Economic Illiterates Run the Show

RUSH: Get this, now. This is hot off the press. Just an hour ago from State-Controlled AP: ‘A top White House economist says spending from the $787 billion economic stimulus has already had its biggest impact on economic growth and will likely not contribute to significant expansion next year.’ This is it. This is it. Seven months after the stimulus, 49 of 50 states have lost jobs, the jobless claims are way up, denting recovery hopes, and now Christina Romer of the Obama administration — and we wonder for how long she will be with the Obama administration — now says this is it, the Porkulus has already had its biggest impact on economic growth. We only spent 14% of it, the bulk of it gets spent next year and what she’s telling us is what we already know, that it’s not about economic stimulus, it’s to reelect Democrats. That’s where most of the money is going to go. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi did not get the memo. Late yesterday afternoon on CNBC, Maria Bartiromo interviewed the speaker of the House, ‘Do we need a second stimulus? It seems that after $787 billion in stimulus and then the $700 billion from TARP, it’s surprising we haven’t seen a bigger impact here.’

PELOSI: I don’t think anybody’s surprised that we haven’t seen any job creation from TARP. The recovery package that we passed later in January under President Obama has had positive results. Economists told us this morning in our session that absent that recovery package, we’d be in much worse shape.

RUSH: Hard to see how.

PELOSI: It’s no accident that right now that as the recession’s coming to an end it does so where the recovery package is weighing in at its biggest impact in this third quarter, quarter of ’09. But more must be done. It’s not enough to say we saved jobs and we haven’t created enough. And that’s why we have to look at the tax code and other remedies that are there for us in the short term.

RUSH: Okay, so Christina Roemer says, this is it, folks, the biggest bang for the buck has already happened, ain’t going to get any more. Pelosi said, stimulus is working, now it’s time to raise taxes. So Bartiromo said, ‘On the tax issue, allowing the –‘ now, you gotta hear this. You got to hear this. ‘– allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would essentially be a tax increase.’

PELOSI: It isn’t a tax increase, it is eliminating a tax decrease that was there. It was controversial to begin with. It is a boon to those who have had it for now, but I think that you will see that happen, and that is — that affects, what, the upper 2% of our population —

BARTIROMO: Given the fact that we are still in this fragile recovery, would you rethink allowing those tax cuts to expire given that we are still pretty vulnerable in terms of the economic recovery?

PELOSI: I don’t think many people here see, nor do the American people see, those tax cuts at the high end as being job creating. They think that that’s part of the reason we’re in the fiscal, budgetary situation that we’re in, because those tax cuts cost money. We can’t afford those taxes, we never could, those tax cuts.

RUSH: All right. Did you figure all that out, ladies and gentlemen? We’re dealing with genuine idiots here. Genuine economic illiterate idiots are running the show here. So the administration says, ‘We’ve already had our biggest bang for the buck in the stimulus,’ Pelosi said, oh, no, no, no, it’s working, it’s time to raise taxes. But it’s not a tax increase to let a tax cut expire? No, no, no. It’s eliminating a tax decrease that was there. It’s eliminating a tax decrease that was there. Who is going to be sending more money to Washington? Do you realize — well, yeah, you do realize it because the economy is you, and there isn’t any growth out there. I’m more frustrated than I have been. Each and every day brings more evidence that we have a willful and purposeful destruction of the private sector economy in the United States, and it’s not just Obama, it is the entire Democrat Party which has signed on to do so.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The economic news continues to be unbelievably horrible and bad. And, by the way, I think Christina Romer is saying this is it. We’ve had the Big Bang for the buck that we’re going to get on the stimulus. Is she not saying, ladies and gentlemen, that Barack Obama’s stimulus has failed? Forty-nine out of 50 states report job losses after the stimulus! So his own economic advisor, Christina Romer, is essentially saying Obama has failed. ‘Hope and change.’ You remember what hope is. Hope is an excuse for doing nothing, people sitting around waiting for Mr. Obama to make their lives right. ‘Labor Department statistics show that the District of Columbia leads the nation in the percentage of jobs lost in September relative to population. Figures released show that New York lost the most jobs last month but DC had the highest percentage of jobs lost relative to population. The DC unemployment rate shot up to 11.4%,’ right under Obama’s nose.

Right under the administration’s nose! ‘The Michigan unemployment rate is the highest in the nation at 15%.’ The media is not concerned. They keep saying, ‘Jobless Claims Dent Recovery Hopes.’ You go back to 2004, or 2008 and look at them reporting a loss of 20,000 jobs, and it was a calamity, it was disaster, it was a recession in the making. And, of course, that’s when George W. Bush was in the office.