Judged by his own standards, President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. “This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession,” he said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It’s “the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” Given these dire warnings, you’d expect the stimulus package to focus almost exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn’t, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame. . . . His politics compromise the program’s economics. Look at the numbers.
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UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer: “The markets are responding remarkably, exquisitely, sensitively to political events, much more in than in the past. And the reason is for the last year we have had huge intervention of the government in the markets and the banks, in autos. So it is not just a reaction to economic news, but to what’s happening in Washington.”
Stocks have now fallen to 1997 levels. Not much of a confidence vote from the markets.
ANOTHER UPDATE: “Is it any wonder the markets continue to sink?”
MORE: Dan Riehl: “It’s impossible to watch Obama maneuver since taking the WH without characterizing his behavior as divisive and dishonest. Unfortunately, taking it all in, it’s clear that one of two things must be true. The Obama administration along with key Democrat players in Congress are either incompetent, or willing to risk a genuine Depression for political gain.”
I’m going with incompetent — though putting Joe Biden in charge of the stimulus does suggest actual malice . . . .