Well, six months have passed since the "economic stimulus plan" was signed by President Obama. Let's look back at my predictions and see how we've done:
1) Total spending for this plan will exceed 5 TRILLION dollars before this administration leaves office.
Six months in, we're well on the way. While this plan did in fact stimulate
something, it seems that its greatest impact has been in stimulating the greed of those who are getting all this money, that is, members of Congress. We the people are merely the funnel by which they are guaranteeing the presence of funds for upcoming campaigns.
2) Following passage of this bill the stock market will show a brief rebound followed by a collapse of most if not all key market indicators.
The stock market has trembled a bit from time to time, but surprisingly it's not doing all that bad right now. Now that the cash for clunkers - i.e. post-stimulus giveaway - money has run out, there's a very real potential that all this did was get the automakers all dressed up, and now with no more free money (for now), will there be any place for them to go? This is also the risk of all this stimulus money, once all of the industries have gotten all dressed up for this free money, where will they go when that pipeline runs dry?
3) Countless Americans will lose their lives under the provisions of this "plan".
While we've seen no trend towards this kind of violence in the past six months, the ill effects of all this free money are not likely to be demonstrated until the money starts to dry up. Then we'll really see how great of an idea this was. Watch what happens with the automakers and the "cash for clunkers" program; however this goes should be an interesting indicator of what to expect with the big money plan, of course, on a big money scale.
4) The plan will not work as expected.
On July 5 (earlier than the six month prediction, btw), Vice President Joe Biden
sort of admitted that the plan did not work as expected when he stated "We misread the economy". (
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/07/biden-we-misread-the-economy-.html) Of course, he also stated that they believe that the plan was the right thing to do at the time, and that they were forced into this by the previous administration. Wouldn't this be a much more effective administration if, instead of pointing fingers back to the previous administration, they simply said "well, this sucks. Let's fix it". But no, it's all about blaming the other guy first, and giving themselves a political token they can cash in when their own ill-conceived plan goes awry.
The economy is not a Democrat issue nor is it a Republican issue. It's an American issue. We the people are all in this together. And unless our elected officials pull their collective heads out of their butts and realize that their parties and the B.S. divisiveness ARE THE PROBLEM, nothing is ever going to change, at least not for the betterment of we the people. And don't go giving me that "bipartisan" load of crap; That word is no more than a political buzzword to deflect attention away from the criminal actions and intent of a abusively negligent Congress.
So here we are. This sucks. We
can fix this. But what is more likely to happen is a Democrat-led Executive branch and Congress will blame the Republicans for the mess and when their ill-conceived plans get ugly, it'll be the Republicans fault. But this is just one side of the equation; Republicans will do their own share of blaming the Democrats for all this debt, all the while trying to distance themselves from their own misdeeds.
We need leadership who can step up to the mic and say "hey, we screwed up". If Vice Present Biden wasn't bought and paid for by the Party, I think he would actually come out and say "we screwed up". But of course, the Party won't allow that, and so we have the unwilling, led by the unknowing, attempting the impossible, paid for by the future of we the people.
5) Despite the total decimation of the American economy, the Obama administration will be completely sheltered from its impacts and exempted from responsibility.
This is a given. Despite moderately shrinking acceptance numbers, President Obama is still a rock star in the eyes of the media. Of course, the poll numbers that show his acceptance are all media-derived; all long as the media gets what they want the numbers will be solid. Should Mr. President turn on the media and, well, DO THE RIGHT THING, his numbers will plummet. But that's not likely to happen. Mr. President, for all his faults, is smart enough to know better than to bite the hand that has put him where he is.
So, we're on the way my friends. Let's see what kind of bizarre thing that Washington will do to we the people in the next six months.
