Krauthammer Not Surprised Obama Unaware of Shovel-Ready Jobs: No Shoveling at Harvard Law School
It’s quite remarkable to think about and unfortunately it is true.
Throughout the 2009 stimulus debate early in his term, President Barack Obama and other Democrats argue it was time to put America to work with the aid of the government and so-called “shovel-ready jobs.” But in a startling admission in an interview with The New York Times’ White House correspondent Peter Baker, Obama said “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”
So after the American taxpayers were sold a stimulus bill that was supposed to repair the country’s ailing infrastructure and stem the rise in unemployment, the president’s economic policies haven’t lived up as advertised. On the Oct. 13 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier,” syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer offered a spot-on explanation.
Video Below Fold
“Well, that is quite an admission,” Krauthammer said. “A year-and-a-half and half-a-trillion dollars later he says, ‘Well, these things I talk about endlessly don't exist.’ It's not surprising that he doesn't know a shovel-ready project didn't exist because having never worked in the private sector he wouldn't sure what a project is and there isn't shoveling in Harvard Law School, so I can understand.”
Krauthammer said the president’s admission could prove costly for Democrats in upcoming elections.
“This is one of the greatest ‘oops’ in American history,” he continued. “And it’s going to be hard for a Democrat when you show, you know one tape against another, and you’re going to say, ‘You supported $1 trillion offered by a president who didn't know that this is not going to happen?’ And that is probably why – since everybody expected it would affect unemployment and didn't this is probably one of the reasons why – things weren’t shovel-ready.”
Also in the Baker interview, Obama discussed his appearance to the American people. However, Krauthammer suggested this was proof the White House was more concerned with appearance and less with real policy.
“The other admission I think is even worse – the one of which he said he ended up looking like a tax-and-spend Democrat,” Krauthammer continued. “Obama and his staff really think this is all about appearances and communication – that he isn't a tax and spend Democrat, but he didn't communicate it or as the vice president said today, ‘It's too hard to explain,’ meaning, that the American electorate is too thick to understand it. He is a tax-and-spend Democrat. He spent a trillion dollars and we’re going to have to borrow or tax it on the stimulus. He will spend $2-to-$3 trillion on health care. He’s going to have to borrow or tax it. Cap-and-trade is spending that you’re going to have to -- that's what he is. That’s why electorate is against him. It’s not appearances. It's substance.”
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Comments
I saw the Hammer say
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 1:23am.
I saw the Hammer say this.......it was brutal in it's honesty!! But can anyone argue with his assessment???
The Hammer was a little slow off the blocks with regards to Boy Blunder..........but I'll forgive him, because he's now onto it like white on rice...........and he's smarter and more precient than 99% of the rest of the 'commentators'.........
On another note.........I'm STILL having trouble posting here!!! This is my second one on this thread.......I don't know where the first one went............and on some other threads, I can't even get to the first one!!! Of course, 'there are those' who are probably happy about that!!!!!
killa...
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:08am.
I was having a lot of trouble posting while using IE 8. After installing Mozilla FireFox [not as default browser--I use it just for NB], posting problems were resolved.
Of course your difficulties could be unrelated to your browser, but you might give that a try if you haven't already.
Jer
Unpleasant experience.
Submitted by BD on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:26am.
Jer:
No, I have been having problems as well.
Most of the time I cannot even get the commant block to open though the subject line always does.
I am using garden variety Windows intnet explorer. The latest version.
I did not have this problem on the last version of NB. I guess I am not happy with this version of NB in that it is just a clone of the Breitbart page and they cloned the parts I am not happy with.
Just my opinion.
Not sure where I see cloned
Submitted by hoosherdaddy137 on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 12:18pm.
Not sure where I see cloned parts of any "big" site. Of course, if you knew what you were talking about really, you wouldnt be using run of the mill IE. :p Thank goodness they didnt clone DC, or Hotair. I like the site, I use google chrome, and I have had no issues. My only gripe is the front page isnt long enough.
Thank God I got here just in time
Submitted by KC Mulville on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 1:23am.
I'm a programmer. Frequently I'm asked to work on systems that other people have created.
