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Obama channels McCain
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Now that President Obama has scared the Congress into authorizing the expenditure of more than a trillion dollars. A feat accomplished by constantly talking the economy down and endlessly referring to the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression. Today, Obama put on his rose colored glasses and declared most aspects of the US economy "fundamentally sound":
The last person I heard call the economy fundamentally sound was Senator John McCain, back in September. The main stream media had nothing but derision for McCain's fundamentally sound remark. The New York Times took special umbrage wondering if McCain had missed the downfall of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG.
Things are different now than when John McCain said things were fundamentally sound:
- On September 15, 2008, The Dow Closed At 10,917.51; Yesterday, It Closed At 7,170.06. (Google Finance Website, accessed 3/13/09)
- In September 2008, The National Unemployment Rate Was 6.2 Percent; Today, It Is 8.1 Percent. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics Website, accessed 3/13/09
- On September 15, 2008, The National Debt Was $9,634,090,464,815.55; Yesterday It Was $10,983,549,928,728,.74. (U.S. Treasury Department’s Treasury Direct Website, accessed 3/13/09)
Ever since McCain's fundamentally sound remark, week in and week out, we have been told how much worse the economy is than it was the week before. At least that was the story before Obama signed the latest pork-infested big government spending bill earlier this week. Suddenly we are back to McCain's fundamentally sound,
So where is the derision and the umbrage now?
Obama's his top economic advisers found a little. Larry Summers told the Brookings Institution that it’s "impossible to know when the crisis will end," and Paul Volcker said, "there are big economic problems behind the financial system too that are going to take longer to work out and you can't neglect those problems while we're working on this immediate, continuing crisis in the financial system.",
No, it's not the same as it was when McCain said fundamentally sound, but the derision and the umbrage would have been the same if that was McCain saying what Obama said today.
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