Jeff Wartman

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama.
Re: 02/09/09 Press conference / Stimulus package

President Obama,

In keeping with your call for civility in politics, I am going to write some feelings, in a civil manner, in response to your press conference yesterday.

First, I must say that you’ve done a wonderful job of creating a straw man in your argument to pass the stimulus.  There aren’t many people on the Republican side who want to “sit and do nothing.”  To claim that we want to “do nothing” is the same hyperbolic verbal diarrhea spewed by those who claim you are a Communist.  Reasonable people can disagree, and I don’t think you’re a Communist, so please show us the courtesy of pretending like you understand the Republican position.  Continued mischaracterization of the Republican position as doing “nothing” does a disservice to your constituents by giving them a false sense of what this debate is about.

So, if you really care about respect and civility, please frame the discussion correctly.  The Republican position is not to “do nothing.”  Most Republican proposals wouldn’t be ideologically opposed to targeted infrastructure spending, but would rely on the one historically demonstrable way to stimulate the economy:  immediate, across the board cuts in payroll taxes.

Next, please cease the laughable assertion that every Economist agrees with you.  Anyone who has taken any level of economics knows there is one certain fact in economics:  the only thing a majority of economists agree upon is how to spell the word ‘economics.’  Any assertion that certain laws of economics always point to specific policy propoals only shows a lack of education in economics.  Economics is a dynamic science from which people can deduce their own conclusions.  The breath of various opinions among economists prove this.

Furthermore, the complete lack of specificity in your propoals, shown by the dive in the stock market once they knew that Secretary Geithner wasn’t going to give them any specifics make these points self evident already.

Thank you.