Monday, January 05, 2009

Obama and the Economy 11

The New York Times: Reports that the Obama Economic Plan has no Tax Hikes for the rich. The Liberal New York Times will not be happy, they breath tax hikes for the rich. President - Elect Obama should be saluted for not pandering to the Liberal Left wing of his Party. It is the rich that invest in the economy through spending and investing in the economy. Obama should consider making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent, if there still a recession in 2010 when the Bush Tax cuts end the last thing you do is raise taxes, Obama and the Democrats will face mid term elections in 2010, the one thing you don't want is to be known as a tax hiker during a recession.

Obama and the CIA

Fox News: Reports that Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta has been asked by the President Elect to be next head of the CIA. This could be a good choice, Panetta knows how the systems works, he has been a White House Chief Staff thus should know how to get things going when it is an issue of National Security. The one downside is that the Republicans will ask a lot of searching questions of Mr Panetta about the role of the Clinton Administration before 9/11. Did the Clinton Administration see the threat and how did they react, the confirmation hearings should be fun to watch, should be an easy pass for Mr Panetta but there will be tough questions. It should be noted that President George H.W. Bush was also a Director of the CIA and he came from being UN Ambassador and Chair of the RNC. It is considered that Mr Bush did well as Director of the CIA, lets hope Mr Panetta is that successful in the post.

Obama and the Economy

BBC News: Reports on the Obama economic plan to pump eight hundred billion dollars in to the economy. It has been called the New Deal of the 21st Century, one problem, it was the not the New Deal that bought the USA out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, it was World War Two that made the USA a economic power house, the UK went bankrupt in the process and thus the end of Empire. The Obama Economic Plan will soften the fall of the USA economy but then what, all this money on public works will take time to get going, if the economy is in recession in two years time the Democrats could lose their majority in Congress. It could be argued that there is a need for capital spending on roads, schools etc, but also deep tax cuts for individuals and business and deep cuts in government spending, areas that pander to the Democratic base, thus we shall see if the Obama Plan works, out of ten it could be argued that it has 5/10 of working, if does not work Obama could lose in 2012.