Edward Hum – 1/29/15

This page was last updated on January 29, 2015.

Economy has improved by stopping Obama; Edward J. Hum; Beaver County Times; January 29, 2015.

An editor’s note for a previous letter asserted, “The writer is a 1948 graduate of Geneva College.”

Mr. Hum has written more than 68 letters since mid-2004, including a 10-month hiatus from September 2007 to July 2008 and another from November 2012 to July 2014. Long after George W. Bush left office, most of Mr. Hum’s letters still are no more than exercises in bashing President Bush and/or other Republicans. Mr. Hum’s letters are also flame-throwing exercises. I don’t know if Mr. Hum actually believes what he writes, or if he simply likes to stir things up to call attention to himself.

Mr. Hum frequently includes “fellow Republicans” or something similar in his letters and is one of a group of local Republican impersonators (The group also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, George Reese, and Oren M. Spiegler) who write claiming to be disgruntled Republicans. You have to give Mr. Hum “credit,” however, for going the extra mile to further his impersonation. As of September 2006, Mr. Hum was actually registered as a Republican despite the fact he’s no more a Republican than is Dennis Kucinich.

Given his body of work, for a while I wondered what Mr. Hum would use for subject matter now that Barack Obama is President. Mr. Hum wrote three letters in support of a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly (here, here, and here), then he reverted to his Bush-bashing habit, as in “Bush earns status as ‘most liberal.’” I guess some addictions are too tough to overcome. The last Hum letter I critiqued was entitled “Time to improve racial brotherhood.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Fellow Republicans, remember the awful condition this great country was in in [sic] 2009 after Obama was elected?”

[RWC] In case you don’t know, Mr. Hum is trying to be cute.

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 10,400 and there was high unemployment. Today, because we have opposed everything Obama wanted to do, we have prevented him from ruining the country. We have reduced unemployment and raised the Dow to around 18,000.”

[RWC] As a refresher, President Obama’s attempt to “fix” the economy was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) enacted on February 17, 2009. Initially estimated to be $787 billion, the ARRA was later estimated to be $831 billion.

While the unemployment rate (UR) has fallen from the 8.5% when Mr. Obama took office, it peaked at 10.6% the following January, 10 months after the ARRA was enacted. The UR was still in the 9’s until August 2011. Further, we tend to ignore the labor participation rate (LPR) remains low (59.1% as of December 2014). The average annual LPR was 62.8% for 2001-2008. In other words, while the UR has fallen to 5.4%, it doesn’t count those who want a job but gave up looking.

As for the Dow, that’s primarily a function of Federal Reserve policy to print money AND keep interest rates ridiculously low. Printing money without any supporting wealth (like gold, for example) decreases a dollar’s value thus driving up the price of a stock. Low interest rates for interest-bearing securities (bonds, CDs, savings accounts, etc.) also make stocks more attractive thus driving up the price of a stock.

Keep in mind the recession was the direct result of a bad government program. Even so, economies tend to fix themselves when allowed to do so. Where we tend to get into real trouble is when someone in government thinks they can fix things with some number of government spending programs and tax-rate increases, as was the case during the Great Depression. Consider the following quote from Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression. Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939, Sec. Morgenthau said, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.” Further, unemployment never got below 9.9% before the U.S. entered World War II.

Here’s my point. Nearly six years after ARRA, any real improvements in the economy are due to the economy adjusting and improving itself.

“The national debt was $5 trillion in 2000 when George W. Bush was able to fight two wars, reduce taxes and raise the national debt to only $13 trillion after bailing out Wall Street and saving us from another Great Depression. Compare that to Obama’s national debt of $17 trillion.”

[RWC] Then-Sen. Obama voted for the Wall Street bailout. Let’s also remember what led to the Wall Street bailout, a policy I’m sure Mr. Obama supported and continues to support.

There’s no doubt most elected Republicans aren’t exactly my idea of a conservative’s conservative. That said, at the time the subprime lending mess happened, the deficit had been shrinking and was “only” about $160 billion. You may recall the subprime lending program was the cause of this mess and it was a sacred cow to Democrats even after the alarms started going off over 12 years ago. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was a big defender of the subprime lending program. In 2003, Mr. Frank said, “These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” It wasn’t until he decided not to seek re-election in 2012 that Mr. Frank conceded, “In 2004, with regard to subprime loans, I was slow to see the crisis.” As a reminder, the Bush administration started raising alarms in 2001. Mr. Frank wasn’t “slow to see the crisis;” he and fellow Democrats simply chose to ignore the multiple warnings.

“Don’t forget: If we don’t stop his executive orders, he will soon have issued more of them than George W. Bush did.”

[RWC] Comparing the number of EOs without considering the effects of those EOs is a mistake. For example, an EO to name a national park is not the same as an EO to grant blanket amnesty to illegal aliens.