Dismal, second quarter GDP figures, show only 1.6 percent growth, further proof of the failure of the Obama Administration’s economic and job creation policies. Earlier this month, reports showing unemployment is at 9.3% and sales of single-family homes have dropped to a fifteen year low make it clear that during the past 19 months, the Obama Administration has squandered trillions of dollars in failed policies. But you’d never guess that from Administration press releases.
The dichotomy between the statistical data and the Obama Administration’s spin is nowhere more apparent than in the recently published Mid Session Review Report which discussed federal budget objectives and accomplishments to-date, as well as projections for the future. The report contained overly optimistic rhetoric not supported by the report’s distressingly dismal financial data.
For example, the report stated on page 8 that “the Administration expects economic growth and job creation to continue for the rest of 2010 and to rise in 2011 and beyond.” This phrase is now becoming the Administration’s mantra.
The problem with this oft-repeated, rosy scenario of future growth is there never was significant economic growth or job creation in 2010. The Obama Administration’s anti-business policies are crushing small businesses, and with unemployment at 9.3% and over 5 million jobs lost since 2009, there hasn’t been any significant job creation despite the Administration’s many statements to the contrary.
It’s not clear who, if any, actually reads the many reports published by the Executive and Legislative branches of the government. Washington seems to have entered the age of MBES—Management By Executive Summary, where only the first few pages of any document are actually read. The problem is that, in Washington, often, the government’s Executive Summaries paint rosy scenarios, resplendent with Administration wishful thinking, unsupported by the report’s underlying data.
For example, the recent unemployment report for July issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was touted as a success by the Obama Administration because 70,000 jobs were supposedly created in the private sector. What was ignored was the startling, double-digit, unemployment numbers among minorities and teens within this country also contained in the report.
What Americans are seeing is a disturbing trend going back to the early days of the Obama Administration, when the 407-page, $787 billion stimulus was passed which few in congress had read. Current Democrat leaders have figured out that if the reports and the legislation are unwieldy enough, a few Americans may read the Executive Summary, but even fewer will read the report’s fine print.
Democrats seem to have learned that if they state the same disinformation often enough, eventually, it becomes accepted and repeated as if it were fact because few are going to the source and reading the reports.
Consider: a 1428 page Cap and Trade bill passed in the House which even Congressman Waxman admitted he had not read, even though he, supposedly, is the author of the bill. Americans witnessed the debacle of the 2454 page Healthcare legislation, where Speaker Pelosi stated “we have to pass the bill” in order to find out what’s in it.
Another Administration official, Peter Orszag has exited the White House, quietly leaving his position as Director of OMB. Yet, while reading the Mid Session Report’s Executive Summary, few Americans would know that, without having to bear any of the consequences, Orszag oversaw what is possibly the most irresponsible, least accountable, growth in government in the history of this nation.
Orszag will likely go down in history as one of the primary architects of a failed set of financial policies and budget shenanigans that have destroyed American’s personal wealth and bankrupted the nation. But, Orszag’s timing was impeccable: he left before the gig was up and the cat got out of the bag. It is very likely that he will soon begin making the speaking circuit, posturing as a fiscal hawk, talking about the need for budget cuts and repackaging his failed tenure at OMB.
We have reached a sad point in our representative democracy when the folks who represent and work for all Americans can’t be bothered to read the documents that are required in order to do their jobs, and are shameless in admitting that they have no intention of doing the work required to be competent in their positions.
Perhaps even more disturbing, whether it is bloated, self-serving legislation or misleading White House reports, the Democrat leadership have figured out that, with the careful use of an Executive Summary, which says whatever they want it to say, they truly can fool all of the people all of the time.
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