SURPRISE! DUBYA DOESN’T LIKE OBAMA’S NEW BAILOUT PROPOSAL! HOW SHOCKING!

Looks like our President-elect is wasting no time in going after our nation’s economic woes, as if that’s going to surprise anyone. He’s already met with a fairly large cadre of economic consultants to try and figure out how to address the current recession.

In an equally predictable move, Obama is proposing a “bottom up” stimulus package that would extend unemployment benefits and create job opportunities among other stuff. As usual, his initial descriptions are kinda vague but promising.

And in a just as unsurprising response, Lame Duck Executive Bush released a written statement saying,

Today, we received monthly job report numbers that reflect the difficult challenges confronting our economy. We are in the midst of a global financial crisis, and tight credit markets have made it harder for businesses to borrow the money they need to meet their payrolls, grow, and create new jobs.

The Federal government has taken aggressive and decisive measures to address this situation. It will take time for these measures to have their full impact on an economy in which many Americans are struggling. But in recent days, we have seen some encouraging signs. The market for lending between banks has loosened considerably, and the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stabilize the commercial paper market have provided businesses with an urgently needed source of financing for day-to-day operations.

In the weeks ahead, my Administration will continue working to return our economy to the path of prosperity and growth. I will continue urging Members of Congress to approve free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, and I look forward to hosting an international financial summit with leaders of both developed and developing nations on November 15.

I understand that Americans remain deeply concerned about the challenges facing our economy, but our economy has overcome great challenges before, and we can be confident that it will do so again.

The Reader’s Digest Condensed version of this statement:

Fuck y’all. Obama’s not President yet, and I still am. I’m going to do what I’ve been doing for the past eight years and ignore working people and pander to businesses. And if that means supporting yet more measures that encourage outsourcing, imported labor and corporate tax breaks, so be it. Deal with it.

It’s actually about a great time to revive the likes of the WPA and CETA. You would think that folks like Mike Huckabee (who made “infrastructure” a buzzword of his campaign) would be stoked to be seeing a chance to create jobs to help rebuild America’s roads, bridges, schools and such. I’m sure that there’s a lot of folks who would reap tremendous rewards from the job experience and/or training, and the nation could benefit greatly from the possible improvements and restorations.

Of course, on the right side of the political street, this would involve private contracting with the special interests whose financial support help elect these pork-lovers-in-denial into office, lowest bidders be damned. That, of course, involves the usual legislative song-and-dance with earmarks and various representatives fighting over who gets how much aid and their district is more needy than anyone else’s and so on.

It’s about time that we have a President who is in touch with America’s economic realities. Even if Obama’s economic policy objectives aren’t met overnight, it’s good to see somebody in office who is trying to put the emphasis on those who need the assistance the most. Let’s hope that the days until January 20, 2009 fly by as soon as possible with as little damage inflicted by the (thankfully) outgoing Administration as possible.