Posted on 05/15/2009 12:19:18 PM PDT by vadum
Looking up from their particular circle of Hell, Senator Reed Smoot (R-Utah) and Representative Willis C. Hawley (R-Oregon) must be laughing.
They must realize that President Obama and congressional Democrats are infinitely clever Alinsky students, saying one thing in front of the TV cameras and then doing the opposite behind the scenes. Together, the Obama administration and liberal lawmakers have in a sense revived by stealth the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariff that exacerbated the Great Depression by encouraging other countries to erect trade barriers.
During the election campaign, after some policy fine-tuning and unexpected drama that took the campaign off-message, Obama begrudgingly conditionally endorsed free trade. Or so it seemed.
His statement came a few months after that bit of intrigue with economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, who now serves Obama in the White House. Goolsbee caused a furor on both sides of the 49th Parallel by telling the Canadian consul general in Chicago that Obama's anti-free trade rhetoric was just the candidate playing up to his left-wing base. Goolsbee said Obama's words were "more reflective of political maneuvering than policy," Fortune reported.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
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Trade war? Another Epic Fail strategy from the Great Depression. Most economists, including yours truly, conclude that cutting world trade by 90% made everybody a lot poorer.
Yup. They are repeating so many mistakes of the Great Depression. God, errrr, I mean, Obama help us all.
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