The Homa Files

Note: “”Mulligan” is a golf term.  When a golfer hits a particularly bad shot, he may petition his buddies (usually fruitlessly)  for a 2nd try, a “do over”.  That’s called a Mulligan

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Ken’s Take:  Washington has thrown trillions of dollars at this recession, including that famous $787 billion in more spending that was supposed to yield $1.50 in growth for every $1 spent.

The ‘stimulus’ promised a jobless peak of 8%; it’s now 9.5%.

The defense: (1) We guessed wrong (Biden), (2) Less than 20% of the stimulus has hit the economy (wasn’t it an “emergency bill”  intended for this year?), (3) It’s Bush’s fault (remember him, from long ago?)

Since so little of the stimulus has been spent, let’s reclaim the dough and either bank it or do it right.

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Extracted from WSJ, “Tilting at Windmill Jobs”, July 3, 2009

As always, a sustained expansion and job creation must come from private investment and risk-taking.

Yet as America’s entrepreneurs look at Washington they see uncertainty and higher costs from:

a $1 trillion health-care bill;

• higher energy costs from the cap-and-tax bill;
• new restraints on consumer lending in the financial reform bill;
• new tariffs and threats of trade protection;
• limits on compensation and banker baiting;
• the possibility of easier unionization, among numerous other Congressional brainstorms.

None of this inspires “animal spirits.”

The best thing Mr. Obama could do to create jobs would be to declare he’s dropping all of this and starting over.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657739768489217.html

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This entry was posted on July 6, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under Financial Crisis, Obama Administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.