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Obama: Only 2 Years Behind Random Bloggers

October 14, 2010, 11:34 pm

Me, in January 2009:

But there is an even better reason why the stimulus bill will never work:   it is simply impossible to break ground on any new government construction project in less than a year.A year from now, any truly new incremental project in the stimulus bill will still be sitting on some planners desk with unfinished environmental impact assessments, the subject of arguments between multiple government agencies, tied up in court with environmental or NIMBY challenges, snarled in zoning fights, subject to conflicts between state, county, and city governments, or all of the above.  Most of the money will have been spent by planners, bureaucrats, and lawyers, with little to show for in actual facilities.

Obama, in October 2010

In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like "the same old tax-and-spend Democrat," realized too late that "there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects"

How smart can the guy be if it takes him two years to figure out what random schmoes like me thought was obvious?

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Category: Government
  • Fred Z

    You're no random schmoe. You live by creating 'projects' and you know how long it takes from the idea to the ground breaking.

    I doubt Obama has ever done or organized anything physical, from replacing a light switch on up.

    On the other hand, at the long and short con, he's very good. Some are good at manipulating the physical universe, some at manipulating the universe of men. The latter presently dominate politics, to our detriment.

  • alanstorm

    "How smart can the guy be if it takes him two years to figure out what random schmoes like me thought was obvious?"

    Kinda answers itself, doesn't it?

    The tougher question is "Why did anyone ever think this guy was smart in the first place?"

  • caseyboy

    The stimulus package was never about creating jobs, at least not private sector jobs. There were a lot of constituencies to payback for the 2008 election. Money to state & local governments so that public sector union members stayed on the payroll. Grants given for research (mating habits of speckle fish) funds for special education projects (teaching African men the proper way to wash themselves after mating), money for the arts, the university projects and money for one special interest group after another. And even those supposed shovel ready projects were to be worked by union contractors. But they will say, "what about the tax cuts in the stimulus package"? Some of us received $250 of the tax we paid in. Others received $250 of the tax WE paid in. The government taketh and the Obama giveth.

    Obama didn't really care what happened in the private sector. Maybe a little benefit would wash over to the private sector, but if not, so what. He is about to find out so what.

  • marco73

    Come on, anyone who has ever watched a city crew fill in a pot hole knew that "shovel ready" was meaningless. The stimulus was just a cover to protect government jobs, at the expense of everyone else. I'll bet Obama's advisors believed that the recession would be mild, would blow over quickly, and the recovery would be in full swing before the 2010 elections. I think maybe they miscalculated.

  • MJ

    The tougher question is “Why did anyone ever think this guy was smart in the first place?”

    Well that just reflects poorly on the electorate. Kind of a Theory of Relativity for intelligence.

  • Mesa Econoguy

    He is a half-wit moron fascist zealot overregulator.

  • iron308

    All of the above- and the naive and/or utopian belief that expanding government will make it work better.

  • Val

    Fred Z said: Some are good at manipulating the physical universe, some at manipulating the universe of men. The latter presently dominate politics, to our detriment.

    Unfortunately, the trend will win to the detriment of us little people. To paraphrase Ben Graham: 'In the short term the economy/political environ/society is a voting machine, in the long run it is a weighing machine'. In other words, the physical universe, always, always wins. Always. The underlying forces that drive the movement of men and markets do not care about obama and his maleficent band of happy socialist unicorn dreamers, or their wants and desires. Those laws chug inexorably along with complete disregard. The problem, of course, belongs to us poor regular saps caught in the short and mid run part of that, while the distortions generated by controlling the 'universe of men' bring down misery, despair, and worse.

  • Val

    Fred Z wrote: On the other hand, at the long and short con, he's very good. Some are good at manipulating the physical universe, some at manipulating the universe of men. The latter presently dominate politics, to our detriment.

    Unfortunately, the trend will win to the detriment of us little people. To paraphrase Ben Graham: 'In the short term the economy/political environ/society is a voting machine, in the long run it is a weighing machine'. In other words, the physical universe, always, always wins. Always. The underlying forces that drive the movement of men and markets do not care about obama and his maleficent band of happy socialist unicorn dreamers, or their wants and desires. Those laws chug inexorably along with complete disregard. The problem, of course, belongs to us poor regular saps caught in the short and mid run part of that, while the distortions generated by controlling the 'universe of men' bring down misery, despair, and worse.

  • http://www.ilovebenefits.healthcarebenefitsnetwork.com ilovebenefits

    We cannot afford to become complacent in the next three weeks! If we think government spends too much, taxes too much, wants to control too much, then we MUST vote and get ALL our like minded friends to vote as well.

    http://www.icbn1.com

  • me

    Well, firstly, I do blame you - please learn from your terrible mistakes and run for president in 2012?

    Less tongue in cheek, claims to not have known that the bailout couldn't ever succeed are nothing but handwaving. It was clear right from the start that it wouldn't get us anywhere, and I bet the reasons it went through anyway had nothing to do with lack of understanding of it's lack of functionality and oh-so-much-more with the juicy sums of taxpayer moneys that could be funneled into the hands of "friends and family".

  • Mark

    It really surprises me that the Swiss can dig 3 tunnels 33 miles under the Alps for less money than it was project to cost to dig less than a mile from New Jersey to New York (the tunnel project Christy recently canceled. ) I think the Swiss spent 8 billion. The Joisy tunnel project was originally 4 billion or so but estimates ballooned to the 10 - 13 billion range.

    I know these public works projects tend to be a waste. But if we could build the metro rail for 1/2 the cost, like they would in Switzerland, it would be only half the boondoggle.

  • Val

    read all of those coyote posts on rail and how cost effective it is and then type that again...

  • IgotBupkis

    > How smart can the guy be if it takes him two years to figure out what random schmoes like me thought was obvious?

    Just because he gives it lip service doesn't mean he's actually figured it out, Warren.

    I remember seeing Gorby speak many years ago -- I expected him to speak in favor of limited government, and against Soviet-style collectivism, considering his hand in dismantling it...

    The man was just barely to the right of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich.