Obama's Legacy:

[Jolie Rouge]

A Failed Recovery & Double-Dip Recession
By John Mariotti | Forbes – Sun, Aug 28, 2011

There will be no significant recovery in the United States of America while Barack Obama is President. The evidence is overwhelming: everything Obama has tried to fuel a recovery (with his Democratic allies in Congress) has failed. Statistics claiming jobs saved by the stimulus package were mostly fiction, and cost American taxpayers about $275,000 each. Nearly 2-1/2 million fewer Americans have jobs than before the stimulus.

Barack Obama has been President for 30 months—2-1/2 years. He spent the first year obsessed with passing Obamacare, a program that doesn’t create jobs, but might destroy a lot of them. He “bailed out” GM, but many believe that his interference didn’t save GM; it merely cost taxpayers an extra $15-20 billion, and stole from legitimate investors to buy off the UAW. His broken campaign promises are too numerous to list. At some point, his statute of limitations on blaming Bush runs out. The latest joke is that the White House is that named the location of East Coast earthquake near DC “Bush’s Fault.”


Obama himself said, “…that after three years, if the economy wasn’t fixed he should be a one-term president.”

Clearly the economic malaise started on George W. Bush’s watch. Its causes will be argued for decades, but most of them are traceable to irresponsible lending and excessive spending— both by government and the American people. The trouble that started before 2008 is directly traceable to actions (or inactions) of Bush and GOP allies in Congress. They spent America into the start of the current deficit during his eight years in the White House.

But that was then, and this is now. Since Obama took office the situation has gotten much, much worse. Obama has run up the deficit at more than twice the rate Bush did. During the first quarter of 2011, the US economy “barely grew” —at 0.4%—that was followed by second quarter’s “anemic growth” of 1%. This was during the period when the Obama recovery was supposed to be well underway. Employment data is unremittingly terrible: new jobless claims are stuck at 400,000+/- each month, with job creation well below what it takes just to absorb new workforce entrants. More Americans have been unemployed longer than ever in our history. And looking ahead, the news is not good.

This is Obama’s failed American recovery, and in the near future, Obama’s impending double-dip recession (thanks in no small part to his three consecutive years with Trillion-dollar in deficits that have inflated the national deficit to soaring heights—$14+ Trillion.) That legacy clearly belongs to President Barack Obama and with help from the Congress led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi during 2008-2010. Thanks to them, our country hasn’t even had a budget since Obama took office.


The latest Obama Blame Finger pointing focuses on the “Tea Party” as “extremists” who have a problem with astronomical deficits as far as the eye can see. (Pointing at Bush is getting a little old since he’s been out of office for 2-1/2 years). Obama needs a new scapegoat. The problem with the Tea Party is that it is like the child in the fairy tale, “The Emperors New Clothes.” The child is reviled for pointing out that the emperor is naked. Thus, the Tea Party is not wrong, just unwelcome.

Now Obama also wants to point the Blame Finger at the GOP House for the downgrade in the US debt rating by Standard and Poor’s. It seems that he believes that everyone else is to blame but him. That downgrade was predestined by the combination of irresponsible spending and Obama’s clueless attempts to throw money at a recovery to no avail. Spending $1.50 for every dollar of revenue, running trillion dollar annual deficits is reason enough for a downgrade in the US debt rating.

Face it folks: This is Obama’s failed recovery. And if (or when) it comes to pass, this “double-dip” recession (just around the corner) is his too.

Make no mistake, there IS plenty of blame to go around. About 75% of Americans are fed up with both Obama and Congress. The conservative and liberal factions of the House and Senate behaved badly in the recent debt ceiling negotiation. President Obama wanted to stay above the fray so he provided no leadership. He didn’t even know how to bring the opposing viewpoints together. He talked about bi-partisanship and consensus, but his actions disproved his words.

Until the president saw an impending disaster, he sat on the sidelines, afraid to do anything that might hinder his reelection campaign. Then, when his intervention didn’t help, and arguably hurt the progress, he grew impatient, petulant and angry.

John Boehner, however, did an admirable job trying to build a compromise deal on the debt ceiling, and get his own Caucus to support such a plan. Except, Obama was attacked by his liberal base for even considering the “grand bargain,” so he came in and dumped another “raise taxes more” demand on Boehner. I’d have walked out too, which Boehner was right to do.

But at least they were arguing about the right thing: how much to cut spending and how.

