White House Pushing To Stop Dissent On Stimulus
Norman Eisen, who works for Barack Obama as Special Counsel to the President on Ethics and Government Reform. Anticipating a deluge of criticism over the thus-far ineffectual spending plan, Eisen has a straightforward plan to deal with criticism. He is just going to bar all dissent:
“First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.
“Second, we will focus the restriction on oral communications to target the scenario where concerns about merit-based decision-making are greatest –after competitive grant applications are submitted and before awards are made. Once such applications are on file, the competition should be strictly on the merits. To that end, comments (unless initiated by an agency official) must be in writing and will be posted on the Internet for every American to see.
“Third, we will continue to require immediate internet disclosure of all other communications with registered lobbyists. If registered lobbyists have conversations or meetings before an application is filed, a form must be completed and posted to each agency’s website documenting the contact.”
So in other words, not only are lobbyists going to be barred on discussing porkulus contracts…all citizens are. Brilliant.
Um, anyone heard of the first amendment?
This week we have seen a slow progression of the Obama White House to try to dampen all dissent on Obama era policies. First, it was threatening on the debate on interrogation. Then, White House Secretary Robert Gibbs and other Democrats ‘warned’ about opposing Sonia Sotomayor. And now this.
The public should be very wary when government moves to restrict your voice to dissent.
Well, there’s power in numbers. I suggest that EVERY AMERICAN who has a problem with the Obama and the Dems spending trillions of dollars in a pork-filled bill that nobody in Congress actually read and that Obama himself promised would be available for our inspectection for 5 days (a committment he made in a campaign speech)STAND UP AND HOLD OBAMA ACCOUNTABLE.
Let EVERY Blogger write AT LENGTH about the wasteful spending and how he his Crapulous bill stands to bankrupt the US, cause the collapse of the Social Security system and eventually cause runaway inflation.
This is what happen when people vote for someone who can speak well, but has NO executive experience step into the tole of President. Obama may know how to stiff arm people who get in his way politically in THIS country, but he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow about RUNNING a country… except, apparently INTO THE GROUND.
Come on, America. Stand up and BE HEARD. He can’t shut us ALL up if everyone takes their turn on the soap box to complain. Don’t let him BS you or Strong Arm us, Remember HE works for US. If he’s not willing to keep that in mind, TAKE CONGRESS AWAY FROM HIM NEXT YEAR! Take away the Democratically controlled Congress and he will be as impotent as he is arrogant! So President Obama is all about Community organizing? Let’s show him what a NATION organized against his lunacy is all about!
I fear the youngsters and “ignoranti” will remained enthralled in Obamamania. The universities, high schools and even elementary schools are relentlessly indoctrinating students and like the Nazis did, seduce them until their freedoms are gone and they won’t know whathappened to their lives and freedoms.
The only hope is for all traditionalists, conservatives and moderates to vote all the traitorous Democratic incumbents out of office next year.
I pray it will not be too late!
Unfortunately, the DC Facists that put BO in as “President” have not cared about the laws or they would not have used fraud to collect campaign contributions, a forged birth certificate, ACORN underground tactics.
BO is still collecting under $25 campaign contributions from people with phony names and addresses. A Fox reporter put in 3 contributions against a valid card using phoney names and addresses. All of the cleard his card. McCain had electronic measures in place to stop this kind of fraud.
Guess winning was everything.
HOW THE STIMULUS PLAN HAS BEEN WORKING ALREADY AND WHY IT IS BOUND TO GATHER PACE
The stimulus plan in of itself has halted the dramatic plunge in business and consumer confidence with the very likely threat of an economic depression earlier in the year, and businesses and consumers taking a less weary and more upbeat attitude to the future. Maybe more than anything else this will be the most significant impact of the stimulus package in the long-run enabling a spectacular recovery from the real possibility of depression before its passage. Businesses and consumers have become more and more confident that spending from the stimulus in the upcoming months will provide a solid environment for economic activity thus encouraging investment, reducing the pace of job losses and encouraging consumer spending. In other words, the stimulus package has avoided “a cycle of economic downturn to depression” and is now about to engender “a cycle of economic upturn to recovery”.
The stimulus package cash handouts and other social initiatives have played no minor part in lessening the burdens on individuals of the economic downturn and the consequent increase in the number of people unemployed thus palliating the effects with regards to mortgage, health coverage and consumer spending.
