Here’s the former CEO of American Express, Harvey Golub, expressing a less than complimentary opinion on the business savvy of the Obama Democrats:

Meanwhile, [President Obama] he’s ignored entitlement reform, retarded the development of our energy resources, and added new layers to our regulatory burden. He’s also increased the uncertainty inherent in an already dysfunctional and perverse tax code, added trillions to our national debt, spent taxpayer money ineffectively and inefficiently, tried to micromanage the economy, and acted as an incompetent venture capitalist by investing in “green jobs” and high-speed rail. This administration routinely grants and withholds favors by substituting its judgment of what is valuable and good for that of the people. What stimulus spending can do to create jobs is entirely temporary, whether in the public or private sector, and is rooted only in a political calculus.

Well said, sir.

It takes a lot of hubris to believe in the concept of central planning. The idea that a bunch of government “experts” could plan strategies and execute decisions in the free market better than the collective choices of 300 million American consumers — plus millions more globally — takes, to quote Hillary Clinton, a willing suspension of disbelief.

And yet here we are with a trifecta of failures in which the government thought it could determine winning companies.

Let’s start with General Electric, which of course began its crony capitalism relationship with government long before the Obama Democrats too power, but nonetheless continues to receive mountains of taxpayer subsidies based on its “Green” technologies. These are technologies — such as their hyperexpensive light bulbs, wind turbines that provide nothing if the wind isn’t blowing, and absolutely Orwellian carbon credit trading schemes –  which no consumer seems to really want and which wouldn’t survive in an unsubsidized environment.

It is particularly galling, given that the former GE CEO is now Obama’s job czar, and that GE is one of those favored government companies that enjoys paying $0 in taxes — this even as Obama, from the other side of his mouth, attacks “millionaires and billionaires” attempting to do the same. The reason? Because it provides American consumers with things they don’t want and produced with their tax dollars.

But as said, subsidies are as old as the apostles. The next two examples are far more sinister.

First, Soylendra: Despite repeated warnings from private auditors like PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP that the Soylendra solar-panel manufacturing company was a a lousy investment, the Obama administration nonetheless assisted it in receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. All that taxpayer money is now gone, Soylendra having declared bankruptcy in early September, and raided by the FBI a few days later.

ABCNews reported that “the White House closely monitored the Energy Department’s deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra,” and ultimately backed the loan despite warnings from White House employees. Worse, the Obama administration promised that should the company fail they would work to recoup losses of private investors — but we taxpayers are screwed. This is something that should be investigated, says former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy:

As Andrew Stiles reported here at NRO, Republicans on the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee say this arrangement ran afoul of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This law — compassionate conservatism in green bunting — is a monstrosity, under which Leviathan, which can’t run a post office, uses your money to pick winners and losers in the economy’s energy sector. The idea is cockamamie, but Congress did at least write in a mandate that taxpayers who fund these “investments” must be prioritized over other stakeholders. The idea is to prevent cronies from pushing ahead of the public if things go awry — as they are wont to do when pols fancy themselves venture capitalists.

As if that weren’t bad enough, a key Obama supporter named George Kaiser was also involved in Soylendra, and “contributed $10,000 to the Urban Health Initiative, a notorious program created by now-First Lady Michelle Obama while she was at the University of Chicago Medical Center.” Oh, yeah, nothing to see here.

Rubbing Obama’s nose in this steaming, smelly mess, Forbes Magazine terms it a “teachable moment.” Says Forbes:

The fact that federal loan guarantees were even necessary for Solyndra tells us that few, if any, lenders thought that giving the firm money was a very good idea.  Given the fact that lenders who bet “right” on companies with strong prospects but insufficient capital are lenders who will make money, we can rest assured that hundreds if not thousands of bank loan officers took a long, hard look at Solyandra and said … no thanks.  Are we to believe that President Obama knows more than all of these profit-hungry capitalists about Solyndra’s real prospects in global solar energy markets?  That President Obama has even stronger incentives than private investors to ensure that money parked in this company or that is money well spent? To ask these questions is to answer them.

Next, Michelle Malkin has been all over a similar Obama embarrassment called LightSquared — a company that is crafting an open wireless broadband network that, regrettably to our national security, overpowers our commercial and military satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.

Where this becomes scandalous is because the White House attempted (but failed) to curb the damning testimony of U.S. Air Force Space Command four-star general William Shelton and National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing director Anthony Russo.

