Bitch About Obama

Last week, President-elect Barack Obama duly unveiled his American recovery and reinvestment plan. Its title was aptly chosen, for Mr Obama spoke, astonishingly, as if the policies of the rest of the world had no bearing on the fate of the US. He spoke, too, as if a large fiscal stimulus would be enough to restore prosperity. If that is what he believes, Mr Obama is in for a shock. The difficulties he confronts are much deeper and more global than that.

I have little doubt that his advisers are telling the president-elect just this. The points they are – or should be – pressing on him are these.

First, the Japanese policymakers who told everyone the US was in danger of falling into a prolonged period of economic weakness were right. To understand why this is true, you need to read a brilliant book by Richard Koo of the Nomura Research Institute*. In this, he explains how the combination of falling asset prices with high indebtedness forces the private sector to stop borrowing and pay down debt. The government then inevitably emerges as borrower and spender of last resort. Because the Japanese government knew this at least, the country suffered a prolonged recession rather than a slump.

It has long been argued that the US could not suffer like Japan. This is wrong. It is true the US has three advantages over Japan: the destruction of wealth in the collapse of the Japanese bubble was three times gross domestic product, while US losses will surely be far smaller; US non-financial companies do not appear grossly overindebted; and, despite efforts by opponents of marking assets to market, recognition of losses has come far sooner.

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He probably could not afford to pay taxes, since he spent all his money in order to get appointed. You’ve got to “pay to play” with Obama.

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to run the Treasury Department and lead the economic rescue effort disclosed to senators Tuesday that he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004, a last-minute complication in an otherwise smooth path to confirmation.

Timothy Geithner paid most of the past-due taxes days before Obama announced his nomination in November, an Obama transition official said. The unpaid taxes were discovered by Obama’s transition team while investigating Geithner’s background, the official said.

The transition official requested anonymity because the source was not authorized to discuss Geithner’s situation.

Obama reiterated his support Tuesday for Geithner as senators who are considering the appointment quizzed Geithner behind closed doors.

“He’s dedicated his career to our country and served with honor, intelligence and distinction,” incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed.”

Geithner failed to pay self-employment taxes for money he earned while working for the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, the transition official said. In 2006, the IRS notified him that he owed $14,847 in self-employment taxes and $2,383 in penalties from 2003 and 2004.

Transition officials discovered last fall that Geithner also had not paid the taxes in 2001 or 2002. He paid $25,970 in taxes and interest for those years several days before Obama announced his nomination, the transition official said.

Geithner also didn’t realize a housekeeper he paid in 2004 and 2005 did not have current employment documentation as an immigrant for the final three months she worked for him, the transition official said.

Geithner is the second Obama nominee to face controversy. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew his name on Jan. 4 as Obama’s Commerce secretary after questions surfaced about an ongoing federal investigation.

By Sen. Fritz Hollings

Two years ago the Princeton economist, Alan Blinder, estimated that in ten years we will lose forty million jobs to offshoring. Now economists, both conservative and liberal, recommend a plan to create 3 million jobs in two years — five million short. They avoid the real cause of job loss — offshoring. So the economists’ plan to stimulate loses more jobs than are created. Why? Answer: A Ponzi scheme worse than Madoff.

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By Lawrence Kudlow

Obama spoke Thursday at George Mason University about his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan — a.k.a. the stimulus package. There’s an interesting section that would warm the heart of John Maynard Keynes. It goes like this:

“It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.”

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By David Greising

President-elect Barack Obama delivered a major address Thursday on the collapsing economy that sounded more like a campaign speech than what the nation really needs: a specific, detailed plan for getting out of this mess.

Obama used only three hard numbers in his speech at George Mason University. And the only one related to policy—the promise of a $1,000 tax cut for 95 percent of working families—did not exactly have the sound of a big-picture plan to save the struggling economy.

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by Tony Blankley

With two weeks still left in President-elect Barack Obama’s transition and because of the alleged corrupt conduct of several people in his proximity and his own passivity and public silence (and the inherent drama of current events), his has become the most dramatic presidential transition in memory.

The phrase “No Drama Obama” was born March 12, 2008, when retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak, who was campaigning for Obama, labeled him “No Shock Barack, No Drama Obama.” It is fair to say that this useful and rhyming campaign slogan finally and formally was laid to rest last Sunday, when — after weeks of Illinois transition opera bouffe and colorful Caroline Kennedy Senate-snatching efforts — Obama’s designated commerce secretary, Bill Richardson, withdrew his name one step ahead of a New Mexico grand jury.

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Roland Burris failed in his bid to take President-elect Barack Obama’s Illinois Senate seat on Tuesday in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress.

“Mr. Burris is not in possession of the necessary credentials from the state of Illinois,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in his speech opening the new session of Congress.

Burris, 71, earlier confirmed that Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson had informed him in a private meeting that his credentials lacked a required signature and his state’s seal.

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By Andrea Tantaros

Who needs network reality TV when you can watch the Democrats disgrace themselves in a show I like to call “Pay to Play.” The latest episode features New Mexico Governor and Obama-pick for (ironically) Commerce Secretary Bill Richardson, who withdrew his nomination amid reports he is under investigation for another seemingly all too common political quid pro quo.

From Governor Rod, to Rangel, to Rezko (I could go on) a theme is developing: Obama’s got some ethically challenged friends and Democrats don’t bring reform, they bring scandal.

Never before has a party caused such controversy between Election Day and the start of a new Congress than the Democrats have in the last eight weeks. It’s unprecedented, and unsettling for the nation to watch yet again.

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The Cabinet that President-elect Barack Obama picked on a fast track has an unexpected opening, with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s choice for commerce secretary, withdrawing under pressure of a federal investigation into how his political donors landed a lucrative transportation contract.

Richardson insisted he would be cleared in a grand jury probe. But he and Obama said the investigation would have likely disrupted a timely nomination to a top economic post.

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By Jennifer Rubin

It seems as if a lifetime has passed since the 2008 presidential election. John McCain’s Keystone Cops campaign is a hazy memory. The daily media barrage aimed at Sarah Palin has vanished. And the notion that Republicans might retain the White House during the greatest financial meltdown in seventy years now seems like a distant pipe dream. Meanwhile, in the interim between the election and the start of the new year, the country has learned a bit more about its President-elect.

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