U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is disappointed in
the economy, according to a report in Real Clear Politics,
and the economy is likewise disappointed in him. More accurately, it is disappointed
in Mr. Geithner’s boss, President Barack Obama. Mr. Geithner is but a soldier used
to taking orders in Mr. Obama’s progressive administration.
"I'll tell you my general view on this," Secretary
of Treasury Tim Geithner said about the economy in his testimony to Congress.
"The economy is not growing fast enough. Unemployment is very high.
There's a huge amount of damage left in the housing market. Americans are
living with the scars of this crisis."
If Mr. Obama loses the presidential election to Republican presidential
nominee Mitt Romney – as yet a big “if”, for the polls suggest a close tie at
the moment -- there will be an autopsy on Mr. Obama’s years in office. And someone
not tied to the progressive afflatus is almost certain to point out that Mr.
Obama easily might have won the election if…
If what?
If – per impossible – there had been someone on the team who
had successfully challenged Mr. Obama’s alarming presumption.
If Mr. Obama had concentrated the vast energies of his
office on settling just two problems – the housing meltdown, and the anemic
economy – he would be undefeatable right now. But Mr. Obama grabbed for the
progressive brass ring, universal health care, and that is why his re-election
hopes are now foundering. No government is omni-competent; and the more a
government does, the more it will do poorly. Come to think of it, that is why
the founders of the nation relied on the doctrine of enumerated powers when
they cobbled together the U.S. Constitution, leaving the powers not enumerated
in the Constitution to the states and the people in the states.
The housing industry in the United States was an is a mess,
chiefly because politicians from the Clinton administration forward wanted to
make it possible for more people to own houses. To this end, banking standards
were lowered so as to allow those who could not afford mortgage payments to
purchase houses. A housing bubble soon emerged and burst, flooding the market
with toxic assets intricately woven into Wall Street created paper products.
One gets out of the dark and gloomy forest the same way one
has gotten in. But the reverse trip, so the fairy tale tells us, bristles with
difficulties. It is clear to everyone who has a head that banking standards should
be restored and toxic assets should be flushed out of the market. It is clear
to everyone who has a heart that these solutions will spot the floor with
blood, if only because people have their futures invested in failed assets.
Solving this problem would have been difficult – but doable.
No one wanted to solve it. And so we march on through a wounded economy to a
European destination, perhaps Greece or Spain.
However, it seems we will have, somewhere down a ruined
road, a government run health care system that may, in time, rival the U.S.
Post Office, shaped by the same people in Congress who have not given us a
budget since Mr. Obama took charge of the White House, the legislative architects
of a $15 trillion budget deficit and a much plundered national social security
system on the verge of bankruptcy.
Perhaps when Mr. Geithner leaves office, he might offer the
nation some sound economic advice. So long as he remains in office, he will do
and think as he is bid.
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