Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Liz Claman interviewed Tim Geithner yesterday about the job summit and this exchange caught my eye:

GEITHNER: It’s not going to be one thing. It’s going to have to take a mix of different approaches. And you’re right to say that we have limited resources. And our job, as you heard the president say, is to find ways to maximize the impact of any additional dollar we spend.

So we’re looking for things that have a high return for the taxpayer, a high return for the American economy going forward.

But what matters is trying to get businesses investing again, businesses hiring again.

CLAMAN: Businesses investing again, they need to, they want to.

But I have to tell you, I talk to a lot of CEOs. So do you. And in advance, I told them I was going to be talking to you. And they said, look, we don’t have a lot of this ability. We don’t have clarity on where interest rates are going to be, what energy costs are going to be, what the health care situation is going to be. They would love some of that visibility clarified.

GEITHNER: They want — businesses want certainty. They need certainty so they can make long-term plans today. And that’s why it’s so important that Congress gets health care behind us, that we bring financial reform in place so people know what the rules of the game are. And that’s a very important thing to do. And that’s why we’re working so hard to make sure we bring clarity quickly.

So here’s a silly question: if they knew uncertainty would slow the recovery, why did the administration introduce these legislative items in the first place? President Obama told us that cap and trade and particularly health care reform would help the recovery. Was he lying? Isn’t it  more likely that these items were pushed for political reasons having nothing to do with recovery? Doesn’t that show a certain lack of concern about the plight of the unemployed who might now have a job if the recovery hadn’t been delayed by the political ambitions of the Obama adminstration? Geithner’s position and I suppose the position of the Obama adminstration is that the uncertainty would have been lifted quickly if Congress just rubber stamped the Obama plans and let him get his way, but that was never going to happen. If Obama thought that was likely he is more naive than I thought.

I think it is important to remember that the two major legislative items that introduced uncertainty - cap and trade and health care reform - were optional. The health care system may need reform - I think it does - but it could have waited until the economy was in better condition to tackle it. Cap and trade is just complete and utter BS and is more than optional - it is stupid. So why introduce this stuff if you know it increases uncertainty and delays the economic recovery? The only possible answer is that the administration decided that their political goals were more important than the economy. That should tell you all you need to know about this administration.