General Shelton had noted earlier this year: “Within three to five miles on the ground and within 12 miles in the air, GPS is jammed by [LightSquared’s] towers. . . . If we allow that system to be fielded and it does indeed jam GPS, think about the impact. We’re hopeful we can find a solution, but physics being physics, we don’t see a solution right now.”

Despite industry-wide protests, the firm somehow received fast-track approval for a special FCC waiver that grants LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap. Ken Boehm, of the conservative watchdog National Legal and Policy Center in Washington, D.C., summed up the deal earlier this year: “LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors (e.g., AT&T and Verizon) have to spend billions.”

… LightSquared used to be known as “Skyterra.” In 2005, Obama put $50,000 into the speculative firm — raising eyebrows even among his water-carriers at the New York Times. The paper noted that Skyterra’s principal backers at the time of the investment included four Obama “friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.”

One of those pals who urged him to buy stock in Skyterra was George Haywood, a major Skyterra investor and campaign donor who chipped in nearly $50,000 to Obama’s campaigns and to his political action committee, as did his wife.

Coincidentally, Obama bought his Skyterra stock the very same day the FCC “ruled in favor of the company’s effort to create a nationwide wireless network by combining satellites and land-based communications systems.” The Times reported that immediately after that morning ruling, “Tejas Securities, a regional brokerage in Texas that handled investment banking for Skyterra, issued a research report speculating that Skyterra stock could triple in value.”

Coincidentally, Tejas and its chairman, John J. Gorman, were also major backers of Obama — flying him in a private plane for political rallies and pitching in more than $150,000 for his campaign coffers since 2004. Obama sold his stock at a loss in November 2005, but his political relationship with the company was cemented. In 2009, billionaire hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone — whose firm Harbinger Capital Partners is reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for market-manipulation abuses — acquired Skyterra.

Coincidentally, Falcone, his wife, and LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja have contributed nearly $100,000 between them to the Democratic party during critical White House meeting periods and negotiations over LightSquared’s regulatory fate.

Oh, and coincidentally, there’s $6 billion earmarked for a “public safety broadband corporation” buried in the Obama jobs proposal just as LightSquared pushes into that market, too.

It’s all just one strange quirk of timing, Team Obama shrugs. Except, as we all should know by now: There are no coincidences in Chicago-on-the-Potomac. Just an endless avalanche of quids, quos, and taxpayer woes.

I think it goes without saying that were Obama’s last name Bush or Cheney the term “LightSquared” could be well known in American households.

I don’t know which group is more unconscionable, the Wisconsin state Democrats or that state’s unions.

The former group actually fled the state rather than participate in a vote on Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s proposal to have state workers become financial participants in retirement and health care costs (something that every private sector Wisconsin citizen already does). You see, the Wisconsin Republicans have 19 of the 33 seats, but need 20 seats in order to maintain a quorum and conduct business. So the Democrats, rather than all vote against the bill in a losing effort of solidarity, simply didn’t show to work today. That’s how these “Democrats” feel about democracy and the voters of Wisconsin, that is, their constituents — there was an election, and the Wisconsin voters clearly decided that something had to be done to curb spending, growth and wasteful government.

The reply of the Wisconsin Democrats is the middle finger. So brazen are they, so unconscionable, so filled with contempt for their constituents that these Wisconsin Democrats added insult to injury by hiding in a Best Western Clock Tower Resort, which according to its website, features a hair salon, two restaurants, and “65,000 square feet of indoor water park fun at CoCo Key Water Resort and Key Quest Arcade.” All of this no doubt to be billed back to the Wisconsin taxpayer.

Next, we have the thousands of Wisconsin teachers — who called in “sick” rather than educate Wisconsin children — and other state workers who showed up in mass to protest what they call an attempt by Wisconsin Republicans to eliminate their “collective bargain rights.” This is nonsense, of course. Nobody, obviously from the mere fact that they can just up and walk away from their job for the day, is taking away their right to bargain collectively. They can bargain all they want for, say, increased salaries. No, the unions are unhappy because under the proposal they wouldn’t be able to force state workers to join a union, to pay dues. You see, they prefer anyone who happens to be in their profession — from teacher to firefighter — be forced to abide by union rules without consent or meet the wrath of union brownshirts. Who’s the fascist, again?

Instead, all that Gov. Scott Walker is proposing is that state workers of Wisconsin make financial contributions to their own retirement; that they make financial contributions to their own health care. This is somehow considered radical? That state workers should be no more exempt in contributing to the cost of their benefits than non-state workers?

