Three-alarm presidency won't bring recovery

The Obama administration ordinarily operates in three-alarm mode. On its to-do list, even the mundane carries the designation "dire emergency."

On matters that bear directly on Obama's agenda of destroying American capitalism, such as cap and trade, the administration has gone to outlandish lengths, forcing the House to take up a bill that no member had read.

Still, there is room for even more alarming alarmism. The stubborn refusal of the economy to get up off the mat, combined with the approach of the 2010 election season, seems likely to put the Obamaites in four-alarm mode.

The preceding post quotes Nouriel Roubini as doubting that the recession will end this year. If the recession does extend into 2010 it is likely to affect the outcome of the 2010 congressional election by depressing contributions to Democrat campaiagns and discouraging some potential Democrat challengers from running.

Obama already is slipping in the polls. Among those with strong opinions, opponents of Obama are running 7 percentage points ahead of supporters in the Rasmussen Poll. The Gallup Poll shows the Democrats' lead in party identification shrinking, but the party still leads Republicans by nine points, 49 percent to 40 percent.

Alleged Republicans who supported Obama, such as Colin Powell, also appear to be having second thoughts. Expressing surprise at the size of Obama's agenda, Powell recently negotiated the first teeny-weeny, unserious climb-down from the Obama train. It wasn't pretty, but everything has to start somewhere.

As the failure of Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan becomes more and more obvious, the credibility of other Republican Obamaites will come into question. Will Warren Buffett ever be regarded as Warren Buffett again? Not likely.

My question is, why did Obama reject the stimlulus option that was most likely to work immediately in favor of one that may not work at all?

An immediate tax cut, perhaps including a timed tax holiday, would have put money in the hands of taxpayers immediately while also giving them reassurance that America was going on as usual despsite the bump in the road.

Instead, the administration chose the pork barrel, which persuaded many Americans that something new was afoot and they'd better hold onto every dime they had. The three-alarm Obamaites, by scaring American consumers, caused the Obama stimulus plan to fail.

How much damage will the four-alarm Obamaites cause? We'll know soon.