President Obama yucked it up Monday at a meeting of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in Durham, North Carolina. Someone mentioned the Council’s recommendation that the White House streamline the burdensome federal permit process for construction and infrastructure projects, which can often delay work for months or even years, telling Obama (with a surprising degree of confidence): “I’m sure that when you implemented the Recovery Act your staff briefed you on many of [these] challenges.”
Apparently not, as the unflagging Creator and Savior of jobs remarked: “Shovel-ready was not as… uh… shovel-ready as we expected.” The panel of millionaires could hardly contain their laughter.
It's hard to understand where "populism" comes from, isn't it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlso, when you try to buy a lot of something at once, resource constraints pop up. I hear one issue that all of the not-quite "shovel-ready" construction projects had was finding an archaeologist to sign off that each project was not going to damage anything archaeologically significant. Archaeologists were hard to come by for a while (at least in one region).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThese people make me sick.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe national GOP and/or the GOP presidential field has no right to exist if it can't use that clip from now until election day. That line, and the TONE, is every bit as bad as any number of gaffes that became political catchphrases thanks to the media. It's endlessly revealing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Bill Ayers is just a guy from my neighborhood"
"If you like your present plan you can keep it"
"Shovel ready"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe: "President Obama yucked it up..."
Sure, because nobody Obama knows is out of work. All of Obama's friends have government jobs or better still, Crony Capitalist jobs via the government labyrinth.
Think Michelle and her $273 grand salary at Chicago Hospitals and Rahm Emanuel making $16 million in 26 months as an "investment banker" on Wall Street. Must be nice...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama's causal arrogance is appalling.
We are not a classroom full of college kids, we are the United States of Amercia.
Obama blew a trillion bucks and lied to us in the process. Then, when caught SNICKERS in public about it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd some people say Weiner is an embrassment!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd Bush yucked it up during the correspondence dinner when he looked for WMDs under the couch.
Presidential humor is always in a tough room.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUh...last time I looked, Bush was a nitwit too.
Excellent examples of Harvard training...er...train wrecks...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDemocrats are generally oppose to any activity that involves digging into Mother Nature literally. So the idea they wanted "shovel ready" projects is a scam to begin with. Most of '09 stimulus was transfer payments to states, increase in government pay, and other high-minded projects. There wasn't additionally digging going on, just ask the Gulf of Mexico!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIsn't it amazing? They're talking about serious problems with permitting in the private sector and Obama immediately turns it into a joke about government projects? "Everything is about me." Barf.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat we are seeing i the making of the 21st Century's Herbert Hoover. A man whose name will also become synonymous with bad economic policies in every election for decades to come.
Toss in His bad foreign policies, and we are approaching James Buchanan territory. But for that we need the Democrats to lose next year's election and start a war in response...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think we now have Obama's version of "Mission Accomplished" for the 2012 campaign.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@SteveM, RTP: That's really the best you've got?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBush may or may not have been nitwit, but I don’t recall “W” laughing at the unemployed like Obama just did. Oh yeah, we spent a trillion dollars that your grandkids will be paying back and you still don’t have jobs, that’s a real knee slapper! Can you imagine the Media’s reaction if Bush had been so callous; there’s be a week of exposes about how this was definitive proof that Republicans don’t care about anybody but the rich.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe panel of millionaires could hardly contain their laughter."
What does their wealth have to do with their senses of humor? Mister Styles seems to veer dangerously to inciting class hatred. We should be thankful for those millionaires, as they probably earned their wealth through good old fashioned hard work.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe term Shovel Ready has been and always will be an oxymoron.
The answer to Obama's quip should have been, what does a public works project debacle have to do with permitting in the private sectors?
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