I already took a broad overview of Obama's Blueprint for Change, and I have argued that his energy policy is a recipe for economic disaster, but I think it is time to take a slightly more detailed look at his economic plans outside of energy policy and see what the likely outcome will be should he ever implement his plans.

One note before I begin, as Obama seems to be in the middle of a massive reinvention, trying to move rightward to win over the middle, some of what is in his Blueprint may have been repudiated in one speech or another. However, as the Blueprint was his policy for most of his campaign, and as it appears his change of policy is more superficial than heartfelt, I have to assume the policy he carefully crafted before beginning his run more closely represents what he will do once in office than any stump speeches made since his nomination.

The first problem we encounter in trying to analyze his economic plan is that the items dealing with the economy as such are not particularly illuminating. For example:

Taxes

Obama will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

Trade

Obama believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more
American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.

That all sounds fine, until you try to figure out what any of it means in practice.

Let us start with taxes. It seems to promise an across the board tax cut, but does it? Notice the cut is limited to "working families". What does that mean? Obama once clarified this as families earning under $250,000 or maybe $200,000 (the numbers changed in some speeches), but even that is not clearly spelled out. The weasel words "working families" mean that, in practice, this tax cut could be limited to a very small group and still fulfill his campaign promise. It is worded just right to allow him to squirm out of it.

And before anyone thinks I am reading too much into this, let us look at his statement on trade. We all know that Obama has been both for and against NAFTA, depending on which way the winds are blowing, but the funny thing is, either position is still consistent with his trade position in the Blueprint. How is that possible? How can two completely contradictory positions be in agreement with a single statement? Because he doesn't say anything substantive. He says trade is good for America, but that he would oppose any agreement which would "undermine our economic security". Since no one has any idea what that means, he can justify anything from total free trade to closing down the borders and still be consistent with his stated policy. It simply doesn't tell us what he will do, or even what he believes.

So, since he seems determined not to be tied down to any specifics, how can we figure out what Obama has in store for the economy?

The solution is the approach I took in my essay on his energy policy. While Obama is not very clear on his personal economic beliefs, most likely as they are too far left to enjoy any mass appeal, he does reveal a lot of his plans through his endorsement of specific policies. So, to understand his economic thinking, we need to look elsewhere in the blueprint, and examine the economic impact of his policies for fighting poverty, improving education, helping women and children, and so on.

One interesting item occurs near the end of the economic section, under the heading of  "Work/Family Balance". Most of the items here are calls for more government intrusion, forcing employers to adopt greater costs when employing people with children (more ont hat later), but the really interesting item is this:

Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too
little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Obama will reform the Child and Dependent
Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent
credit for their child care expenses.

Note that "refundable" part. What does that mean? It means that even if you don't pay taxes, you still get a "refund" of half of what you spent in child care costs. In other words, the tax system will be used to create a new welfare benefit without calling it welfare. Just as the Earned Income Tax Credit was created a a way to pay welfare without it appearing a a welfare expense this new tax "refund" will allow Obama to subsidize child care without it appearing as such on the books.

Not exactly a "new kind of politician", more like the same old number juggling games the Democrats have played ever since "welfare" became a dirty word in American politics.

Next let's look at one of the most often quoted parts of Obama's plan, some of his steps for fighting poverty:

Tackle Concentrated Poverty

Establish 20 Promise Neighborhoods: Obama will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in cities across the
nation that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement. The
Promise Neighborhoods will be modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides a full network of
services, including early childhood education, youth violence prevention efforts and after-school activities, to
an entire neighborhood from birth to college.

Ensure Community-Based Investment Resources in Every Urban Community: Obama will work with
community and business leaders to identify and address the unique economic development barriers of every
major metropolitan area. Obama will provide additional resources to the federal Community Development
Financial Institution Fund, the Small Business Administration and other federal agencies, especially to their
local branch offices, to address community needs.

Invest in Rural Areas: Obama will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed Internet
access. He will improve rural schools and attract more doctors to rural areas.

This is not really anything new, rather more of the same, but you do have to admit it is audacious in its openness. Most politicians would shy away from so openly embracing the failed liberal agenda of the past twenty or more years, but here we have Obama calling for more of the same.

Let's start with his "promise neighborhoods".

A few have seen in them something ominous, either Castroesque neighborhood organizers or the beginnings of a cradle-to-grave socialism. I don't think they will be that effective. More likely as with all the recent programs including the words "opportunity", "hope", "promise" or "chance", they will just be massive sinkholes for government money. Just as the "opportunity zones" in cities proved to be windfalls for connected developers who knew where to buy, while doing nothing to improve our cities, I have a feeling this will be nothing more than a make-work program for social workers and others in the humans ervice realm. It will probably generate some superficially promising numbers for a year or two before fading away into becoming just another Washington cash pipeline to the MSWs, LCSWs and neighborhood organizers. Nothing sinister, but nothing beneficial. We have hundreds of these programs already, and we need only drive through a city to see how well any of them are working. One more is not going to turn around our ailing cities, especially not one which just repeats what has already failed.

