Obama's New Economic Policy, Just Like His Old Policy: Spend, Spend, Spend

Obama’s new economic is just like his old economic policy. Wall Street Journal is reporting that, in his State of the Union, Obama wants to spend more instead of less, you know, because it worked so well the last time:

President Barack Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday, sharpening his response to Republicans in Congress who are demanding deep budget cuts, people familiar with the speech said.

Mr. Obama will argue that the U.S., even while trying to reduce its budget deficit, must make targeted investments to foster job growth and boost U.S. competitiveness in the world economy. The new spending could include initiatives aimed at building the renewable-energy sector—which received billions of dollars in stimulus funding—and rebuilding roads to improve transportation, people familiar with the matter said. Money to restructure the No Child Left Behind law's testing mandates and institute more competitive grants also could be included.

While proposing new spending, Mr. Obama also will lay out significant budget cuts elsewhere, people familiar with the plans say, though they will likely fall short of what Republican lawmakers have requested….

Republicans are casting the White House's pivot toward competitiveness as an excuse for bigger government and more spending. They say a surge in federal spending and a $1.3 trillion budget deficit are impeding job creation, and dramatic spending cuts are needed immediately.

In the House, Republicans are pushing to cut $100 billion from the annual budget as soon as this year. A coalition of House Republicans proposed Thursday cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over a decade, pushing nondefense discretionary spending down to 2006 levels for 10 years.

This is bad for Obama for two reasons:

1.)High deficits are part of the reason why we are in the economic trouble that we are in, today. Polls have consistently said that people want Washington to reduce the deficits and return to fiscal sanity.

2.)Unemployment rate has been stalled over the last two years, since the stimulus passed. People don’t believe that federal stimulative spending worked the first time, and they won’t like Obama doubling down with another massive stimulus package, when the only long term result will be more debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay down the road.

Why would Obama want to do this? He needs to move to the center, if he has any shot at winning in 2012. This will be seen by the voters as a sign that Obama hasn’t learned his lesson from the failure of the last stimulus and that he is still the far-left ideologue that everyone on the right and Republicans have said that he is.

Maybe he’s just saying it to appease his base but has no intention to, actually, pass new spending because he knows that the Republican-led House will never agree to it. Even if he is just appeasing his base, it won’t look good to the American people. However, if his words don’t turn into any real action and legislation, what he says on Tuesday will be long forgotten by November 2012.