Obama Learned One History Lesson

Rossputin makes a great observation about the not-so-great surprise (I’m shocked!) that the Obama porkulus money is being spent at such a slow pace:

The “stimulus” bill was NEVER about stimulating the economy or fixing the infrastructure that needs fixing. That’s why it’s not being spent quickly and why many infrastructure projects are being undertaken where the bridge or road is not in very bad shape but happens to be in an important Democratic district.

Instead the “stimulus” bill is about stimulating the Democrats’ chances in the next election. The plan all along has been to save as much money as possible until mid-2010 and then spend like crazy, trying to buy as many votes as possible going into a mid-term election when the party in power tends to lose seats – and which is already looking worse than usual for the Democrats.

This type of taxpayer-funded patronage is hardly new. If you’ve read the magnificent book The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, you would know that Franklin D. Roosevelt similarly manufactured a lot of New Deal spending to his political advantage in the 1936 election — which proved to be landslide Democrat victory.

Obama and today’s Democrats have learned at least one lesson of history. But this time they aren’t working to produce a landslide as much as to stave one off on the other side.