Democrats spent the 2012 presidential campaign successfully blaming George W. Bush for the country’s sluggish economy. But a week after President Obama’s second inaugural, they are still not taking responsibility for the country’s fiscal health. The White House responded to yesterday’s disturbing news that GDP declined for the first time since 2009 in predictable fashion: they blamed the bad numbers on Republicans. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the dip was the fault of “Congressional Republicans” who have tried to restrain the government’s out-of-control spending. Even though the president got his way in the fiscal cliff negotiations with the GOP, Carney said the threat of sequestration, which would mandate across-the-board spending cuts, is the real culprit for the downturn and that the “brinksmanship” by the House Republicans was victimizing the nation’s economy.
This was thin gruel even from a practiced spin master like Carney. The idea of sequestration, which will have a particularly devastating effect on defense, originated in the White House and not the GOP caucus before it was put into the 2011 deal on the debt ceiling. But while we must give Carney credit for his usual chutzpah, the idea that Republican efforts to face up to chronic fiscal problems via entitlement reforms is to blame is a particularly depressing example of the ideological dead end into which the administration has driven the economy. As John Steele Gordon wrote yesterday, there is no way of knowing yet whether yesterday’s GDP numbers are the harbinger of an Obama recession or merely a statistical anomaly, but the steadfast refusal of the White House to face up to the long-term threats is what could be driving the economy into the ditch.
What Carney failed to mention is that every business in America is worrying about the implications of the president’s signature legislative achievement. ObamaCare is about to go into effect and the fear that it will drive up health-care costs in a way that could sink even substantial companies is already having a powerful impact on job growth and investment. Add in worries about the mounting federal debt and the government’s spending problems—which, contrary to the assertion of Senator Mary Landrieu, is a grim reality and not the invention of FOX News analysts—as well as Democratic threats to raise taxes and you have the makings of a perfect storm that could well create another Great Recession.
It is true that the uncertainty over the future that is fueled by the standoffs over the debt ceiling hasn’t helped the economy. The president has succeeded in fooling much of the public into believing this is solely the work of Republican obstruction, but now that the House GOP has punted on the debt ceiling, it is going to be difficult for Carney to keep pretending that it is House Speaker John Boehner and the Tea Party, rather than the man in the Oval Office, who has the principal responsibility for what is going on.
If the next growth report shows a negative number, President Obama will find himself presiding over his own recession. He may try to pin it on the GOP, but in his fifth year in the White House, that is a trick that even a master like Jay Carney will have trouble pulling off. The next recession, which may already be starting, is the work of an administration that is prepared to saddle the country with more debt in order to realize their liberal fantasies of expanded government, not the last-ditch efforts of generally powerless Republicans trying to stave off impending disaster.
Great post. But if Jay Carney can have press conferences, why don't Republicans hold their own press conferences immediately afterward to give rebuttal. All I hear for the most part is, well, nothing. When BHO said Republicans were suspicious of poor children,where were the rebuttals on that?! I never heard any,other than on conservative networks. How can they keep letting him get away with setting the narrative?
Because the establishment Repubs are incompetent, scared, and just want to hold onto their jobs and own pet entitlements. I do wish we would change the narrative to compare statists vs. individualists. Until then, we will all be voting for the lesser of two evils and only slightly delay the enevitable…
The RINO's, I mean Country Club Republicans are too busy spending our money and running around scared of Obama and the Democrats. Grow a spine GOP.
—"If the next growth report shows a negative number, President Obama will find himself presiding over his own recession. He may try to pin it on the GOP, but in his fifth year in the White House, that is a trick that even a master like Jay Carney will have trouble pulling off."—Yes, I'm sure he will have trouble pulling it off, but there is absolutely NO REASON to think he will fail. After all, his boss was elected twice. The American electorate consists of people who are desperate to be fooled again, hard core liberals and the bought-off. Why you'd ever expects reason to prevail given recent electoral history is a total mystery (the only counter-evidence was the 2010 election, which is starting to look like an anomaly or an example that the GOP can't win national elections only regional or local).
Obama and the Media will blame it all 100% on the lower house of Congress.
The Republicans have had little to do with the economy from the beginning on this head long dive into the abyss. He took over in Jan. "09" and was and is determined to make us a carbon copy of the Mediterranian disaster. The erconomy is his lock, stock and barrel.
ooooo… Nasty gun reference. Better watch your back. (/sarc)
OOOPS my bad, I think. Do you think I thought about that when I wrote it, I don't think so, but then thoughts can be deceiving.
“ObamaCare is about to go into effect and the fear that it will drive up health-care costs in a way that could sink even substantial companies is already having a powerful impact on job growth and investment.” n nYes, and eventually people are going to notice – with or without the help of the Sellout Media – the degradation of health care itself; but that is a matter for another day. However, when that day comes I pray that the lying Manipulated Stories Machine will be swept away along with every vestige of the corrupt ruling class. May they be clinging for dear life to the US Constitutional protection against bills of attainder and thanking GOD for the US Constitution. n
[continued] n nOne could list thousands of bad decisions made by the GOP over the years, and all it would prove is that what we are experiencing today was inevitable. Barack Obama is what you get when you do not attend to business. He is a kind of Avenging Angel, and he intends to rub our noses in our failures for as long as it takes to set us on a better course. That process may already be under way. But we must ask: Is the Republican Party still a viable political entity, after all the terrible things done and not done on its watch, when it held the power of the purse and commanded the military? On balance, I'd have to say "No way!" n nWe'll soon know if the new crop of conservative governors, senators and representatives can clean up the GOP's mess. If they can't, then we'll have to form a new party, this time without the "help" of the anti-abortion folks, the Moral Majority, and the anti-gay lunatics. While all of them are entitled to think and do as they like, what they do not have a right to do is ruin the United States via their extreme passions and religious excesses. Mercifully, this is a free country, but it is not a country that can endlessly be pounded by those from either side, Right and Left, who seek to make America into their "personal preserve," which they rule over. In America, we all have a right to the Tree of Life.