Posted by
Bill Crawford on Monday, September 06, 2010 8:12:26 PM
And now we are on Plan Q. It all makes sense, when you think about where they are. I'll dig into to that later. The first question has to be, why the hell are we here, anyway? What was Plan A?
The original Stimulus Bill was meant to follow after all the alacrity of the TARP money being passed out. $787 billion was passed to be sent off to "shovel ready" projects. It was all so immediate, so clear. One problem that ensued was that it didn't take much reading to realize that the bulk of the money was meant to be spent in 2010, not 2009. And not early in the year, but the summer. You know, before the midterm elections. How did they ever think they could be that cynical and not have it be noticed?
Another thing that became obvious was that a remarkable number of funds and grant money was aimed at state, county and municipal government entities- who jumped at it because the recession was wreaking havoc on tax revenue and they couldn't print money like the feds. So the stimulus was much more likely to help you if you were a public worker. How did they ever think they could be that cynical and not have it be noticed?
Looking at all that, I don't have any wonderment that the ensuing effect on the economy and unemployment was negligible. Big problem.
Then there was Plan B. The Dem leadership beat on their newer members with a rubber hose to vote for health care, promising them that when it was finally passed, after four generations of hard work, the public would realize what they had done and fall in line before the elections out of gratitude. Hell, the people would realize that there were no more pre-existing conditions and fall all over themselves thanking you. Problem being, the more that was revealed about the plan and what happened to make it pass, the less popular it got. THAT wasn't supposed to happen.
Plan C was to cook the employment numbers with the Census workers. Reports came in from all over the country that they were being hired, trained, laid off and rehired again. The White House telegraphed that the numbersthis spring were going to be encouraging, but by the time they came out, the bulls**t behind them had already come to light.
Through it all, all of this year, the polling numbers got worse- for the White House and the Democrats. I've gone on at length here why, the biggest reason being all the things they spent time and energy on while unemployment persisted at historically high rates. By summer,the polling was becoming obviously disastrous. The swing voters that swept them all into office in 2006-08 were all gone.
They are past the denial stage now, and are planning to use their present money advantage to find a couple of dozen salvageable swing districts across the country and pour money into them to maintain their precious majority in the House. There are two reasons why it won't work: one, by October, the money will have sniffed out a Republican tidal wave and will try and get their chips down before election- by the week before Election Day, there will be no more Democrat money advantage. Two, money is important, but when you are not being supported by anything besides your core base, chipping away new voters gets prohibitively expensive. Your best chance this late in the game is to find compromising pictures of your opponent and passing them out- a game that the Dems will do their level best to play this October.
And here is Obama in Wisconsin on Labor Day, asking for another $50 billion for "shovel ready" infrastructure jobs. Back to Plan A, I guess.
I feel for them sometimes. I saw the great GOP immigration schism in 2006 firsthand, and how it served to roll out a red carpet to Democrat majority. I warned them that it was happening, and none of them could see a path to adjustment. If I were a Democrat now, I would feel like Cassandra, howling into the wilderness about impending disaster and having nobody listen.
They deserve every bit of it. My encounters with Obama people in 2008 showed me that they were some of the most arrogant, uninsightful and historically ignorant that I ever met. They deserve every bit of what is coming to them.