President Barack Obama called the bill “an assault on unions.” Assaults are made of sterner stuff, Mr. President. The bill would nonetheless leave Wisconsin state workers in a far better financial position than that of non-state workers. I guess to Democrats “share the wealth” means have those in the private sector share their wealth with those in the public sector, but not vice versa.

Here’s Patrick McIlhernan:

The public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.

They’ll have it if takes marches. They’ll have it if it takes what amounts to an illegal strike, with so many Madison teachers calling in sick Wednesday that the district closed schools. If it takes showing up for a we-know-where-your-family-is protest on Walker’s Wauwatosa lawn while he was at work, the unions are sure they can outshout any election result.

This is exactly why Walker is right to limit the unions’ power over government spending.

Walker, remember, is not removing unions’ fundamental power to bargain for wages. He is demanding that state workers put 5.8% of their wages toward retirement and that they cover 12.6% of their health care premiums, which would still have them paying more than $100 less a month than the average schmoe. He is also proposing that elected officials determine the shape of employee benefits without having to bargain them, and this as much as the added cost has unions crying “unfair.”

They insist this is the end of unionization in government, something to which they have as much right, they say, as anyone else.

But they miss a bedrock difference. Unions in the private sector are a way of organizing private interests, those of employees, against other private interests, those of a company’s owners, for economic gain and for protection against unfairness. In government, workers are already protected against unfairness by civil service laws, and Walker has supported expanding those. Economically, government unions pit a private interest, that of employees, against the public’s interest, that of taxpayers and voters.

We see the result. Walker’s moves are prompted by the state’s vast deficit. The alternative, he says, is to lay off thousands. Nonsense, charge the marchers: Just raise taxes. Unions and allies have for years been demanding more sales taxes, new business taxes and higher taxes on other people’s incomes, all to keep the state flush and generous. We’re taxed enough already, said a voting majority in November. Not yet, insist the unions that have become the largest players in Wisconsin politics precisely to counter any such voter sentiment.

Anyway, union leaders were conceding the pension and health care premiums by this week. They said they knew they’d have to pay more eventually – so when unions in December said such payments were tantamount to slavery, it must have been just maneuvering. Bygones, say unions, as long as Walker leaves them the power to set health benefits via bargaining. Leave that, they say, and it’s peace.

Yeah? Recall how we got here. How is it that only in desperation will unions accept a deal that still leaves them better off than everyone else? How did we achieve not just next year’s $3.3 billion deficit but the decade of structural deficits before? Easy: It’s because labor costs for years have been outstripping taxpayers’ capacity. That in turn was caused by officials, elected in a union-dominated political environment, buying labor peace via benefits, where it’s harder for voters to see the costs adding up.

If the Legislature takes the 5% and 12% and doesn’t reform collective bargaining, the 5% and 12% soon will be won back by unions. Any further savings are out the window. Walker talks of moving to consumer-driven benefits, as many companies have done, to restrain medical costs. That’s anathema to unions, who will resist it contract by contract. Without bargaining reform, government costs will have taken only a pause in their ascent.

Union activists in Madison Tuesday spoke apocalyptically of “class war,” hinting wildly at general strikes and takeovers of the Capitol. They correctly see their control of the state slipping and must figure that if they bring 13,000 shouting people to Madison, they can overrule the election.

Any worried legislators should keep in mind that Walker drew about five times that many votes in Dane County alone in November.

Here’s the Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon. But first, do you remember the old Star Trek (nerd alert: The Omega Glory) where Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a hapless red-shirted security guard beam down to a planet where the inhabitants, calling themselves “Yangs” and “Kohms,” short for Yankees and Communists, have been warring for centuries? A renegade Federation Capt. Ron Tracey, believing that he and his ship’s — the Exeter — remaining crew are marooned on the planet, had been helping the Kohms — right away cluing the audience that Tracey lacks Kirk’s wisdom in figuring out the puzzle of the two warring sides — against the Prime Directive. The Yangs end up capturing Kirk and crew, but Kirk saves the day by realizing that the Yangs are parallel to our culture in every way (nerd alert: Hodgkin’s Law of parallel planet development) including the flag, pledge, and constitution, and explaining at the episode’s end that the “sacred document” the Yangs claimed was only for the eyes of “chiefs, or sons of chiefs” are actually for everyone — and why the document starts “We The People.” The Yang leader, Cloud William, eventually promises Kirk that while he doesn’t fully understand, he swears to allow all his people, and even the Kohms, access to his people’s founding documents.

