Joe Biden: The Blind Leading The Blind

How many, days, weeks, months, or years are we going to have to listen to the Obama Administration and its message of victim hood? Now, I'm not a politician, but does "hope and change" include dwelling on the past eight years every time a speech is made? The American people understand the situation. We get it. It's tough times. Americans just want competent people to see it through the right way. In fact, a clear, direct, confident message would be a great start (along with the filling of valuable Treasury seats during such a crisis).

Apparently, Joe Biden sees the situation, and history, differently than myself:

"Vice President Joe Biden’s discussed the economy in stark terms at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Monday night, in contrast with the upbeat tone coming from the White House over the past few days.

In a 20-minute speech in the lobby of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Biden said President Obama "has inherited the most difficult first 100 days of any president, I would argue, including Franklin Roosevelt."

“Let me explain what I mean by that," he added. "It was clear the problem Roosevelt inherited. This is a more complicated economic [problem]. We’ve never ever been here before – here or in the world. Never ever been here before"(Lee)."

Mr. Biden, in case you're reading (if so, please leave a comment), do you remember the economic times when Reagan inherited Carter's debacle of a presidency? You should. You were a United States Senator.

Here is a small list of what Reagan inherited from Carter upon entering office:

1. A recession of almost a year
2. Gas rationing
3. 21% mortgages
4. Just under 11% unemployment
5. Stock market under 5,000 points
6. Rampant inflation
7. Americans held hostage in Iran (yes, the same president who ruined foreign policy is now trying to give this Administration advice)

How did he fix it? A huge trillion dollar spending...I mean...stimulus package? No. In fact, there were 20 recessions in the 20th century and not one of them was fixed by a "stimulus" package. How were they fixed? "Over strenuous congressional opposition, Reagan pushed through his “supply side” economic program to stimulate production and control inflation through tax cuts and sharp reductions in government spending (Pearson Education)"

Reversing his "hope over fear" campaign slogan, Obama proclaimed that he'd "inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression," a "crisis" that would turn into a "catastrophe," possibly "irreversible," if we didn't hurry up and get on board with his trillion-dollar package of pork, political payoffs and "shovel-ready" government projects, the largest expansion of government in American history.

At last count, the mayor of Las Vegas was seeking $2 million for more neon, Chula Vista, Calif., wanted a new $500,000 dog park, the mayor of Pittsfield in Maine sought money to patch his "pain in the hiney" potholes, and Shreveport, La., appealed for eight new Harleys for the cops and six new water slides, all with money to be deducted from our paychecks or borrowed from China.

With Reagan, the solution was the opposite. Seeking to unleash the productivity and job-creating potential of the private sector and reverse the downward slide of Carter's high-inflation, big-government, high-unemployment, slow-growth economy, Reagan's answer was to get government out of the way by way of reductions in government red tape and an across-the-board tax cut that reduced the nation's top income-tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent.

The result? The worst economy since the Great Depression turned into the largest economic boom in American history, a 20-year surge of investment, entrepreneurial risk-taking and economic growth.

Inflation and unemployment rates of 13.5 percent and 7.6 percent in 1980 dropped, respectively, to 4.1 percent and 5.5 percent by the conclusion of Reagan's presidency in 1989.

Altogether, 19 million jobs were created from 1982 through 1988, more than the total number of jobs created in Europe and Japan combined, producing real (adjusted for inflation) income gains in every income quintile. The poverty population, after expanding by 7 million in the late 1970s, dropped by 4 million in the 1980s.

~Reiland 2009

But hey, what do those pork blocking, partisan, conservatives know anyway?