Obama’s Slight Of Hand ….

… or pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, or which shell is the marble under, or … well you name the game.

I have been ranting for weeks now about the young President’s ability to convince people that he never said what he said (“Most of the jobs created will be in the private sector”, January ’09) … or has accomplished what he says he says (“The stimulus is working” July 09). It’s common in politics I have found. Understandable. Every President wants to put his best foot forward, even when the economy is crumbling around him. It’s worked well for him up to this point but time may finally have run out.

The questions you have to ask yourself, especially if you are one of the many who voted for Obama, is if the Obama administration tackled the economic recovery by misreading the problem, advocating for a solution that hasn’t born fruit, spending trillions of future debt in the process, and then trying to tell you the results are great when you can see with your own eyes they’re not, do you really trust the same group of people to get health care reform right by not just reforming or adjusting, but completely seizing the industry and dumping it into a government-run expansion of Medicare? Do you really trust them to create a new casino-like cap and tax and tax scam cleverly disguised as an energy bill?

At some point, shouldn’t we as Americans tell the President that he has to show to us he has some ability to comprehend the economy before letting him commandeer it?

It’s a magnificently well crafted and critically thought column by Duane Paterson

With unemployment ready to hit 10%, with the investment community reeling, and with businesses unsure of the direction the Federal government is headed in regard to taxation and regulation … not even a second stimulus (unless of course its market based) can guarantee anything more than a slowing or stopping of the economic decline.

Mr Paterson thinks time may have run out on the President’s slight of hand. I am not so sure, but it should have, of that I am certain.

The President’s agenda is not so much to rescue this economy or even make sure your neighbor has a job (unless of course he or she works for the government or is in one of the chosen unions). He will continue to try to make you think prosperity is just around the corner because this young President has bigger plans than the current state of the economy. He is looking for a fundamental change in American economics. One that is not centered around the individual and individual achievement but rather centered around the state, regulated by the state in every fashion from pay to purchase.

You can earn what you want but not too much. Drive what you want … but not too big. Work the way you want, as long as its one of our 21st century jobs. Live where you want, as long as its green. It’s a brave new world. Utopia!

This new American economy, Summers hopes, will be “more export-oriented” and “less consumption-oriented”; “more environmentally oriented” and “less energy-production-oriented”; “more bio- and software- and civil-engineering-oriented and less financial-engineering-oriented”; and, finally, “more middle-class-oriented” and “less oriented to income growth that is disproportionate towards a very small share of the population”. Unlike many other economists, Summers does not believe that lower growth is the inevitable price of this economic paradigm shift.

I agree exports should be a bigger priority. It’s been neglected for years. But when I read that our chief economic architect wants Americans to change their consumption habits, while the folks in Washington show no sign of changing theirs, or propose a redistribution of wealth that will somehow magically make the middle class wealthier (it won’t), I am frightened.

There seems to be less concern in the White House these days for the private sector “middle class”, the folks who lost and continue to lose their jobs, then there is for its socioeconomic re-engineering agenda. Call us collateral damage. The ends justify the means. Thus the constant slight of hand. If he can only keep it up … just a little longer.

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

4 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on July 13, 2009 at 2:26 am

    The Obamateur seems to be of a mind that in order to save the economy, he has to kill it.

    As you state, his only record of any economic experience is his current exploits and schemes, all of which seem to follow the guideline "never time to do it right, always time to do it over" except "doing it over" means applying all the taxes and fees he "forgot" in the rush to seize power. He has become a spend and tax Democrat (vs. tax and spend).

    In effect, Obama is economically waterboarding the country. The only difference is that we really are drowning (in debt).



  2. s1c on July 13, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    Jim, Jim, Jim – instead of slight of hand, shouldn't be sleight of hand?

    Of course what is grammatically correct doesn't really matter because he is just trying to make this a better country, because you know he wants a country that we all can be proud of, just not the one that we already have in place.



    • Dimsdale on July 13, 2009 at 4:39 pm

      Sleight of hand, prestidigitation, legerdemain – what is the difference? It is all deception by Obama, which even his supporters are starting to sniff.

      Obama's attempts to get a presidential learner's permit is fast becoming a bus plunge for the whole country.



  3. Anne-EH on July 14, 2009 at 1:38 am

    We all remember the movie "The Wizard Of Oz" as kids. Remember the part when it was found out that the feared wizard was a real man behind the curtain pushing different buttons? Well President Obama wants to be like that feared wizard who thinks he can work wonders yet is that same man behind the curtain pushing all those buttons for smoke and mirrors effects.



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