Obama came into office criticizing his predecessors. Now he discovers there are no shovel-ready projects. Soon, he'll discover that massive government spending is a quick fix that only postpones recovery. Unemployment doesn't go down with a stimulus. Maybe someday he'll realize that you can't (a) start your administration saying "I won," then (b) ignore the GOP, but then (c) expect them to compromise and pass your bills.
It took me a few years and a few disasters to learn to keep my mouth shut. Maybe Obama will one day learn the same.
He wont learn and now he is
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 6:13am.
He wont learn and now he is getting his experience at our expense and our descendents expense.
Ah, a rare mix indeed
Submitted by Boudin on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:00am.
To be young, and have wisdom.
KC, I cant tell you how much I reflect your thought. I was the hardest working, fastest, and knew it all.
And soon humbled
I must disagree with Dr. Krauthammer here, as there has been...
Submitted by Dave. on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 1:34am.
...plenty of shoveling at Haaaahvad in recent decades. Where I come from, we call it manure. What is so distressing is just how many Americans (and many conservatives) actually believed that blowing out the Treasury was somehow going to "create" jobs. This country may yet die, and that right soon, from sheer ignorance.-DaveVote for the American in November
Once again
Submitted by Iron Tigers Vet on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 6:08am.
Dave, you beat me to a point. I thought very much so myself that there were plenty of "shovel-ready" jobs at Harvard and that was shoveling the sh*t that they try to rule by.
Clinton ruined a dress, Obama ruined a nation!
Biden is doing plenty of shoveling.....
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 6:33am.
"Man of the People" Joe Biden is out on the campaign trail for Democrats and is saying this:
It’s just really hard to convince people that when there weren’t, up until the first of the year, when there weren’t net new jobs it’s awful hard to say, ‘It’s working,’” ...[ ]... “It’s counterintuitive.”
[ ]
Democrats aren’t running on the administration’s accomplishments like health-care and financial-regulatory overhaul and the stimulus because “it’s just too hard to explain,” Biden said (emphasis mine)
[But trust us, it's working. Would I lie to you?????]
MB
Submitted by Iron Tigers Vet on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 7:38am.
That man has got to be one giant waste of human oxygen.
Clinton ruined a dress, Obama ruined a nation!
Beat me to it...
Submitted by ontheright on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:28am.
There are damn sure shovel ready jobs at Harvard - in fact, I would venture a guess that there are knee, to waist deep shovel ready jobs at that liberal bastion of BS. Only it's the liberals who don't/can't/won't see it...
oTr
Poor , poor , pitiful Barack.
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 5:32am.
Poor , poor , pitiful Barack. I guess he's never heard the old adage of.........It ain't the Meat..............it's the Motion.
Just because he is black , doesn't mean we'd never go back.
Barack_Must_Go.....
Well then,
Submitted by Iron Tigers Vet on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 6:12am.
if "it ain't the meat... it's the motion"
Then where the hell is the beef?
The only shoveling BarHO did at Hahvahd . . .
Submitted by ConservaSerb on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 5:35am.
Was when he was lining up his lines of Commie bullsh!t.
A wise & frugal government, which shall leave men free 2 regulate their own pursuits of industry & improvement, & shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. T. Jefferson
Barack Obama's surprising admission of awful ignorance.
Submitted by acaiguana on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 6:36am.
Well, here you have it. Obama is like most professional politicians. He was trained as a lawyer which means his knowledge base is to litigate and debate.
He has no real understanding or knowledge of how anything works, what it takes to actually build or manufacture anything or even how to build a team and lead it into the big bad world of production, problem solving and wealth creation.
He may be the most ignorant President we have ever elected and the most myopically educated President we have had to suffer through since Jimmy Carter. And I believe he has surpassed Carter in his excesses and mistaken judgement as to what he was elected to do as articulated during the Campaign of 2008.
He never had a mandate to release the pent-up demand of the Liberal Left on the American fabric or upon its industry and economic community. What this man knows about economics makes looking for chicken's teeth look like a worthwhile endeavor.
