Monday, July 6, 2009

Biden Misunderestimates The Economy

Every time Joe Biden opens his mouth, a “village idiot” in Crawford, Texas smiles. Appearing on ABC’s “This Week” yesterday, the vice president admitted that the administration’s initial projection of an eight percent peak unemployment rate as part of the stimulus package passed last March was optimistic. “The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy”, said Biden.

Who’s “we”? Certainly not the President; after all, it was Obama who used words like “crisis” and “catastrophe” to sell the stimulus package in the first place. Perhaps it wasn’t the diagnosis, but rather the treatment that was misread.

What is more worrisome to me, is that many of these same optimistic forecasts have been used to model Obama’s, erm, ambitious domestic agenda, including universal healthcare.

But wait, it gets better – Biden refused to rule out a second stimulus package. Oy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Methinks that even Dan Quayle enjoys it every time this idiot opens his mouth.

Do you think if Joseph Robinette Biden were a Republican, the press would have fun with the fact that he graduated from college ranked 506 out of 688 in his class? He was a political science major at the University of Delaware, it's not like he went to Yale or got an MBA.

As far as his law school record goes, he graduated 76 in a class of 85.

He may not be bright, but he is articulate and clean.

Mudge said...

Actually, sending VP Biden out to announce the failure of the entire human race to assess properly the state of the economy is quite brilliant. It keeps the discussion focused on the economy the Administration inherited. Even though Mr. Biden, remarkably, did not utter "inherited" and even went so far as to say, after stuttering around it, that it was "our responsibility now", it deftly brings the listeners' context back to the inherited economy. Why do I think it is "brilliant"? Not because claiming the mess as an inheritance gets them off the hook, but because it precisely keeps the focus off the possibility that the Administration's policies themselves may be to blame for the worse than estimated condition of the economy today. I for one have more liquid assets than I have had in my entire life, yet I am significantly reducing my spending and am instead investing my earnings for the day when I will be visited by an outstretched IRS hand asking to help pay off the incredible debt this Administration is piling up. I am learning just how dramatically out of touch I am on most things in America today, so it is likely that I am out of touch in reducing my spending as well. But if even a small percentage of those with more liquid assets are instead making them un-liquid, I have to believe it impacts the economy. As long as we aren't discussing the negative side effects of the medicine the Administration is administering our economy, I believe POTUS believes his plan is tracking just fine.

Anonymous said...

Cries for a second stimulus package are already being heard from Democrats. And why not? They never got to read the contents of the last bill. The 'crisis' which deemed its passage late at night with no real review could probably be repeated with a super-majority. If increased Govt. funding is seen as a tool to bring about the social change desired by the current administration, then why not try and pass another late night bill when nobody can stop them. People are still drinking the kool aid. Heck the press would probably even support it.

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