Obama and the Democrats use a crisis to implement their economic plan

Eat your heart out Naomi Klein. Here is an excerpt from Obama's speech today at George Mason University. George Mason must have been spinning in his grave:

It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy – where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

To finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.

To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized. This will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests. But it just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs – it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.

Finally, this recovery and reinvestment plan will provide immediate relief to states, workers, and families who are bearing the brunt of this recession. To get people spending again, 95% of working families will receive a $1,000 tax cut – the first stage of a middle-class tax cut that I promised during the campaign and will include in our next budget. To help Americans who have lost their jobs and can’t find new ones, we’ll continue the bipartisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage to help them through this crisis. Government at every level will have to tighten its belt, but we’ll help struggling states avoid harmful budget cuts, as long as they take responsibility and use the money to maintain essential services like police, fire, education, and health care.

Comment: My first thought after listening to this speech was how much is it going to cost and how long is it going to take to pay for it? With the "Boomer" generation getting ready to retire in great numbers over the next several years or so, social security and Medicare are going to be put to the test. Adding the so-called "Recovery and Reinvestment plan" and the myraid of other government implemented plans Obama spoke of during this speech may end up just as similiar government plans did during the Great Depression.

Thomas Dilorenzo on the New Deal--Part Two

HT: Liberty Pen

Thomas Dilorenzo on the New Deal--Part One

HT: Liberty Pen

Our economy in the hands of politicians does not bode well

A great post from Jim Cardoza at Liberty Pen:

The inmates are definitely running the asylum these days. It seems if any business succeeds wildly, like Exxon, government quickly moves to punish them, using weapons like the windfall profit tax. Politicians cite fairness as their motive.

However, when a business fails miserably, like AIG, government is willing to give them boatloads of money---the former property of individual Americans. Politicians cite our best interest as the motive, arguing that they have brilliantly averted an even worse scenario.

Such an economic policy should be recognized as absurd on its face. The idea that the free market doesn't work, and that the better way to run the economy is to have a handful of all-knowing central planners at the helm, has been proven by history to be a surefire recipe for the destruction of liberty.

The problems with political interference in the everyday economic behavior of people pursuing their own interests are primarily twofold. First, by themselves making the rules, politicians have unlimited opportunity to dispense favors. Why does one business get bailed out and another not?

And secondly, the considerations that weigh most heavily to politicians, when making essential economic decisions, completely lack the component of restraint. In other words, why should a politician, whose vision routinely does not extend beyond the next election season, ever curb spending? After all, government can simply print money.

The ability of politicians to manipulate the markets has brought us to the economic mess of today. And yet, this situation has worked out well for those big government advocates. At great price to the American people, ownership of our nation's financial system has been transferred to the very politicians who destroyed the last one.

Ten times out of ten, the central planners responsible will blame the "lack of regulation" for their failures. The Great Depression was no different. But, how can the free market be responsible? The Federal Reserve was established in 1913. It has been 95 years since we have had one.

Why the free-market works better than a command economy

I really can’t add much to what Thomas Sowell so elegantly states:

When amateurs outperform professionals, there is something wrong with that profession.

If ordinary people, with no medical training, could perform surgery in their kitchens with steak knives, and get results that were better than those of surgeons in hospital operating rooms, the whole medical profession would be discredited.

Yet it is common for ordinary parents, with no training in education, to homeschool their children and consistently produce better academic results than those of children educated by teachers with Master's degrees and in schools spending upwards of $10,000 a year per student-- which is to say, more than a million dollars to educate ten kids from K through 12.

Nevertheless, we continue to take seriously the pretensions of educators who fail to educate, but who put on airs of having "professional" expertise beyond the understanding of mere parents.