The Tea Party’s desire for fiscal responsibility is right, but it doesn’t mean that tax revenue can’t be increased. It can; how it’s done is what matters. The tax code desperately needs to be restructured. Simply digging in on old positions doesn’t help; it hurts. The goal is to “get the country working again,” and grow our way out of this mess.

The one phrase of President Obama’s that I agree with is “Country First.” But John Boehner was the one who tried his best to put “Country First.” If Obama truly chooses that as his 2012 campaign slogan, it will reek of hypocrisy.

If the members of Congress would put 1) country first, 2) constituents wishes next, and 3) personal agendas last, they might be able to work together to find a way out of this mess.

What happens in the Super-Committee of Twelve will be both revealing and predictive. Either America’s Congressional leaders will—or won’t—put "country first" and try to find common ground and reasonable compromises to lead America out of this mess.

Whatever happens, this failed recovery and impending recession belong to President Barack Obama. His condescending explanations of why “we Americans” don’t get it, how “this will take a long time,” this recovery, and his “class warfare” about “millionaires and billionaires” versus the “common folk” are all wearing thin.

This kind of rhetoric won’t solve America’s problems. It takes strong, informed, and experienced leadership to get through a mess like this one. We need a fixer, not a hypocritical speechmaker in the White House. Barack Obama is not that man. A wise man once told me, “The person who got you into a problem is seldom the one who will get you out of it.” That’s why there will be no recovery on Obama’s watch, but there could be a double-dip recession.

http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-legacy-...052627528.html

comments

I hope on this next and all future presidential elections we have learned the value of critical thinking and I hope we DEMAND full disclosure , with verifiable proof of the candidates background and values to be made totally public. NO MORE BLIND FAITH VOTING ---NO MORE VOTING BASED ON EMOTION.

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[3lilpigs]

Nearly 2-1/2 million fewer Americans have jobs than before the stimulus.

I wonder how many Illegals have jobs here????

[hblueeyes]

President Ronald Reagan took us from being the number 1 creditor nation to the number 1 debtor nation in 4 short years. All those who followed him are to blame for the situation. But he was strong in other areas which would have prevented the many wars going on today, I believe.

To fix the spending is simple. I do not haver a budget. I simply pays my bills first. Buy food second, Then take care of what else is needed with what is left over. I am slo lucky enough to, at times, have money left for charity. If I need more, I work more, do more surveys, clip more coupons, sell more junk, or simply go without or save up what is needed. I try my damnest not to get into debt. Our government gives way too much away when we need it here for us, those who foot the bill. Like I say, how can I feed the kids down the street when I cannot feed my own.

Vote everyone out who is in office and start over.

Me

[Jolie Rouge]

To fix the spending is simple. I do not haver a budget. I simply pays my bills first. Buy food second, Then take care of what else is needed with what is left over. I am slo lucky enough to, at times, have money left for charity. If I need more, I work more, do more surveys, clip more coupons, sell more junk, or simply go without or save up what is needed. I try my damnest not to get into debt. Our government gives way too much away when we need it here for us, those who foot the bill. Like I say, how can I feed the kids down the street when I cannot feed my own.

Vote everyone out who is in office and start over.

[Jolie Rouge]

I wonder how many Illegals have jobs here????

August 18, 2011 - The Obama Administration today announced a virtual amnesty-by-decree for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, whose deportations will be “indefinitely delayed”. In addition, Obama finally announced a jobs program – but for ILLEGAL ALIENS, not citizens – as those 300,000 illegals will also become eligible for “work permits“.

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama-Nomics: Half Full, Half Empty, or Just Half Assed?
By James S. Henry | Forbes – 17 hrs ago

Well – another day, another miserable US jobs report, another stock market retreat, and yet another Obama climb-down.

At least this time the climb-down was not induced by Speak Boehner’s shadow.

Spooked by the latest abysmal jobs numbers, the President suddenly decided to cave in to pressure from big business and withdraw the EPA’s proposed revisions in the (seriously outdated) 15-year old standards for US ozone emissions.

The new EPA regulations were only going to take effect in 2015. But apparently Obama felt the need to get a jump on the Congress with at least some kind of new “jobs" policy on his own – no matter how modest.

After all, it only amounts to saving a highly-uncertain number of non-green jobs that are probably not long for this world anyway, at the risk of exposing thousands of asthmatic children to dangerous levels of ozone.

“Green jobs” and “health care reform” indeed.


Of course the President did promise to review this policy climb-down in two years.


