From The Wall Street Journal:

It’s hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president’s policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents — John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance — President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter’s higher taxes and Mr. Clinton’s draconian defense drawdown.

Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

Read the rest of the article here.

5 Comments

  1. Ken 03/09/2009 at 5:10 am - Reply

    Once again a nice right wing spin, this whole economic mess was inherited from a Republican Admin, and in typical right wing fashion everytime a drop happens it is “Obama’s” fault…and I expect pure silence if/when the cyclical nature of these things happen…

  2. lolo928 03/10/2009 at 8:11 pm - Reply

    ahhh.. another person who thinks poor old Obama is the “VICTIM” yet again…
    read up Ken, you want to blame someone??? Seems like you LEFTY LIBS like to point fingers and find someone to BLAME…. BLAME Clinton.. Blame him for loosening the CRA’s CONTROL over banks… doing nothing to protect our country in HIS 8 years, from international terrorism…

    Bush may be a lot of things and he may have made a lot of mistakes (THAT remains to be seen for a while what the effects of his admin was on this country), I never heard George W. Bush whine like a little baby (Libs LOVE to whine) that he “Inherited” the issues.. NEVER…

    You will find any reason to exonerate this man but the CHANGE he’s talking about isn’t the CHANGE that all of his worshippers were told about… he’s basically changing what WORKED and leaving what did NOT Work “UN-changed”
    But you keep watching your liberal media channels Ken.. we moderates who care about this country and NOT about a political affiliation will be there to clean up the mess the LAZY LIBS LEFT FOR US :O0

  3. Paul 03/23/2009 at 10:41 pm - Reply

    Not a huge Obamunist here, but I have to call it when I see it. If we’re to thank Obama for the market freefall (which started before he was even elected) does this mean we get to thank him for last week’s first “up” week in months and today’s nearly 500 point gain in the Dow, too?

  4. Paul 03/23/2009 at 10:46 pm - Reply

    “I never heard George W. Bush whine like a little baby (Libs LOVE to whine) that he “Inherited” the issues.. NEVER…”

    To be fair, he inherited a budget surplus and an economy that wasn’t in tatters, so he wouldn’t whine about economy and finance. And his administration did indicate that Clinton should have taken care of bin Laden, ergo 9-11 was more Clinton’s fault (Maybe it was Clinton’s fault. Who cares, just saying there was blaming and whining in the W whitehouse, too).

  5. Tracy Coenen 03/24/2009 at 7:01 am - Reply

    We absolutely should thank him for that up week. He is ruining our economy so effectively, however, that the up week doesn’t matter one bit.

Leave a Reply