You have to love this simple recollection by Mr. Pilon that the U.S. Constitution was never intended to be something that only lawyers, or sons of lawyers, or Congressmen, could interpret. Somewhere our law system ran amok, and like the Yangs in Star Trek, we’ve forgotten this basic truth.

Thus the first question the new Congress should ask of any proposed law is: Does the Constitution authorize us to pursue this end? If not, that ends the matter. If yes, the second question is: Are the means we employ “necessary and proper,” as constrained by the principles of federalism and the rights retained by the people that are implied by a government of enumerated powers? In essence, the Constitution is no more complicated than that. It was written to be understood by ordinary citizens.

How, then, did modern constitutional law get so complicated and federal power so expansive? One reason is that several provisions in the Constitution were written broadly to allow for contingencies. But those provisions were never meant to open the floodgates to boundless congressional power. The presumption was that any political redress of unexpected problems would be done with due deference to the larger structure, aims and principles of the document. This brings us to the main reason Congress leapt its constitutional bounds: a fundamental shift in the climate of ideas.

Early 20th-century Progressives, inspired by European social democracies, rejected the Constitution’s plan for limited government, advocating social engineering schemes instead. Rule by government experts was the order of the day. As people and politicians succumbed to those ideas, especially in the states, courts would often block the schemes in the name of constitutional liberty. When Progressives later took their agenda to the federal level, however, and the Supreme Court continued to block it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled his infamous plan to pack the court with six new members.

The threat cowed the court, which in a pair of 1937 decisions (Helvering v. Davis and NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp) essentially gave Congress the power to redistribute and regulate at will, eviscerating the very foundation of the Constitution: the doctrine of enumerated powers. A year later, in U.S. v. Carolene Products, the court reduced property rights and economic liberty to second-class status under the Constitution. And in National Broadcasting Co. v. U.S. (1943), it allowed Congress to delegate ever more of its vastly expanded legislative powers to administrative agencies in the quickly expanding executive branch.

Now that one-party rule has ended in Washington, we’ll see President Obama use these agencies to bypass Congress and promote his progressive agenda. On Dec. 23, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a schedule for setting greenhouse gas standards for power plants and oil refineries over the next two years, notwithstanding that Congress has rejected cap-and-trade legislation. The Obama administration has also quietly issued regulations providing for the end-of-life counseling that the Senate rejected when it passed ObamaCare. Expect far more of this in the next two years.

The 112th Congress will have its hands full simply monitoring what the more than 300 federal agencies are up to. But if the new members want to get to the root of the problem—if they want to start restoring limited constitutional government—they’ll have to do far more.

First, they’ll have to keep the debate focused on the Constitution, not simply on policy or practicality.

Second, they’ll have to reject without embarrassment the facile liberal objection that the courts have sanctioned what we have today, and thus all a member need do when introducing a bill is check the box that says “Commerce Clause,” “General Welfare Clause” or “Necessary and Proper Clause.”

If these clauses in the Constitution enable Congress to enact the individual health-insurance mandate, then they authorize Congress to do virtually anything. The Supreme Court was wrong in allowing Congress to exercise power not granted it by the Constitution, and courts today are wrong when they uphold those precedents—even if they’re not in a position today to reverse them until Congress takes greater responsibility.

Third, Congress has to start taking greater responsibility. Congress must acknowledge honestly that it has not kept faith with the limits the Constitution imposes. It should then stop delegating its legislative powers to executive agencies. Congress should either vote on the sea of regulations the executive branch is promulgating or, far better, rescind or defund those regulations, policies and programs that never should have been promulgated in the first place (rescission may not be possible during the next two years, but defunding is). And of course Congress should undertake no new policies not authorized by the Constitution.

This is all a tall order, and it will take years. But the alternative—our Leviathan state, which recognizes no limits on its power—is simply unconstitutional.

Here’s Steve Forbes highlighting a major but unreported economic gaffe by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared recently at the Brookings Institution, “The rich are not paying their fair share.”

She then went on to praise Brazil as the tax holy grail for the rest of the world: “Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what—it’s growing like crazy.” At first blush those kinds of words must make her neosocialist boss, President Obama, jump for joy. But is the secretary of state actually a supply-side subversive?

Take a look at Brazil’s income tax rates—they are lower than ours. The highest rate is a mere 27.5%, far below our top federal rate of 35%, which, given the complexity of our tax code, is actually closer to 38%. Moreover, that exaction will climb to almost 43% come January.

