The Return Of Herbert Hoover

Obama has announced that there is going to be a three year domestic spending freeze. In other words, no increased spending on unemployment, no increased spending on welfare, no increased spending on health-care, job creation, etc... all in the name of reducing the budget deficit. Way to go, Obama. Now that the republicans have gotten what they want, they'll SURELY be more willing to help out with other things, right? There's no chance in hell that they'll say "hey, if we keep disagreeing with him, he'll do what we want." And they'd NEVER use the fact that you're planning on raising taxes against you in 2012, right?

GODDAMNIT. What the hell, Obama? You know how the Great Depression really took off when Hoover decided to balance the budget and cut spending and raised taxes? Well, congrats. You are now the reincarnation of Herbert Hoover.

President Clinton said (along with other things) that if you take care of unemployment, the deficit will take care of itself. After all, more people with jobs means higher tax revenue, less spending on unemployment, less spending on welfare, less spending on COBRA insurance (as employed people tend to have health-care through there employer) and a higher standard of living overall. The best way to get lower unemployment is to SPEND on job creation. In other words, pay people to do public works projects such as cleaning parks. Rebuild the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Pay people who do all these different volunteer service projects a living wage and give them health-care. If you think this is crazy, remember that this is how we got out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Increased spending through projects like I've detailed above and through WWII got us out of the Great Depression, and increased spending can get us out of this recession. Hopefully Obama will realize this before this plan gets implemented. Otherwise, it's up to the next president to fix everything.

For a better, more scathing analysis of the plan, go here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/



-The Economist