He believes that government is a solution of course, but more importantly he believes that being in charge (from his point of view) allows almost dictatorial powers to impose policy and regulation on the masses as Stalin imposed upon the poor Russian people.
He might wake up one day and realize that the single most important lesson of the USSR's rise and fall was:
You can only steal everything once.
If the man had any sense of history and was a bit more humble rather than completely self-absorbed he would know that the policies of FDR hurt this country and we have been struggling since to work around, by-pass or otherwise ignore the scars left by that Democrat administration.
We have a complete incompetent in the White House. He is not only not the smartest man in the room, but also the most misguided and arrogant.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
Expel all lawyers
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:45am.
"He was trained as a lawyer which means his knowledge base is to litigate and debate. He has no real understanding or knowledge of how anything works..."
Expel all lawyers from Congress! Of course the house-cleaning would sweep out dozens of conservative Republican members of the bar along with the Democratic debris.
Jer
But, interestingly enough, a
Submitted by HockeyKid on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 10:38am.
But, interestingly enough, a far greater percentage of Dems than Republicans in Congress are lawyers. The Rs tend to be much more diverse."Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
Re lawyers in Congress
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:20am.
Interestingly enough, the difference in percentages is not as great as you may think.
My rough calculation of the "lawyer" members in the 110th [previous] House reveals approximately 38% Dems versus 31% Repubs.
For the 111th Senate, the breakdown is approximately 56% Dems versus 45% Repubs.
[Again, please allow for a margin of error due to quick count and calculations.]
Jer
CCSteelCity....that's disgusting.
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 7:25am.
That comment is filthy and disgusting. I didn't reply directly because then you can't edit it, which I hope you will.
And if you won't, I hope one of the admins will delete it.
sorry
Submitted by Iron Tigers Vet on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 7:40am.
it's edited.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:46am.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
It must have been quite
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:04am.
It must have been quite impressive to exceed the rhetorical elegance of Barack_must_go.
Jer
Not rhetorical
Submitted by Iron Tigers Vet on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:02am.
just a little more than I probably should have quoted.
Jer, I'm not sure about what
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:04am.
Jer, I'm not sure about what you're referring to with b_m_g. I don't jump on everything I see that is off-color; a lot of the time I just ignore things. But I have been becoming uncomfortable about the increasing vulgarity in comments. I hate to see the site going that way.
I understand free speech, and sometimes I feel like the "Church Lady" but occasionally one hits me as really beyond the pale, and this was one.
Motherbelt I'm with you. We
Submitted by Radical1979 on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:09am.
Motherbelt I'm with you. We have a poster who refers to us as "hall monitors" or something when we object to posts being crude, but I feel that if we don't say something it'll just get worse. I also try not to say anything, but sometimes it's necessary.
That's OK, rad...
Submitted by motherbelt on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:37am.
They can call me what they like. I've always appreciated the fact that NB has some standards.
Motherbelt...
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:30am.
Well, it's still there. I don't mind slightly off-color comments--I'm inclined toward the moderately risque myself on occasion.
But b_m_g's remark is sexual/racial innuendo--a variation of a common vulgarity which I heard as a teenager. It is kind of clever, but of questionable propriety.
Jer
What is more disgusting?
Submitted by TheHistorian on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:40am.
Didn't see SteelCity's comment , but let me tell you that Barack Obama out there telling us that foreign dollars and anonymous donors are stealing our November election. When did "The One" disclose all of his dollars? His lack of regard for the truth, his behavior as President, and his lack of honesty regarding his own campaign behavior are what are really disgusting.
Further disgusting is the attempt to steal this nation, turn it into a socialist H*llhole, and claim he is working for the American people. He claims he does not listen to polls, so how does he know what the American people want? He doesn't is the short answer.
Dennis Prager
I posted this on another discussion
Submitted by Iron Tigers Vet on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:06am.
a day or two ago. The left seems to not think that "Walks on Water" does no wrong.
Apparently the whole Democrat party is equally ignorant
Submitted by TheHistorian on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:32am.
After all, didn't it get through BOTH houses of Congress with only Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter (now a retiring Democrat) supporting it as Republicans? Without the support of all of these clueless Democrats, it would have died the death it deserved.
