American Missive

Nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds.
You see a lot up there but don’t be scared, who needs action when you’ve got words?
—Plateau, Meat Puppets

LONG BEACH— A long time ago in a land far away there once lived a man who could solve all problems with words. Unfortunately we all live in a different land and despite continued sermons from the White House the words have not brought change.

Promises have been made and so far zero of them have come true. In fact, the problems for which the promises were to resolve have actually become worse! Take the economy, for instance.

The nation was in an economic crisis brought on by excessive borrowing by companies and individuals only to eventually collapse when the bill came due. The accusation by Obama Administration supporters was that the nation is on the brink of collapse due to the Bush Administration’s love of deficit, prolifigate spending resulting in a doubling of the national debt. The promise was that, although prior deficit and profligate spending caused the problem, tripling the spending and quadrupling the debt would actually have the exact opposite result of the previous eight years and thus bring jobs back to America.

This promise came with a nice little graph championed by Mr. Obama. Below is that graph with the updated data. The light blue line represents what would have happened without the stimulus spending. The dark blue line represents what Mr. Obama thought would happen with the stimulus spending. The red line represents what has actually happened with the stimulus spending.