The Debt-End Bus Tour

I know, I couldn't stay away for long. But I just had to give an update on the ridiculous bus tour that Barack Obama is perpetrating conducting right now. There's too much there to ignore.

First off, you know it's a transparent sham when even the AP calls it 'a hunt for photo ops'. Funded by taxpayers, naturally. The bottom line in all the posturing, though, is the question of what Obama is doing (or going to do) about the economy. He has yet to put forward any kind of a plan despite repeated assertions that his position and plan are 'well known' to everyone. Of course, since the CBO can't score speeches, that's precisely what Obama's next solution is going to be: another speech. Skepticism abounds:

After months under fire for producing no plan to address the debt, deficit and unemployment, the president has at last decided to … give another speech. The Washington Times reports:

Seeking a jolt for a wilting economy, President Obama will give a major speech in early September to announce new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class, a senior administration official told the Associated Press.

The president’s plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed. The official emphasized that all of Mr. Obama’s proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, including his “infrastructure bank” idea to finance construction jobs.

On a significant and related front, Mr. Obama also will present a specific plan to cut the suffocating long-term national debt and to pay for the cost of his new short-term economic ideas.

His debt proposal will be bigger than the $1.5 trillion package that a new “supercommittee” of Congress must come up with by late November.

Hmm. Sounds a little like the budget speech he gave in April — a roundabout way of addressing the problem without addressing the problem and, more importantly, without committing to a concrete plan.

Hot Air also adds this:

More not to look for: Any assumption of responsibility from the president, who, as he has toured the Midwest to make the case to the American people that he has “stabilized” the economy ... has made a point to paint an image of this Congress as the do-nothing obstacle to his purportedly proactive leadership.

Yep, that seems to be one of his recurring themes these days. Of course, even that facade will only happen after his next vacation. Upon hearing that news, Donald Trump mused that Obama 'takes more vacations than any other human being' he's ever seen. Hard to argue with that, really.

Since there's a complete lack of official plannage right now, let's look at some of the things Obama's minions are saying. Their favorite word seems to be 'stimulus'. More specifically, they think 'stimulus' is what is needed. Of course, it would be wise to examine what they consider to be 'stimulus'. We all remember the infamous cash dumps from a couple years ago that did absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy, but what are they talking about now? Try more food stamps. No, I'm not kidding. That's as a follow up to other great stimulus ideas like extending jobless benefits and preparing for a space invasion. All good stuff, to be sure, and probably at least part of the reason that Obama's approval rating on the economy is at a new all-time low:

Almost 50 points underwater on the seminal issue of the age. If that holds and he figures out a way to get reelected anyway, maybe he really is the messiah.

That had better be some speech next month, champ.

A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.

Obama earns similarly low approval for his handling of the federal budget deficit (24%) and creating jobs (29%).

Note well: Among independents he’s under 50 percent on all seven key metrics, bottoming out in the low 20s on jobs and the economy and in the teens on the deficit.

Over at Rasmussen, the number who say the country’s on the right track stands at a sparkling 15 percent, down 10 points in just a month.

His approval ratings are making gravity look sluggish. This is what continually amazes and dismays me about the current Republican leadership - they should be hammering away at these numbers day in and day out, boldly and aggressively attacking on every front. *sigh*

But trifle not a liberal with fact or reality! Obama is still peddling the notion that we're not in danger of another recession:

Who wants to be the one to tell him?

“I don’t think we’re in danger of another recession, but we are in danger of not having a recovery that’s fast enough to deal with a genuine unemployment crisis for a whole lot of folks out there,” Mr. Obama told CBS News Senior Business Correspondent Anthony Mason. “And that’s why we need to be doing more.”…

“What is absolutely true is confidence matters,” Mr. Obama replied. “We should not have had any kind of brinksmanship around the debt ceiling.”

“I wish [House Speaker John Boehner] had taken me up on a grand bargain to deal with our long term debt and deficit,” he said. “We still have the opportunity to fix that. It’s not too late. I will be putting forward a plan that will be similar to the plan I put forward to the speaker.”

Translation: If we do end up in a double dip, it’ll be your fault. Just like everything else.

I dunno, I might actually agree with him on this one. It truly can't be said we're in danger of another recession when we actually haven't pulled out of the first one yet. But, that's a debate for another time.

Anyway, the mind-bogglingly bass-ackwards nature of this bus tour doesn't end with the economic facts of the day. Oh, no, there's a healthy dose of hypocrisy, too. Get a load of this...

[W]hile Obama’s public remarks were often filled with implicit threats against resistant Republicans, he also talked at length about the promise and potential of America, and how the three days viewing the country aboard a specially outfitted bus had reminded him of that.

...

He touched upon red-blooded American motifs. “We’ve got folks in America driving Kias and Hyundais. I want to see folks in Korea driving Fords and Chryslers and Chevys,” Obama said Tuesday in Peosta. “ I want to sell goods all over the world that are stamped with three words: 'Made in America.'”

All fine and good. But the buses he's using on this tour were custom made for this trip...in Canada. One Republican Congressman commented, "Well, I guess he not only likes Canadian health care, but he likes Canadian RV's". Indeed. And has anyone stopped to ask why the colors of these buses are black and red (colors long associated with Communism) rather than red, white, and blue? And what about the sheer green-ness of the whole thing? After all, it's a 40-car 2-minute procession everywhere it goes? How many trees are being planted to compensate for the evil, EVIL carbon footprint he's laying down all over these states? Hypocrisy abounds, my friends.

With liberals, it always does.

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Special bonus feature for the day: Real or Fake (government spending, that is)? Watch all the way to the end...

Who says we can't make actual cuts in government...?