A devastating column by GW on this utter disaster of a presidency, and of a president. January 2011, which by all rights ought to yank the congressional balance of power back to a sensible approximation of partisan parity, cannot arrive soon enough.
qb
I Dissent 
Here are some of the thoughts that I have.
One, Pres Bush 43 left office with the federal debt nearing $12 trillion, annual deficits approaching $1 trillion, and the economy in free fall, portending even larger deficits in 2009 and beyond. “Higher Taxes, Anyone?” writes George Will? Who in their right mind thought anything OTHER THAN higher taxes was inevitable already? Since Reagan ushered in the era of cutting taxes while boosting spending, the government has been piling up massive debt. Higher taxes are coming. That die was cast before you ever heard the name Barack Obama.
Two, of what Will calls Stimulus II, the tax cutting part is already implemented and the spending part has just begun. If one is to draw the conclusion that Stimulus II has failed, it is only because the tax cuts, among the largest in US history, have failed to stimulate the economy. Only a tiny fraction of the spending portion has been implemented; the impact is yet to be felt. Remember that when Republicans begin campaigning for 2010, and push for tax cuts.
Three, does anyone seriously believe that the vast current level of deficit spending is anything other than stimulative? The criticism – that, because unemployment is going to crest at a higher level than first thought, the stimulus has failed to do what it was supposed to do – makes no sense whatsoever. It is akin to arguing that, because the New Orleans levies failed, they shouldn’t have been built. That’s asinine. They, just like the stimulus so far, were insufficient to fully turn aside the storm. Whatever the depth of this recession, find me a serious economist who thinks it would have been less severe without the stimulus.
Four, the real success of the Obama plan, so far, has been in restoring normal function to the credit markets in a remarkably short time. There is a lot to be worried about from the actions of government in the past six months (and even more so in the past six years) – more debt, higher deficits. But that the stimulus has failed is not among them. And to lay the inevitable higher tax burden that is coming solely at Obama’s feet is utterly preposterous.
http://thecentersquare.wordpress.com/