The Terminator on Politics As Usual

Can't say it any better. The only question here is whether the treatment will cure the cancer. Or just make the patient sick with another disease.

'This Week' Transcript: Arnold Schwarzenegger

SCHWARZENEGGER: I know, but that's why I said, you know, you've got to go beyond just the principles. You've got to go and say, "What is right for the country right now?" I mean, I see that as kind of like, you go to a doctor, the doctor's office, and say, "Look, can you examine me?" The doctor says, "You have cancer."

What you want to do at that point is you want to see this team of doctors around you, have their act together, be very clear, and say, "This is what we need to do," rather than see a bunch of doctors fighting in front of you and arguing about the treatment. I mean, that is the worse thing. It creates insecurity in the patient.

The same is with the people in America. That creates insecurity when you have those two parties always arguing and attacking each other, rather than coming together and saying to the American people, "Here's the recipe. This is going to be tough, but this is what we need to do for the next two years. And we both believe in that." That will bring calmness to the market and stability to the market.

I'm an ardent Keynesian in this situation. I think the government has to do what the private sector is not willing or capable to do. If the figures are right, there is going to be a $3 trillion shortfall in aggregate demand. This $787 billion seems like a drop in the bucket.

And how much farther ahead of this thing might we be if we hadn't spent nearly (or is it over?) $1 trillion on a war that served no purpose (at least from an economic perspective)? What is astonishing is that the government spent so much over the past 6-7 years on the war...how much worse would the economy be right now if it hadn't?

NOBODY talks about that. It is my firm belief that we never really got out of the recession in 2001. So, in a sense, this is the longest recession in history. Some might say "depression."

Take away that government "stimulus" and what do you have?

Or, maybe the answer is that like a lot of things over the past 8 years, the government didn't provide any oversight into how the money was spent.

After all, if you send money down a sinkhole, who profits? (Hint: Haliburton. They know how to get money out of holes!)