"Hope." That was a popular focus group word that drove the entire Obama campaign. "Tax cuts" were another popular euphemism generated by a focus group that really meant "giving people your tax money that don't even pay taxes." Now the latest focus group euphemism, as we pointed out above, is "investments." We've been through this routine already. We saw it last night and we will continue to see it as the Obama administration does a full-court-press to position his new spending plan in a positive way. "Investments" are just a fancy word for "more spending" of money that we don't have.

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee was asked on Fox News: Are Investments Same As Stimulus Spending? His Answer Was Flat Out, No. But He Went on to say, "Investments are those things that we as people, the government and the private sector, spend that have payoffs in the future." Now that sounds like a definition of stimulus spending to me. But we all know how obtuse I am.

Think about that answer for a minute. Now consider this ... why do you spend money at all? Why do you buy things? You spend money because you want something of value - a good or a service - and the seller wants something in return: your money. There is mutual gain involved. There is a "payoff." So according to the Obama White House, "investments" are simply spending sprees that have a delayed gratification ... we spend now, we see our returns in the future. But the fact of the matter remains: We are still spending money! We are still spending money that we don't have and it doesn't matter when we gain a return on our investment, if we do at all. Why is this so hard to understand?