PrintApril 13, 2009
Dr. Obama
Imagine you go to the doctor because you are having acute abdominal pain. He says you must go to the hospital immediately for emergency surgery or you will die within 24 hours. When you wake up, your tummy is now only slightly upset, but your legs have been amputated.
Welcome to Dr. Obama's clinic. It turns out you had a minor bout of diverticulitis and some antibiotics would have done the trick.
A short spell ago we had tummy pains called a banking crisis. Dr. Paulson ordered massive doses of antibiotics, $700B worth, just in case. After administering only $267B worth of antibiotics, Dr. Paulson said that was all we seemed to need. But since we were transferring doctors, he would let our new doctor, Dr. Obama, make the call on what to do with the remaining doses.
Dr. Obama ordered the full dose of $700B worth of antibiotics plus the $150B worth of stimulants that came with them. But that wasn't enough for Dr. Obama. He ordered $787B worth of more stimulants and $410B of surgery on top of that, just for starters. His chief surgeon, Dr. Geithner, said he might need another $500B or $1000B. Once the immediate surgery was finished, Dr. Obama would put you in his chronic care facility, administering multi-trillion dollar procedures for at least the next 10 years.
Our tummy ache was a relatively minor and manageable banking crisis that is now largely over, and would have been over had we done little or nothing in the first place. That's not just me talking. That is Douglas A. McIntyre at Time magazine talking.
"But, the great banking crisis of 2008 is over... The initial TARP may also have provided time for the new Administration to put together its widely hailed bank ‘stress test' program meant to determine which of the big financial institutions have dysentery and which do not. Finally, the hundreds of billions of dollars that went into the largest banks late last year allowed Secretary Geithner to produce his public/private partnership to buy toxic assets off of bank balance sheets. All of those plans, no matter how well-intentioned they may seem, are unnecessary now."
Oh well. Our $1.8 trillion deficit this year and the $9.3 trillion to be racked up by 2019 are just some big oopsies we have to live with now .
Sorry about the legs. But hey, good news! We've got a terrific new wheel chair for you. Only $2 trillion now and $1 trillion per year from now on.
Be careful about choosing doctors based on bedside manner alone.
