Excuses, excuses

A recent article in Canada’s Financial Post by Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, Inc. predicts that the U.S economy will soon be all sunshine and lollipops, as its current malaise can easily be explained by a confluence of several unfortunate and unavoidable factors. These include the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the spate of bad weather that wreaked havoc upon the American south and mid-west, and the spike in oil prices earlier this year that Lascelles assures his readers will return to normal sometime soon.

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It appears that one of Lacelles’s most avid readers is U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. On a recent round of Sunday news-talk shows, Geithner used Lascelles’s explanation of the current economy’s lackluster performance, quoting chapter and verse about how the awful Japanese earthquake and tsunami imposed a deleterious, yet short term downturn on the U.S. economy because the devastation created massive supply-chain disruptions. Then he talked about how the tornadoes, windstorms and flooding at various locales across America further slowed an economy that he believed was just set to take off into hyperspace. Finally, Geithner talked about the “spike” in oil prices that drove up the cost of everything that needed to be shipped, adding a further dampening to an otherwise robust economy. Geithner absolutely refused to take any responsibility on behalf of the Obama administration for any of the economic woes current afflicting what was once the world’s most robust and valuable economy. In fact, Geithner maintained that the Democrats’ slush fund, otherwise known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), had saved the economy from a complete and fatal breakdown and indicated that it was the only reason that 90% of the U.S. population was not standing in line at some soup kitchen. The other 10% were the ones paying taxes. What’s more, Geithner insists that the Quantitative Easing policies (QE) initiated by the Fed were working and would soon bring the economy around to its pre-Bush ebullience. Of course, it’s clear that unlike Obama, even Geithner realizes that after two and a half years, one can’t keep blaming Bush, which leaves one to wonder what will the excuses be in the future. Will the administration have to engineer some sort of crisis in order to explain away their incompetence, or will they come up with ever more arcane and bizarre excuses, like Mars entering Leo’s house and kicking out Aquarius, causing the U.S. economy to stall yet once again? Maybe they can blame the unusual January snowfall in Billings, Montana or El Niño (or La Niña) or daylight savings time or the rain in Spain not falling on the plain. Here’s a novel idea that the administration apparently hasn’t considered: maybe the economy is remaining in the doldrums because the Obama policies are inherently flawed. Geithner, whom one would think as being capable of reading a balance sheet, given his lofty position as treasury secretary, might want to consider the fact that no entity, be it an individual, a family, a corporation or a freakin’ country is capable of spending itself into prosperity. It’s just one of those silly mathematical equations that won’t yield to the president’s persuasive skills. Spend more than you take in and eventually you go broke. If the administration really, really wants the economy to improve, then they might try something called “fiscal responsibility.” It’s a quaint concept, really, something that was innate in our grandparents, but obviously not much in vogue among most beltway politicians today. Conservative Republicans have identified a plethora of government programs that if cut, would save the government $2.5 trillion (with a T) over 10 years. The proposed cuts weren’t for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid or Medicare. They were for things like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ($445 million per year), the International Fund for Ireland ($17 million per annum), some programs under the National and Community Services Act ($1.15 billion per year) and so on. All in all 55 useless and wasteful programs were identified for savings. These are the sacred cows for which Obama and the Democrats are willing to sacrifice America’s economic health in order to continue to buy continued time in office. Those who are blaming the Republicans for being intransigent in their demands to cut government spending as well as taxes should make it a priority to educate themselves about what’s really at stake and who is really at fault.