Doesn't Obama's admission mean that all of the people who voted for this (Democrats plus Collins and Snowe) are too dumb to know that there is no such thing as "shovel ready"? Shouldn't they all (including the two ladies from Maine) be voted out as soon as possible because they don't understand how America works?
Dennis Prager
I Pencil
Submitted by BeanMan on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:35am.
Everyone should go here:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/i-pencil/#
and read this. What I really mean is to get an excellent idea of what it takes to produce anything in this country (in the private sector) Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and yadda yadda should read this.
If they wanted it to be, it would be an eye opener and they could realize just what it takes, as politicians, to allow the private sector to create the jobs people need/want.
Sigh...I won't be holding my breath though.
Since government is coercion, politics is largely the exercise of deception regarding the intended use of coercion - George Orwell
They have subverted most of that
Submitted by Boudin on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:05am.
With their Small business bill. They only make jobs that make you beholden to them!
Milton Friedman
Submitted by Blonde on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 10:58am.
...also did a rif of this same topic (how a pencil is made)....I think if you search YouTube for "Milton Friedman Pencil"....you can find it.
Since videos are so much easier than reading for liberals...you may want to keep that one in your ammo pouch, BeanMan. It's an oldie but a goodie...loved the written one, too.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
What this country didn't need
Submitted by Beukeboom on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:42am.
What this country didn't need was an on-the-job-training President but sadly that's exactly what we got.
He aint training
Submitted by Boudin on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 9:01am.
He knows what he is doing. And unfortunately for us it's going rather well
Let's see now . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 8:58am.
. . . When the Stimulus bill that no one read failed to keep unemployment below 8% as they promised, the White House told us that it was because the economy was far worse than they had estimated.
Now, Obama concedes that there's really no such thing as a 'shovel-ready' project.
Sounds like the man that the MSM touted as perhaps the smartest President ever, got stuck on stupid.
It would be a vast
Submitted by HockeyKid on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:00am.
It would be a vast improvement if Obysmal could rise to the level of stupid."Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
+1
Submitted by Blonde on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:05am.
What you said.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
your mention of keeping unemployment below 8%...
Submitted by texasborngranny on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:59am.
reminded me of Geraldine Farraro on Fox this morning claiming that BHO said that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 10%. "Under 10%"? And NO ONE on the show corrected her. This was probably a test, i.e. the dems testing it out on Fox, because if Fox doesn't correct the statement, then they can foist this lie off on the rest of the country.
So expect this to be happening more in the future - Dems and the media claiming that BHO said "under 10%" and other 'changes' in what he claimed in order to pass the stim and who knows what else.
Excellent point, texasborngranny
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 3:33pm.
The Clintons and their pals have used this tactic in the past. They make an erroneous claim, repeat it over and over, and it somehow becomes the new "fact." One of my favorite examples it the budget "surplus" that Clinton allegedly left Bush.
For a couple years prior to the end of Clinton's second term, his economist continue to project surplus further and further out, even though they knew they were entering a recession.
Those pie-in-the-sky numbers are now the 'surplus' that Bush blew.
It wasn't just Clinton's pals, Galvanic...
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 3:55pm.
It wasn't just Clinton's pals, Galvanic. It was also the midrange forecast of the CBO in 2000.
Jer
You mean the same CBO that
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Fri, 10/15/2010 - 1:04am.
You mean the same CBO that took Obama's lies about healthcare and the budgets for granted?
No Dan...
Submitted by Jer on Fri, 10/15/2010 - 3:02am.
I mean the CBO which is an independent, non-partisan body whose director is appointed by the Congressional leaders of the majority party, which in the year 2000 would have been the Republican party.
Jer
You miss the point. The CBO
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Sat, 10/16/2010 - 2:32am.
You miss the point. The CBO merely takes the data given them and the assumptions made by THE PRESIDENT and his team when they make the budget. The CBO is a joke, a cheering section.
You've just demonstrated that
Submitted by Jer on Sat, 10/16/2010 - 2:47am.
You've just demonstrated that you are staggeringly ignorant about the organization, function and the operation of the CBO.
Your post is sheer nonsense.
