So many smart people, so many dumb ideas

Krauthammer Not Surprised Obama Unaware of Shovel-Ready Jobs: No Shoveling at Harvard Law School

By Jeff Poor

It’s quite remarkable to think about and unfortunately it is true.

Throughout the 2009 stimulus debate early in his term, President Barack Obama and other Democrats argue it was time to put America to work with the aid of the government and so-called “shovel-ready jobs.” But in a startling admission in an interview with The New York Times’ White House correspondent Peter Baker, Obama said “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”

So after the American taxpayers were sold a stimulus bill that was supposed to repair the country’s ailing infrastructure and stem the rise in unemployment, the president’s economic policies haven’t lived up as advertised. On the Oct. 13 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier,” syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer offered a spot-on explanation.

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“Well, that is quite an admission,” Krauthammer said. “A year-and-a-half and half-a-trillion dollars later he says, ‘Well, these things I talk about endlessly don't exist.’ It's not surprising that he doesn't know a shovel-ready project didn't exist because having never worked in the private sector he wouldn't sure what a project is and there isn't shoveling in Harvard Law School, so I can understand.”

Krauthammer said the president’s admission could prove costly for Democrats in upcoming elections.

“This is one of the greatest ‘oops’ in American history,” he continued. “And it’s going to be hard for a Democrat when you show, you know one tape against another, and you’re going to say, ‘You supported $1 trillion offered by a president who didn't know that this is not going to happen?’ And that is probably why – since everybody expected it would affect unemployment and didn't this is probably one of the reasons why – things weren’t shovel-ready.”

Also in the Baker interview, Obama discussed his appearance to the American people. However, Krauthammer suggested this was proof the White House was more concerned with appearance and less with real policy.

“The other admission I think is even worse – the one of which he said he ended up looking like a tax-and-spend Democrat,” Krauthammer continued. “Obama and his staff really think this is all about appearances and communication – that he isn't a tax and spend Democrat, but he didn't communicate it or as the vice president said today, ‘It's too hard to explain,’ meaning, that the American electorate is too thick to understand it. He is a tax-and-spend Democrat. He spent a trillion dollars and we’re going to have to borrow or tax it on the stimulus. He will spend $2-to-$3 trillion on health care. He’s going to have to borrow or tax it. Cap-and-trade is spending that you’re going to have to -- that's what he is. That’s why electorate is against him. It’s not appearances. It's substance.”