Boehner to Obama: Fire All Economic Advisers

Clearly, President Obama’s economic advisers’ policies have failed to produce any signs of economic recovery. A new report shows that 48 out of 50 states have lost jobs since the “stimulus” was enacted in February 2009. According to the report, government employment in Washington DC has increased while private sector jobs have stagnated across the country. Despite the loss of 2.5 million private sector jobs since 2009, the Obama administration continues to tout the “success” of the “stimulus” on their propaganda filled summer tour.

In his speech today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called on Obama to fire all of his economic advisers starting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House adviser Larry Summers. Recently, Tim Geithner wrote a New York Times column titled “Welcome to the Recovery.” In his column, he claims that:

the actions we took at its height to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery.

Of course, this is far from the truth. No government in history has ever spent a country into prosperity. On the contrary, government “stimulus” programs have made the economy worse by preventing the growth of the productive private sector. Due to the unpopularity of the “stimulus”, Obama’s economic advisers have purposely removed the word stimulus from their vocabulary. The “stimulus” has been such a disappointment that Obama’s economic advisers now refer to it as the “recovery act.” Whether it’s called the “stimulus” or the “recovery act”, the plan has still likely prevented the creation of 10 million jobs in the private sector.

Minority Leader John Boehner is not alone in his recommendation that Obama should fire his entire economic team. According to Representative Connie Mack (R-FL),

From his questionable role in the AIG bailout to his mishandling of our economic recovery, Secretary Geithner has been a disappointment from the start.

Needless to say, the current state of the economy makes it difficult for anyone to defend the flawed “stimulus.” In fact, Christina Romer recently resigned as Obama’s Chief Economic Advisor midstream into her appointment. Romer was a co-author of a study back in 2009 that claimed that the “stimulus” would keep unemployment below 8 percent. According to the Washington Post,

Christina Romer said Friday that she wishes she could redo one of her first official acts for the president: last January’s forecast that a big shot of federal spending would save millions of jobs and keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent. The forecast was wrong.

Instead, the unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent since February 2009. In late 2009, the unemployment rate reached double digits and has hovered around 10 percent ever since. It’s no wonder that Romer decided to give up her job defending a “stimulus” plan that has failed by its own measure. As House Minority Leader John Boehner said in his speech regarding the resignation of Budget Director Peter Orszag and Christina Romer,

Clearly, they see the writing on the wall, and the president should too.

House Minority Leader John Boehner is correct that America needs a “fresh start.” One solution is to fire Obama’s economic advisers who refuse to admit that the “stimulus” was indeed a colossal failure. Hopefully, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers will be the next to follow in the direction of top economic advisers that have already resigned from the Obama administration. America’s economic policy needs to pursue a new course that focuses on lowering taxes and eliminating harmful regulations instead of repeating the same old “stimulus” economic policy that got us into this deep mess in the first place.