Third Time's the Charm!

Today my decreasingly-ambivalent Obama-supporter friend sent me a link to an article at the Huffington Post, headed "The Fiscal Stimulus Will Pay For Itself." Gee, that took me back.

First, of course, I remembered that the 2003 war on Iraq was going to pay for itself. Paul Wolfowitz rather notoriously said, "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." Not only that, Dick Cheney expressed his belief that the Iraqis would welcome the US as liberators. (Remember "Democracy, whiskey, sexy"? Those were innocent times, the 2002s and 3s. Not like today.)

Then I remembered that the Bush-Paulson-Obama-Pelosi-Frank bailout of last year was going to pay for itself. George W. Bush said, "Money will flow back to the Treasury as these assets are sold, and we expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back." As a commenter declared tongue-in-cheek at The Distant Ocean, "The $700 billion may be a little high. Actually, once the oil starts flowing again, the bailout will pay for itself. I predict people on Wall Street will greet us as liberators!" Of course, it didn't work out that way; rather like the war on Iraq, the bailout plan was actually intended as the pillage of a prostrate nation.

Obama, of course, has already been welcomed as a liberator. I think that his stimulus plan has a better chance of doing some good than either the invasion of Iraq or the bailout, but what do I know? Certainly the HuffPost chose an unfortunate title for Ann Pettifor's defense of Obama's program.