AMERICAN ISSUES PROJECT

Ever watch a really good illusionist?  They are the masters of misdirection and succeed by getting you looking the direction they need you to look, in order to disguise the trick. The best illusionist can honestly make you believe what they are doing is magic.

I am starting to think President Barack Obama is a great illusionist. Not because he is magical, but because he wants us to believe in something that isn't really happening.

Last week I told you about the unemployment numbers being the worst in 26 years. This week they are worse, coming in at 9.7 percent. President Obama reacts by asking, "Say, what's that behind your ear?"

While in Ghana, Obama actually said the stimulus bill has "worked as intended." Here's where he becomes a great illusionist.

Rather than point to the fact that unemployment is worse now than he predicted it would be without the stimulus plan, he wants us to look at the health insurance and unemployment insurance they have provided to those who lost jobs they were supposed to keep.  Nevermind that they lost their jobs.  They have government funded insurance and unemployment. 

Rather than look at the hundreds of thousands of jobs that continue to evaporate, we are supposed to look at the jobs he "saved" through government spending.

Both of the above create more and more Americans who are dependent on the government for their health and welfare.  Both of the above do little to help America come out of it's economic funk.  But the great illusionist wants us to look at what he needs us to see, in order for the illusion to work.

Now the buzz surrounds a second stimulus. The first one, it turns out, just wasn't big enough.

Funny how there is never enough time in government to do things right the first time, but there is always time to do them over.

Well here's a news flash for you: the last stimulus was the second stimulus. President George W. Bush signed the first stimulus into law in February 2008:

President Bush on Wednesday signed a multibillion-dollar economic rescue package on Wednesday that means $300 to $1,200 rebates for many American households.

Bush called the measure "a booster shot for our economy" to stave off a recession.

Several dozen members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stood on the stage behind Bush as he signed the bill.

Back then, the experts said "the $168 billion package Bush signed will help prevent the current downturn from ballooning into a crisis."

Now we have spent that, plus another trillion, and the "experts" want more.  Only if a "three strikes" clause is part of the deal.

The first two stimulus plans have failed to stimulate the economy and we are expected to believe a third go of it will do the trick.  Perhaps a history lesson is in order.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent and spent and spent in order to get America out of the Great Depression.  His Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in May of 1939.  He was a Roosevelt loyalist, but didn't mince any words.  He told lawmakers:

"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."

How many times must this be tried before it is accepted to be a failure? Democrats continue to do the same thing, yet expect different results.

In Ghana, President Obama said something that summed up the whole statist outlook of the current Democrat Party.  He told the people of Ghana, "Africa doesn't need strongmen.  It needs strong institutions." 

I agree with the first sentiment.  Dictators and strongmen don't create great countries.  They create misery.

But on the second part, he's wrong.  Africa, America and every other country doesn't need strong institutions to thrive.  They need a free people. 

Wherever freedom has flourished, so have the people.  Remove the roadblocks from our success by removing the "strong institutions" that sap our revenue for airports named after Congressmen, wildlife "eco-passages" in Florida and $10 million to renovate a train station that hasn't been used in 30 years.

America wasn't made strong by government institutions and government intervention.  It was made strong by government doing the minimum required to protect the rights of its people and then getting out of their way. 

If we are to recover from this current government created economic mess, the failures of the past cannot be seen as the successes of the future.  Rather, we must embrace the freedoms given to us by the Founders and return to our free market roots.

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