Every once in a while the facade slips and Bolshevik The Clown ["The Smelliest Clown Around!"] exposes his blood-soaked fangs and the truth. Yesterday he joked about how there really were never any "shovel ready" projects to be funded by his Crippling Debt Enhancement Law.
Don't worry, you commies, AmericaLast kool-aid drinkers like the besotted Ezra Klein will get him reelected.
Obama and Shovel Ready Projects - Ezra Klein, Washington's other newspaper
Perhaps I should've written this post before interviewing Jared Bernstein, the vice president's chief economist, on the same subject. But if you read that interview closely, you'll see a White House that doesn't exactly know what to do with the president's comments. The administration doesn't think the stimulus failed. At the end of the day, the law met its spending targets. As promised, it dispensed with 70 percent of the funds within two years. Most of the remaining money will pay out when projects that are underway reach completion. Today, the White House released a video in which Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, argues that the intervention saved the job market (though by looking only at private-sector jobs, he stacks the deck, as the public sector is where recent job losses have been concentrated).
So why did the president tell Peter Baker -- and before him, David Brooks -- that there are no "shovel-ready programs"? Those were three of the most important words used to sell the program -- and the president's decision to walk them back is giving plenty of ammunition to his enemies.
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