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Evidence of the failure of Obamanomics -- addressed today in my special report -- continues to accumulate daily, beginning with the auto bailout:

The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue.
The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is "highly unlikely" to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company's stock to reach unprecedented heights.
"Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount," according to the report . . .

Meanwhile, Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute reports that the stimulus spending on public schools is actually likely to impede economic growth:

The president has committed $100 billion in new money to the nation’s public school systems, and required that states accepting the funds promise not to reduce their own k-12 spending. The official argument for this measure is that higher school spending will accelerate U.S. economic growth. But a July 2008 study in the Journal of Policy Sciences finds that, to the authors’ own surprise, higher spending on public schooling is associated with lower subsequent economic growth. Spending more on public schools hurts the U.S. economy. . . .
The fact that more schooling without more learning is not a recipe for economic growth is confirmed by the independent empirical work of economists Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann. Their key finding is that academic achievement, not schooling per se, is what matters to economic growth.
Based on this body of research, the president’s decision to pump $100 billion into existing public school systems is likely slowing the U.S. economic recovery.

And the price of both gold and oil are rising as the dollar declines, indicating that the Obama administration has not neglected the crucial inflation component of the Carter-era "stagflation" formula.

View all comments (2) | Leave a comment

Tim| 9.9.09 @ 3:11PM

Gold and oil? Bah! What need does the new peasantry have fot those things? Potatoes and rags will be the new measure of affluence...

John Thacker| 9.9.09 @ 4:57PM

To be fair, though, the auto bailout was also a GWB policy, which Obama continued.

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