The stimulus package has halted the lost of jobs in the areas of education and other state level services and enabled States to avoid budget bankruptcy (caused by the fall in revenues due to the economic downturn) with the result of avoiding indirect job losses in the private sector as well.
The stimulus package is bound to lead the way for new jobs creation to be followed suit by direct private sector investments with the consequence of increasing spending in the economy and accelerating economic recovery. It should be noted that jobs created by the stimulus will have a multiplier effect in the creation of jobs by private enterprises.
Perhaps more fundamental for long-term economic recovery, given the areas of investment of the stimulus package (infrastructure, energy and green jobs, education. etc.), it is the type of government investment required for renewing long-term economic growth. As was the case with FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s and Eisenhower building of interstate highways and investment in the sciences in the 1950s, the stimulus package is bound to restructure the foundation of the US economy within which private enterprise will thrive.
The fundamental element in the criticisms levied against the stimulus package that it will increase the US deficit is the total disregard by most critics of what would have happened without the stimulus with respect to avoiding the real threat of a depression, raising business and consumer confidence and restructuring the economy. Thus providing a good foundation for real growth in the long-run (boostered by the Stimulus and led by private enterprise) with economic growth by itself and healthcare reform allowing for deficit reduction in the long-run.
While the Stimulus Package has often come under this one-sided criticism of increasing the US deficit, such an argument can only be credible to the extent that it elicits how the results mentioned above which have been obtained (and are to be obtained) by the Stimulus Package could have been attained otherwise. Most critics of the stimulus package seem to think that this economy which was at the very brink of collapse simply avoided a depression by some miracle and that by the same token recovery is bound to occur by magic. To the extent that their arguments fail to answer these fundamental facts about avoiding a depression and beginning a recovery, to that extent, such arguments can hardly be considered credible.
Actually, the initial impact of the stimulus for private enterprise and consumer confidence has been “anticipatory” in that it arrested a situation where the trend of business and consumer confidence was heading the economy to a depression. That is why the statistics point to the fact that business and consumer confidence stop plunging after the stimulus plan was passed and the stock market has been “going north” since then. It is the anticipation of the impact of the stimulus plan that has stabilized business and consumer confidence, heading off the real prospect of a depression. In other words, the stimulus package first impact was to act as the brakes for an economy that was heading to a depression disaster.
http://www.rususa.com/money/finance.asp See link above for the effect of the stimulus plan on the stock market immediately after its passage in mid-February 2009: the NASDAQ, Dow Jones and S & P 500 have made a dramatic U-turn upward since March 2009.
The reason for the high job losses is very simple. Those jobs were going to be lost anyway as business and consumer confidence entered a vicious cycle to depression following the failure of the financial system – these job losses arose out of lack of confidence in the financial system. Actually, the stimulus role at the onset more than any immediate spending in the economy itself has been to provide assurance to consumers and businesses that government will spend in the economy thereby upholding consumer and business confidence and avoiding the real prospect of a depression. So the stimulus first role has been “anticipatory” in forestalling a depression.
Believe it or not, it is not out of the question that without the stimulus plan we might have been talking now about the loss of not 1.6 million jobs but 5 or 6 million jobs at the trend at which consumer and business confidence went on falling before its passage. See link on the rise of consumer confidence since the stimulus plan was passed in mid-February 2009.
http://www.market-harmonics.com/free-charts/sentiment/consumer_confidence.htm
Actually, the word “stimulus” here can be misleading in that it underemphasizes the effect of the stimulus in arresting a grave and downward spiral of the economy and rather draw focus mainly on creation of jobs which is the second and yet to fully come dimension of its impact.
Let’s imagine that the stimulus plan was to be suspended now. What will happen is that the anticipation consumers and business had about its boosting effect on the economy will die out, and this of itself will create uncertainty and may well lead to a new downward spiral. The Stimulus has a double effect with respect to recovery and job creation. Perhaps the lesser acknowledged effect is the confidence created in the economy for private enterprise and consumer consumption. In fact, this indirect effect will be the strongest push for economic recovery and job creation. Then there is the direct effect of the Stimulus Package spending and its multiplier effect given the areas of expenditure (education, infrastructure, green jobs, etc.)
