown. Democrats like to style themselves as the party of the little guy. But small businesses are going bankrupt in droves while unemployment among black males is averaging 16.3% -- well above last year's 14.8%. In March, 1.8 million African-American men were without work -- the most on record. Now we see signs the economy's improvement may soon stall -- and perhaps even slide backwards. On Thursday, we learned that June auto sales dropped 4.3% while May pending home sales plunged 30%. Consumer confidence has fallen sharply, and financial markets are in a tailspin. Also this week, the Congressional Budget Office reported that federal debt by year-end will soar to 62% of GDP -- highest since World War II, when the U.S. went deeply into the red and killed off the private economy in order to beat the Nazis. Worse, the CBO said debt will hit 87% of GDP by 2020, rise above its record peak of 109% by 2025 and hit a stunning -- and financially ruinous -- 185% by 2035. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Bad headline. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2010-07-03 22:25 |
| #1 Change you can believe in! *sigh* |
| Posted by: Jefferson 2010-07-03 00:21 |