Turning a corner, but not at The Corner

From the Corner of Ignorance and Spite, Charles Krauthammer shares his unique perspective on how to fix the economy.

On the White House jobs summit:

Well, it is obviously a PR maneuver. Unemployment is high. People showed [concern] on Election Day in November that the administration and Congress are spending all their time on health care, which is not a high priority. High priority is the economy.

It is the conceit of liberals in power to imagine that the government not only should but can create jobs. Outside of world wars, it doesn't. Generally it gets in the way.

I mean, there are things that you can do by clearing the brush:

Number one, kill health care with all of the job-killing mandates and penalties which are holding up employment.

Secondly, kill cap and trade, which will destroy what's left of the industrial Midwest.

Kill the stimulus package, and distribute the remaining billions either to individuals or to the Treasury.

The other thing they can do is to approve the free trade agreements with Columbia and South Korea, which will create American jobs …

And lastly, and the most important here, is sort of a reprise of 2008 — lift the unbelievably absurd restrictions on drilling for gas and oil, which would create a gold rush of jobs in the country and help us in terms of national security and the economy.

I thought we were tired of "clearing the brush" as a response to national crisis, but whatever.

Yes, as everyone knows, South Koreans and Colombians are just dying for our protectionist tariffs to fall so they can buy oodles of our stuff...Wait.

And as everyone also knows, it's the "absurd restrictions on drilling" -- not the fact that oil is now trading below $77 per barrel and the price of natural gas is at a 52-week low -- that are keeping the oil companies from launching their own WPA program to put unemployed wretches to work to pump more into the over-capacity pipes.

I won't even mention the "jobs killing" of health care reform which is based on...what? Or that cap & trade will destroy midwest industries (as opposed to...free trade agreements?).

And yes, let's "kill the stimulus" since it's such a fucking failure from keeping us from Great Depression II.

From NBC's Mark Murray
During President Obama's first 10-plus months in office, most of the economic news hasn't been positive. The unemployment rate is in double digits for the first time since the early 1980s. Critics have argued that the $787 billion stimulus hasn't worked the way some hoped it would. And Republicans, not surprisingly, have pounced on these shortcomings.

But as the economic news begins to get better -- positive growth in the 3rd quarter, the CBO estimating that between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in the 3rd quarter were created or saved by the stimulus, and today's best monthly jobs report in nearly two years -- Democrats are now pointing to what they see as the GOP's disconnect on the economy.

"There is a real disconnect," said Doug Thornell, a top Democratic congressional spokesman. "At what point are they going to acknowledge the positive steps taken that have pulled us away from the brink?"

I guess we can answer Doug Thornell's question:

How's never? Does never work for you?