Isn’t Brazil’s success an example of what Ronald Reagan and other tax cutters have always claimed: Lower rates generate more economic activity, which, in turn, generates more government revenue?

Sadly, for our beleaguered economy, Hillary Clinton and her staff had no idea that Brazil’s income tax rate on the rich is slightly lower than that levied even in Ronald Reagan’s heyday (28%), a rate Bill Clinton railed against when he was running for the White House.

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and the rest of the administration don’t grasp that the top 1% of income earners in the U.S. already pay about 40% of federal income tax receipts, and the top 5% pay some 60%. When President Reagan took office the top tax rate was 70%, with the highest income earners paying a mere 18% of federal income tax receipts. By the time Reagan had whacked the top rate down to 28%, the proportion paid by the rich had soared to well over 30%.
More

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and their friends also have no conception of capital creation. Low tax rates encourage people to take risks on new businesses, products and services. While most of these fail, the handful that succeed generate vast amounts in new assets.

“Instead of asking, ‘What should we do about people who are poor in a rich country?’ The first question is, ‘Why is this a rich country?’

“Five hundred years ago, there weren’t rich countries in the world. There are rich countries now because part of the world is following basically libertarian rules: private property, free markets, individualism.”

– David Boaz, Cato Institute.

John Stossel adds to the evidence that President Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program damages the economic environment in unseen ways — indeed, it doesn’t help the poor, it actually hurts the poor:

If you can only afford $500 – $1,000 for a car, you’ll find many of these vehicles are now unavailable.  They have been sent to the junk yard thanks to this program…The Blogger News Network points out that junk yards that demolish the clunkers aren’t allowed to pull engines and other parts before they’re crushed, making parts for older cars harder and more expensive to get.

Once more, nothing is more deadly than a politician who has vast power over the economy but who knows little of economics.

Gwen Ottinger of the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Center for Contemporary History and Policy in Philadelphia — and boy is that a mouthful — appears to be one of those rare environmentally conscience persons who also happen to have common sense. “Keep your clunker,” says Gwen, it’s better for the economy and the environment:

First, even when new cars and appliances are more efficient than the ones they replace, the act of replacing them entails environmental costs not accounted for in the stimulus programs. Building a new car, washing machine or refrigerator takes energy and resources: The manufacture of steel, aluminum and plastics are energy-intensive processes, and some of the materials used in durable goods, especially plastics, use non-renewable fossil fuels as feedstocks as well as energy sources. Disposing of old products, a step required by most incentive and rebate programs, also has environmental costs: It takes additional energy to shred and recycle metals; plastic components often cannot be recycled and end up as landfill cover; and the engine fluids, refrigerants and other chemicals essential to operating products end up as hazardous wastes.

Policies that encourage purchases of energy-efficient products may also increase, rather than decrease, energy use by confusing efficiency with consumption. For example, Energy Star refrigerators, which now qualify for rebates in many states, are certified to be 10 to 20 percent more efficient than “standard” models. Yet the Energy Star rating is awarded overwhelmingly to refrigerators far larger than would have been the norm two decades ago, and smaller models of refrigerator, which use less energy simply because they have a smaller volume of air to cool, were not even included in the Energy Star program until 2002. Consumers who wish to benefit from environmentally friendly stimulus money, then, are pushed toward purchasing “efficient” but relatively large models rather than being encouraged to opt for the smallest refrigerator, with the smallest energy demands, that meets their needs.

Beyond these concrete environmental drawbacks, product-replacement policies also send a message that old things are dirty and inefficient, while new ones are necessarily green and efficient. Under the Cash for Clunkers program, for example, old cars must be traded in for new ones. Yet plenty of used cars exceed the required 22 mpg: The Toyota Prius hybrid, on the market since 2001, gets upward of 40 mpg, and even a 15-year-old Honda Civic gets 28. By assuming that only new products can be environmentally friendly, these policies lead us to discount the environmental gains that could be made through well-established and low-tech means, such as smaller refrigerators. They also reinforce the idea that all products, even “durable goods,” quickly become obsolete — a notion that leads to overwhelming amounts of environment-despoiling waste.

All good points, and reminiscent of the 19th century’s “Broken Window” policy, which Frédéric Bastiat debunked in That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen — the boy who breaks the shopkeeper’s window, went the fallacy, is actually helping the economy because the shopkeeper must replace the window, helping out the vendors for that, who in turn spend that profit on other needs, etc.