Jer
Based on what I've seen, Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sat, 10/16/2010 - 3:04am.
The CBO is pretty much ignorant about the organization, function, and operation of the CBO.
Must be Democrats.
MD
Ahhhh,.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:19am.
The benefits of an affirmative action education.
And another thing....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:20am.
Why has the "Post" button been replaced with a "Save" button. I don't want to "save" my comments. I want to "Post" them.
Cowboy...It's a database thing
Submitted by Blonde on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:28am.
Once a comment has posted, it's going into a "saved" file of some sort. They merely need to change the label on the button, which I'm sure they are working on.
There have been many improvements since this version went live...have patience.
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Expectedly Unexpected...
Submitted by Valkarie63 on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:29am.
...is the revelation that Obama didn't know that there were no shovel ready jobs. We knew way before the election that Obama didn't run anything close to a business or know what business needs to thrive.
In doing some background on his community work, he said "They [Republicans] haven't talked about the fact that I was a civil rights lawyer; they haven't talked about the fact that I taught constitutional law; they haven't talked about my work in the state legislature, in the United States Senate," he said. "They're talking about the three years of work that I did right out of college as if that's-- I'm making the leap from two or three years out of college into the presidency."
Actually, it is exactly as if he jumped into the presidency after 2-3 years out of college.
Michael Medved has a great talk on the Myths and Truths about the Constitution (highly, highly recommended) where he outlines the constitution as a commerce-based, not individual rights or civil liberties-based document.
No wonder Obama doesn't get it...and time will tell if he ever will...
I just love The (George) Will and Hammer!
This is the...
Submitted by stage9 on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 11:37am.
"He spent a trillion dollars and we’re going to have to borrow or tax it on the stimulus."
This is the krux of the matter right here. This is why the Democrats are against the Bush tax cuts and are waiting until after the election to address it.
Why?
Because the Democrats (purposefully IMO) forced through their agenda knowing full well they were going to raise taxes to pay for it. Now that they've forced their agenda down our throats we have not CHOICE but to pay for it with higher taxes. At least that's what their strategy seems to be.
Folks, this has all been nicely planned out from before Obama ever took office. When Obama made the declaration that he was going to "fundamentally transform America," what the heck did you think he meant? Did you think that was just cute campaign rhetoric? He knew full well what he was going to do!
Overburden small businesses -- the financial arm of the US economy, buy up banks and the automotive industry; imlement a healthcare system that made people dependant upon government; create government jobs paid for by top income earners thereby leveling the playing field and creating a classless system -- the utopian dream of liberal elites.
It's time Americans wake up and quit being so stinking naive. This man is not stupid. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing. And his drones have been waiting for this opportunity for years. And so here it is.
This reminds me so much of marxism it's sickening (shhh don't say it too loud, you might be called an "alarmist" or worse yet, a "conspirator"!) .
Read Karl Marx's communist manifesto and you will find a direct link between Obama's sanitized marxist agenda and what Marx implemented in the former Soviet Union:
1) "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
2) "Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly."
3) "Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state."
4) "Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state;
Do you really believe that Biden thinks you're just too stupid to understand whats going on? You're wrong. He knows full well that:
1) Knowledge is power. Your knowledge of the administration's plans puts the power to stop them into your hands. What you DON'T know won't hurt you. Or so they think.
2) marxists are arrogant elitists who believe, not that you're too stupid to understand their policies, but that you have no NEED to understand their policies. They are here to take care of you. Now get back in line and produce.
They say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But when it comes to liberals, they not only haven't learned from history, they're too stupid to learn from history.
"If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
I thought......................
Submitted by Patriot II on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 12:04pm.
The only thing "shovel ready" was oblahmas bullshyt laden speeches?
Might Want To Rethink What You Said Jer
Submitted by txradioguy on Sat, 10/16/2010 - 3:24am.
Considering you made the incredibly inaccurate statement that the CBO is "non partisian"...you might want to watch yourself about caling other people "ignorant".
Unless of course you ENJOY those pot and kettle moments.
tx...
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 2:34am.
Yeah, I took a shot there. That only puts me about 500 behind Dan's shots at me.
Jer