More $Bns for Banks, Budget Contradictions

The O-and-Savior, (bless his name) chatted with the NYTimes.

Confusion mounts.

Mr. Obama indicated that the end was not in sight when it came to the economic crisis and suggested that he expected it could take another $750 billion to address the problem of weak and failing financial institutions beyond the $700 billion already approved.

Surprise!!

Is TALF part of the $750Bn? Or is this another "capital-stock" plan? Is that number an estimate of FDIC costs to close/liquidate weak banks?

More intriguing:

“I don’t think that people should suddenly mistrust all of our financial institutions.”

Umnnnhhh.....why did he say THAT?

On the economy:

“Our belief and expectation is that we will get all the pillars in place for recovery this year,” he said. “How long it will take before recovery actually translates into stronger job markets and so forth is going to depend on a whole range of factors.”

"Pillars in place" actually means re-arranging healthcare and spending mungo-dollars on education. Oh, and yes, you'll get $13.00/week in "tax reductions."

Then there is this little problem:

Mr. Obama’s uncertain forecast about when the economy will begin to rebound contrasted with the projections embedded in the budget he recently released.

That plan rested on the assumption that the economy would shrink by 1.2 percent this year, a projection that many economists, including some in his administration, consider overly optimistic because it implies the economy would bounce back in the second half of this year.

Yup. Write one plan, implement another one, blame it all on Bush.

It's the Three-Card-Monte Presidency.