Bastiat:

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

And so, it is not seen that the now proposed $3 billion dollar program takes from the taxpaying population $3 billion they might have spent on other things. The folly of Keynesian economics continues…

Here’s John Stossel. All American taxpayers should share his sentiments:

I’ve written before about the conceit of politicians who dole out taxpayers’ money and then expect that people worship them for the help they give. Occasionally, a politician says it outright, like in this short video of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell that came out today:

“State workers – I’ve arranged for them to get a $15,000 loan with no interest…… they should put a statue of me up on their mantleplace,” Rendell says.

Why should they get statues for spending YOUR money?

A similarly revealing incident happened last month, when Maxine Waters shouted at and shoved fellow Democrat and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey. His offense? Refusing to approve funding for the “Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center.”

Give me a break. Lets limit the power of politicians, and start thanking the people who actually create the wealth that the politicians freely give away.

Here’s George Will:

In February 2008, President George W. Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who normally were at daggers drawn, agreed that a $168 billion stimulus — this was Stimulus I — would be the “booster shot” the economy needed. Unemployment then was 4.8 percent.

In January, the Obama administration, shiny as a new dime and bursting with brains, said that unless another stimulus — Stimulus II wound up involving $787 billion — was passed immediately, unemployment, which then was 7.6 percent, would reach 9 percent by 2010. But halfway through 2009, the rate is 9.5. For the first time since the now 16-nation “euro zone” was established in 1999, the unemployment rate in America is as high as it is in that region, which Americans once considered a cautionary lesson on the wages of sin, understood as excessive taxation and regulation.

I want you to keep that unemployment-rate-despite-government-action in mind.

As I continue to read The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shales, I’m blown away by two repeated points: (1) Everything I was taught about Hoover, FDR and The Great Depression in school was wrong — Hoover was FDR Lite, not his opposite. And, (2), in many ways the Bush to Obama transition is parallel to the Hoover to FDR transition.

For example, FDR expanded many government construction projects that Hoover started, such as the Hoover Dam, which FDR’s cronies renamed as “the Boulder dam,” in order to take attention away from that fact.

Shales continues:

There were further commonalities. Hoover had spent on public hospitals and bridges; Roosevelt created a post of relief administrator for the Republican progressive Harry Hopkins. Hoover had loved public works; Roosevelt created a public works administration… Hoover had was a problem created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation [RFC]; Roosevelt put Jones’s at the head of the RFC so that he might address the debt…. Hoover had wanted to pass legislation to help farmers. So did Roosevelt. “What it was all over,” [New Deal agriculture adviser Rex] Tugwell would later write,” I once made a list of you deal with ventures begun during Hoover’s years as secretary of commerce and then as president… the New Deal owed much to what he had begun.”

Yet other projects were mere gentle departures from Hoover. Hoover had encouraged families to tend the substance gardens so that they might feed themselves with their own vegetables. Roosevelt instructed [Interior Sec. Harold] Ickes to develop a substance homestead project where families might feed themselves on new farms. Hoover had signed a Glass-Steagall banking act in 1932, to expand credit; Roosevelt now prepared his own Glass-Steagall act.

Hoover had deplored the shorting of Wall Street’s rogues; Roosevelt set his brain trusters to writing a law that would create a regulator for Wall Street. The new securities and exchange commission [SEC] would turn the stock market from a free for all the hazy rules into a more comprehensible game, one of which a small player had a more fairer shot. Hoover had expanded public works to create jobs; Roosevelt too would create jobs and relief programs. Hoover had not cared much about prohibition, and neither did Roosevelt; he now sought to end it.

Much to the chagrin of true economic conservatives, Bush began a stimulus, Obama greatly expanded it; Bush started TARP, Obama expanded it; Bush expanded the scope of government in both size and domain, he advanced expensive legislation such as the new Medicare prescription bill. Despite his power to do so, he never vetoed government spending or bills that hurt private enterprise, from CAFE initiatives to carbon-trading concepts. Bush is Hoover. Obama is FDR. And 7 years from now we might all still be stuck with near (or worse) double-digit unemployment.

In President Obama’s op-ed on the topic of the economy, here are some words you won’t find: profits, investment, incentives, taxes, risk, enterprise or markets. Or freedom, or liberty. So, though he claims to want to build a “foundation for growth,” Obama ignores the real drivers of economic growth. Instead, his vision is that of a bloated and meddling nanny state that would stifle economic opportunity and growth.

– Bill Kristol.