Great news from the front

Such fun:

President Obama may have to raise taxes to pay for public health care and the growing deficit [rrreealllly?.. who could have guessed?..], an eventuality that administration officials touched lightly on Sunday as they promoted an economy emerging from recession.

With an expected deficit next year of $1.8 trillion, and spending still being planned for a $1 trillion, 10-year health care reform, officials say something will have to be done to prevent further erosion of the economy.

"We will not get this economy back on track, recovery will be not strong and sustained, unless we ... can convince the American people that we're going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on ABC's "This Week."

Asked point blank whether it was right to suggest it is a matter of when, not if, taxes will be raised, Geithner responded, "It is absolutely right."

But the president's team circling the Sunday morning news shows was quick to note that there are signs the recession is easing despite a persistent decline in job losses in the past six months [no worries then; all signs of improving economy here].

Administration officials say they hope to see positive economic growth before the end of the year, and credit the $787 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in February with preventing recession from going into depression.

The legislation — opposed by all but three Republicans in the House and Senate — was intended to help save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs. But since that time, the jobless rate has grown to 9.5 percent, higher than the administration predicted even without a stimulus package. [But that’s not because the administration’s model of the market, its prediction abilities, presence of common sense and in general the view of the Universe the administration is living in are all shit. It’s because… err… well, it would be even worse without the stimulus package, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?]

Of course, raising new taxes and increasing minimum wage will make it more likely for new jobs to appear… Rrrrright?.. I mean, if you are a business owner, and your profit becomes even lower because you need to pay new taxes and pay more to each worker than the market (i.e., competition between businesses for workers) allows, you are not going to cut jobs; you are going to hire even more people. Yep, yep…

Also, friends, in case you were wondering, this is an image of an asshole:

July 28, 2009: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner offers a toast during a dinner after the first meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C. (Reuters)