The same is true of his "investment" in the cities. The SBA sounds like a good idea, but the truth is that a small business with a viable business plan and adequate risk to return can find investors or loans, the SBA ends up subsidizing excessively risky ventures, which means it ends up wasting money and tricking people into continuing in failed businesses longer than they should. In reality, it makes the eventual failure worse for the small business owner, rather than forcing him to get out earlier, when he would lose less.

And "community development', like his "promise neighborhoods", has been a constant theme of liberal policies for decades, yet has produced nothing but ever more dangerous, ever more impoverished inner cities. It has been a cash cow for clever people who can work the system, just as section eight housing has been a cash cow for clever investors, but it has done little to actually help eliminate poverty or improve our cities. Community development is a benefit for the well connected who can siphon funds into their pockets, and for the army of bureaucrats it employs, but for the supposed beneficiaries it has done little or nothing. So why would throwing more money at this problem make the results any better?

It is only the last item which shows Obama truly different from his fellows. Not the part about high-speed internet. ever since Al Gore took the lead in developing the internet the left has decried the "digital divide" and argued the world would be utopia if only the poor, minorities, and rural dwellers had fiber optic cables running directly to their homes. What is unique is his promise to ensure more doctors are available for rural areas.

The reality is that doctors do not practice in some areas for three, related reasons. First some areas are just too poor or too sparsely populated to support any doctor at all. A doctor simply cannot make enough money to make it attractive.Second, some areas could probably support a doctor, but when considering malpractice insurance costs, they are no longer sufficiently profitable. And third, some districts have such plaintiff-friendly judges and juries that the costs of malpractice suits make practicing there unattractive regardless of the income potential.

My question is how does Obama plan to overcome this reticence to work for insufficient remuneration.
 
I suppose it is possible he is being completely honest and will indulge his authoritarian tendencies by drafting doctors and assigning them to rural districts, but somehow I doubt he is honest enough to admit that in his campaign materials. So what he seems to be promising is a continuation of largely unsuccessful programs through USPHS and others which forgive loans and offer other benefits to doctors willing to work in rural districts or "under served" urban areas*. In other words, more of the same. In fact, if Obama is going to promise doctors to areas which don't have them, he is going to have to expand funding for these programs. Which means, again, throwing more money at already failed programs.

It appears we are finding a theme here. While he won't get tied down to any specific overall economic policy, when it comes to specific programs, Obama seems committed to continuing the standard liberal agenda, only promising to throw more money at them.

Let us look at his plans for women in the workplace:

Fight for Pay Equity

Obama believes the government needs to take steps to better enforce the Equal Pay Act, fight job discrimination,
and improve child care options and family medical leave to give women equal footing
in the workplace.

Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities

Obama will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning
Centers program, to serve one million more children.

Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit

Obama will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing lowincome
families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses. Coupled with Obama’s
“Making Work Pay” tax credit, this proposal will help put more money directly in the pockets of hardworking
low and middle-income parents.

Paid Sick Days

Obama will require that employers provide seven paid sick days per year to their employees.

Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave

Obama will initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama will provide

Does any of this sound familiar? Think you have heard it all before?

Other than being a bit more ambitious, there is nothing here we haven't heard before a hundred times. All the standard Democrat plans, pay equality, paid leave, flexible work, and so on, all the same old solutions the left has been proposing. Plans which, other than making ti more expensive to employ women, and providing a boon for employment lawyers, have done very little to better anyone's life. And, of course, the usual promise of "after school activities" to keep children off the streets and make sure they grow into productive citizens**. The same failed plan we have been hearing since at least the 1960's.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. The only true originality in Obama's plan is in the novel ways he finds to avoid adopting any overall principles while pushing the same old liberal array of solutions. Even his energy policy, which I examined earlier, could have come from a speech by Pelosi or Reid. He is not promising anything that has not been offered, and rejected, a dozen times before.

In other words, the man who shouts incessantly about "change" is just serving up the same stale liberal answers voters rejected in the last two elections. How he can get such enthusiasm for his candidacy with nothing better to offer is beyond my understanding.

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* In the interest of disclosure, I have to admit my wife looked into such programs when she was in nursing school. However, the programs were pretty unattractive. They offered no assurances of where one could be assigned. They offered only loan forgiveness, not any subsidy for ongoing education. And when we balanced the value of loan forgiveness against the salary provided by private employment, even for a nurse they ended up losing out. (Though to be completely honest, the prospect of being assigned to the middle of nowhere for several years made it a bust for her even had the money worked out the other way.) I can't imagine a doctor would consider this program unless he had truly dire job prospects in the private sector or a burning desire for public service. Even then a stint in the military would offer the same benefits, and more, with a much better selection of assignments.

** I have to think children so neglected by their parents that they have to turn to the government for something to do are probably in a lot more trouble than a few basketball games can fix. Then again, I am way behind the times, rather than using a village to raise my son, my wife and I are doing it ourselves (well, with a bit of help from my mother as well). So I am definitely unenlightened when it comes to child rearing, still caught up in the outmoded idea that a family is important and that parents should be responsible for child rearing, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.