While critics are pointing to the fact that unemployment is already at 9.4 percent compared to the prediction of 8.8 percent for 2010 made by the Administration, many forget that Economics like Meteorology or Earthquake Prediction for that matter is “no Physics or Maths”. What ultimately matters is the bigger picture and trends. Going by the job loss figures for March, April and May (652000, 504000 and 345000 respectively) the argument made by the administration definitely holds. In fact, the Fed, the Treasury as well as other institutions involved in the prediction of economic data tend to revise their figures quite often. What matters is the trend and bigger picture.
The Stimulus is rather like a project but in this instance a massive and complex national project. A project can be broken down in two broad categories: design and execution. At the design stage (the first few months of the Stimulus), everything is being organised and put in place administratively with relatively little being carried out. The upcoming months will be the period when the massive spending and investments will be executed at an exponential rate. In fact, 1 billion dollar is already being allocated each day for Stimulus projects.
In layman’s terms, the Stimulus is needed for the simple reason that with the failure of the financial system, businesses and consumers were less willing (uncertainty) and less able (banks failures and failure to provide credit) to produce and spend in the economy implying that companies sold less goods and services than usual and so the companies had to lay out workers who in turn bought less and so the cycle goes (and this might just as well have led to a depression).
What the stimulus is meant to do, and is doing, is to incite and give businesses and consumers the confidence to keep on producing and spending respectively for the upcoming spending in the economy it is to generate exponentially. Initially by giving tax breaks, benefits, spending to maintain teaching and social services jobs and then spending on stimulus projects contracts given to companies which are then encouraged not to lay off workers. All these with the consequent multiplier effect in the economy.
Companies and consumers effectively bought to this idea once the Stimulus bill was enacted and kept on producing and consuming respectively in anticipation that upcoming Stimulus spending will maintain a stable economic environment from which recovery is possible. Hence the reason why the stock market and consumer and business confidence started rising. This effort was accompanied by the bank bailout and efforts to provide credit to consumers and companies.
It is effectively because the Stimulus Package is real, a commitment of 787 billion dollars by the US government for real economic projects, that consumers and businesses bought to the scheme and started acting in a positive manner in anticipation of its positive impact in the upcoming months (the Stimulus Package direct impact should enter in full force by the fourth quarter). In fact, many economists have even argued that the amount provided for the Stimulus should have been much more higher.
I’ll argue that irrespective of party creed, it will seem to me that the criticism levied against the Stimulus is much more of a “political vogue” (and has nothing to do with “realistic” economics) naïvely taken up by the media which tend to operate on the basis of “two sides to any story” (not a criticism though). The milestone which any such critical arguments has to overcome is to answer the question: how could a depression be avoided and a recovery started following the failure of the financial system?
The stimulus is rather the impetus for the overall economic agenda advanced by the Obama Administration and is meant to arrest the downward spiral of the economy and create a new basis on which the the US economy will be rebuilt for the upcoming years (not only the next 2 years).
The goal here is to move away from an economic model which has been based on speculation and credit indebtedness as was the case in the last few years (following the deregulatory policies started during the Clinton Administration) culminating into the mortgage crisis and the failure of the financial system.
The Obama Administration’s economic model is meant to refocus the economy on real growth. The government will provide the impetus for the new economic model by initiating policies meant to: better regulate the financial system to encourage real/productive and not speculative enterprise, reign on the culture of credit indebtedness (by enterprises and individuals), revamp education (for a more competitive economy based on a better qualified workforce), bring about a more energy efficient and independent economy with green jobs, bring down health care costs in order to lessen the burden on individuals and enterprises and provide universal coverage, and finally control deficits through economic growth and reigning down on health care costs (with pay-as-you-go as the future approach to public spending).
You will certainly notice that the stimulus spending is more or less continuous with this economic agenda.
Yes, but where is the growth? obama’s own projections of growth, for the first few months, are way off. That gives me little to no confidence in future projections. Second, they are not telling facts when they are talking about saving jobs…there is no parameter they are using, they are randomly picking numbers. That kind of arbitrary number picking further erodes confidence in their plan.
In fact, the rate of change in the economy, unemployment, etc. is following Obama’s own projections without the stimulus.
And in Obama’s own words, the recession is likely to end by the end of the year…at which point the stimulus plan would have barely started. To me, that means it is time to redact the stimulus, because the money is clearly being wasted.