Obama and the stimulus

David Leonhardt:

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Mr. Obama’s biggest mistake as president has not been the story he told the country about the economy. It’s the story he and his advisers told themselves.
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That is about the only part of this piece I really agree with.  Leonhardt argues that they should have known that things would be difficult to turn around and that those mean Republicans would not go a long with them. He acts as if these Republicans were the first ones to ever want to limit a President to one term.  I am not sure where liberal Democrats get their sense of entitlement, but they seem to have too much of it.

The fact is, that Leonhardt does not discuss, Republicans made suggestions for stimulating the economy that Obama did not even consider adding to the stimulus package, so it should be no surprise that he did not get many Republican votes.

The real problem is that Democrats don't know much about what really stimulates an economy.  Their hostility to "the rich" leads them to measures that have little long term effect and do not give enough incentives to investment and job creation.  They wasted billions on pay for teachers and other government workers on a short term basis that fed their union base and did nothing of value in terms of boosting the economy.

The auto bailouts were really UAW bailouts that failed to fundamental restructure these companies to make them competitive.  Dodd-Frank was a massive cover up of the Democrat housing policies which caused the debacle to begin with.  It was typical Democrat blame shifting trying to make the financial sector scapegoats for their malfeasance.  But the act also created uncertainty and heavier regulatory burden on the sector of the market that is most needed to encourage growth and economic expansion.

The health care monstrosity also created a drag on job creation by driving up the cost of health care and made many employer's reluctant to expand and accept the burdens imposed by the act.

In short what Obama proved was that liberalism is not equipped to deal with a financial crisis.  He proved that in spades and if reelected he will continue to prove it because he is too much of an liberal to change.