Responding to Presidential strong-arm tactics, the Senate Democrats passed the Economic Destruction Plan with the help of three defecting Republicans. Seeking to pressure the Senate, Obama attempted to make his case with the American people on the eve of the Senate vote. Breaking with long-standing protocol, the President read his statements from a teleprompter. When he took questions, his responses often took 13+ minutes each as he rambled on, obfuscating and dodging the core queries. These efforts, however, may be failing as people and elected officials begin to balk at the details of the plan.

In so doing, Obama remained consistent with his rhetoric: “We must pass the stimulus bill immediately to avert an otherwise unpreventable catastrophe. This is so urgent, we can’t take time to understand the bill, to debate the bill, or even question the bill. Trust me we must do this and do it now. So, pass that bill and get it to my desk immediately.”

The Senate has complied and is now conferencing with the House to draft a version that both can agree on. While it may be too late to protect the country from the damage of this economic destruction bill, the passage has been delayed long enough that some critical analysis is beginning to surface, even in the dominant media.

How Bad is this Recession?
Of all sources, the New York Times ran an article on Sunday stating this recession is not that bad. The article quotes Robert Gordon - a Northwestern University professor and one of the seven economists who make up an economic committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research that determines if and when we are in an actual recession. It is to these elite seven that the country turns for assessments of the national economic climate. Here are Gordon’s key points.

• We are in a recession
• The recession likely started in August or September 2008
• It is hard to determine how long or how deep this recession will extend
• This recession will likely be worse than the recessions of 2001 & 1990-91
• This recession may not be as bad as the recession of the early 1980’s

Hmm… So it’s not sounding like the worst recession since the Great Depression. If we survived the recession of the early 1980’s without an unfathomable mountain of government spending, how necessary is such spending now?

But Obama Said…
During Monday’s national address, Obama said that he had spoken with many economists — both liberal and conservative, both Republican and Democrat — and that there was “no disagreement.” “Economists from across the political spectrum agree” on the need for massive government spending to stimulate the economy now to save the country from certain economic peril. (Just one of Obama’s many whoppers that night.) 

Maybe the President is simply too busy to read the newspaper or maybe he simply didn’t speak with enough economists. What is clear is that he failed to recognize that the Cato Institute placed an ad in major newspapers across the United States, which was signed by hundreds of economists, including Nobel laureates and other prominent scholars. Here is what the nation’s leading economists are saying with a unified voice:

• We do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.
• Government spending did not save us from the Great Depression.
• Government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990’s.
• It is blind hope and not experience that leads one to believe government spending will help this time.
• To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

To better understand what these economists think, please see a very readable interview with Mike Munger, a Duke University economist as published by the Pope Center.

Why the Hurry? Can’t We Just Talk About It?
Perhaps the biggest, and increasingly obvious, reason is that the economic destruction bill is as much (or more) about imposing a socialist system on America as it is about government spending. Buried in this unfathomable mountain of spending are some of the greatest leaps towards socialism in the history of our republic. If the socialists in Congress and the White House can sneak this bill through under the guise of an economic emergency, thereby preventing serious consideration and debate, they will have pulled off an amazing political coup.

Lest you think these are the rantings of a right-wing nut, take a moment to read these comments from New York City’s former mayor Ed Koch, himself a lifelong liberal Democrat.

“While I support the ultimate [socialist] goals of the new Democratic congressional majority for significant changes in our society, I do not want those changes imposed through stealth. I want them debated and voted on by a Congress able to sort out the good from the bad in shaping legislation. That is not what is happening now. According to Pear’s New York Times article,
‘Democrats said the current economic crisis did not allow time for public hearings on the legislation.’ For me, this is a form of tyranny and is not acceptable. The ends here do not justify the means. There is no need or excuse for stealth.”

What Kind of Stealth Provisions
Unfortunately, the list is really, really long. Here is a very small sampling, but by researching online, even for just a few minutes, you will find these and countless other stealth provisions.

• Anti-religious measures, preventing stimulus funds to be used if a school allows religious activities in a building.
• Massive increases in government health coverage.
• Government power to monitor how a doctor is treating his patients and the ability to dictate which treatments may be used.
• Rationing of health care to those the government deems most deserving.
• Massive support and funding of unions and socio-economically preferred citizens.
• Doubling of the budget for the Department of Education, greatly expanding their power over states and communities.
• Sponsorship of radical environmental efforts.
• Nationalization of businesses and industries (also part of the broader “rescue” efforts).
• Support of radical “community activist” groups.

Do the Liberals Realize What they are Doing?
Probably not all of them. Our citizenry is horrendously ignorant of economic principles. The same is probably doubly true of our sitting Congress. Your average, run-of-the-mill liberal/progressive is probably blissfully ignorant of what is happening and the likely consequences. These are still basking in the elevation of their anointed one. But, some are clearly catching on. Even so, the socialists in the government are clearly aware and are aggressively pressing forward.

The State of New Hampshire (no conservative bastion there) has been woken from its slumber and just passed a defiant joint resolution warning the federal government, in no uncertain terms, to back off and stay within the bounds the Constitution has firmly planted around it. They see this federal power grab for what it is and are taking aggressive action. The legislature has directed a copy of this resolution be sent to the President of the United States, each member of the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each State’s legislature. This is a call to action and a hissing threat of “do not tread on me” that we should all embrace and champion.