Deluded Liberals Think The Mere Presence Of Obama In The White House Will Cure Economic Woes
First it was Gail Collins calling on Bush to resign in order to hasten the injection of a liberal leader into the White House. Now Thomas Friedman is essentially doing the same thing.
These liberals are slobbering about the idea of Obama taking power. They don’t even want to wait for the Constitutionally-mapped transition process to take place. They want their messiah, and they want him now.
Now you know why I don’t get invited out for dinner much these days. If I had my druthers right now we would convene a special session of Congress, amend the Constitution and move up the inauguration from Jan. 20 to Thanksgiving Day. Forget the inaugural balls; we can’t afford them. Forget the grandstands; we don’t need them. Just get me a Supreme Court justice and a Bible, and let’s swear in Barack Obama right now — by choice — with the same haste we did — by necessity — with L.B.J. in the back of Air Force One.
Unfortunately, it would take too long for a majority of states to ratify such an amendment. What we can do now, though, said the Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, co-author of “The Broken Branch,” is “ask President Bush to appoint Tim Geithner, Barack Obama’s proposed Treasury secretary, immediately.” Make him a Bush appointment and let him take over next week. This is not a knock on Hank Paulson. It’s simply that we can’t afford two months of transition where the markets don’t know who is in charge or where we’re going. At the same time, Congress should remain in permanent session to pass any needed legislation.
This is the real “Code Red.” As one banker remarked to me: “We finally found the W.M.D.” They were buried in our own backyard — subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them.
Friedman is right to a certain extent: The markets don’t know what’s coming from Barack Obama. And neither, frankly, do a lot of us up to and including Tom Friedman.
Obama was vague, at best, about his economic plans during the campaign. About the only move he was specific about was his “tax cut for 95% of Americans.” But really all that consists of is a tax hike for Americans who are already paying the most in taxes, and a welfare check issued by the IRS for everyone else. And even that wasn’t a specific plan given that Obama’s cut off for tax hikes kept dropping as the campaign went on.
Obama won’t even be announcing his economic team until tomorrow, and yet for these liberals it doesn’t even seem to matter. They seem to think that Obama will simply cure all ills through his sheer hope ‘n changiness.
Well that’s not going to happen.
Friedman complains that the market is in chaos because the market doesn’t have a “firm hand at the rudder.” Market actors don’t know what’s coming, and so the markets are tanking. I’d suggest the opposite. I think the markets do know what’s coming, at least generally. It’s going to be massive new tax hikes, burdensome new regulations, and ultimately a return to the economic principles of Jimmy Carter. And in response to that, smart people are getting out of the market and staying out and taking their profits while they can before Obama and his cronies increase the government’s share.
If we really want the market to settle down we shouldn’t be trying to hasten Obama’s ascent into power. We should be begging him to rescind the economic promises he’s made to this point. Because that’s what is really driving the market down.
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JimH
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