Monday, July 12, 2010

Not Fucking Helping

There's a general school of thought in progressive circles that while more stimulus is desperately needed, Obama is doing as much as possible to help the unemployment situation. I tend not to agree with that position for a variety of reasons, partially because they keep saying shit like this:
Here's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on The Kudlow Report last night:
Sec. GEITHNER: We have a pro-growth agenda. Part of the agenda is growing exports. They're central to our future. What the president today is to say, that is important to the United States, we're going to be committed to making sure we're that we're expanding opportunities for American business everywhere. Now, this president understands deeply that governments don't create jobs, businesses create jobs. And our job as government is try to make sure we're creating the conditions that allow businesses to prosper so they can hire people back, get this economy going again.
This echoes President Obama, as quoted in a piece by TAP's Tim Fernholz:
"Now, government can't create jobs, but it can help create the conditions for small businesses to grow and thrive and hire more workers," President Barack Obama said yesterday as he urged Congress to take up new jobs legislation at an event honoring Small Business Owners of the Year. "Government can't guarantee a company's success, but it can knock down the barriers that prevent small-business owners from getting loans or investing in the future."
As Adam Bink and atrios point out, to say that the Government can't create jobs is 1) not true, 2) a conservative talking point 3) not true 4) the last thing you want to say if you claim you're also pushing for THE GOVERNMENT TO CREATE MORE JOBS.

Taking this into acount, we there are two options:

A: The Administration wants to create more jobs, but is extremely incompetent when advocating for further job creation measures.

B: The Administration doesn't think our current unemployment rate is a problem.

I hope option B isn't true, but option A isn't very encouraging either.

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