Does that commitment strike anyone else out there as just a little presumptuous?


Anyway, at least we now finally know for sure who President Obama will be running against next year.

Himself.



http://news.yahoo.com/obama-nomics-h...192431230.html

[Jolie Rouge]

The President and His Team
By Susan Estrich – 5 hrs ago

These days, I try to avoid conversations about President Obama. It's not that I've lost interest in politics. It's just that most of them don't go anywhere. They start with all the hope people had when he was elected and then go quickly downhill to disappointment. And because it is much easier to blame the people around him than the man himself, I'm constantly faced with questions I can't answer — or rather, questions that I can answer but that satisfy no one.

Why don't they tell him that he needs to stand up for something?

Why don't they tell him that he needs to focus on jobs instead of the deficit?

Why don't they tell him that he needs to put the Republicans on the defensive for protecting corporate America instead of the middle class?

Why don't they tell him that people hate these games of chicken that are being played in Washington?

Why don't they tell him not to schedule a speech on Wednesday when the Republicans are debating, only to look weak when he has to move it to Thursday?

Why don't they tell him not to go to Martha's Vineyard on vacation when so many Americans are out of work and can't afford vacations?

ETC.

Here's the short answer: They do.

When you're on top, you're a genius. Everyone tells you how smart you are.

When you're not, all you get is advice. The one thing I am sure the president is not short on right now is advice. The one thing I am sure White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, one of the smartest politicos I've ever met, is doing is passing along advice.

It's not that no one is telling the president. They are. They're not holding back on good ideas. It might be that there is some brilliant answer on the table that he is just not seeing. But I have my doubts.

The truth is that the buck stops there. If you want to blame someone for the president's missteps, blame him. He chooses his advisers. He decides what advice to accept and what to reject.

Speaking for myself, if I had a silver bullet, I'd pick up the phone.

Some things are easy to see. It's still the economy, stupid, as James Carville famously pointed out during the Clinton campaign. There is no problem Obama has right now that couldn't be solved by a substantial reduction of the unemployment rate.

Oh, they could play the political dance better — look stronger, make different scheduling decisions; he could vacation less and play less golf. But none of that matters very much one way or the other if one in 10 people is looking for work and can't find it.

The president will, no doubt, unveil a laundry list of programs that he is pushing now and remind us of the ones he pushed in the past to try to create jobs. The Republicans will respond by saying big government is part of the problem, not part of the solution; the private sector needs to be unleashed; red tape needs to be cut. Rhetoric is easy. Plans you don't have to pass are easy. Progress is hard.

What the Obama presidency has revealed, painfully, is not how much power a president has, but how little, particularly when Congress is in the hands of the opposing party and it's an election year and the leaders of that party — both in the House and the Senate — are determined to defeat him.

What he has — all he has — is the power to persuade: the power to persuade Congress that they will pay a price if they don't act, the power to persuade the media that he is doing everything that can be done, and ultimately, the power to persuade the public not only to stand behind him, but to show their confidence by spending money and buying houses and, most importantly, creating jobs.

This president showed an uncanny ability to persuade during his run for the presidency. He persuaded the country to trust an African-American first-term Senator over candidates who, on paper, had far more experience than he. As president, he seems to have lost that power, that touch. Too many people, including those who supported him, see him as arrogant and aloof. Too many believe he has lost his way, succumbed to Washington, forgotten his message. Appearance is reality.

Yes, we can. Millions responded to candidate Obama. Now it's time for him to prove that, yes, he can.

http://news.yahoo.com/president-team-070000536.html

[Jolie Rouge]

FIGHT THE POWERLESSNESS
The Left's Case for Boycotting Obama in November 2012
By Ted Rall – 13 hrs ago

Three years in, it's obvious to all but the most willfully obtuse liberals and progressives that their 2008 votes for Obama have not paid off.

The president blames obstructionist Republicans for his lack of action on, well, everything. His blame-the-GOP argument would be plausible if not for one thing: Before the Republicans swept the 2010 midterms, Obama had enormous political capital, a supportive media and Democratic control of both houses of Congress.

Had Obama wanted, he could have governed to the left. Far to the left. To the left of FDR.

Remember how scared we were? The economy was in freefall. We lost 600,000 jobs the month he took office. We would have gone along with anything he asked for, including a new WPA program and permanent jobless benefits.

He didn't ask.

Obama didn't govern like a liberal because he didn't want to. He didn't want to because he's not a liberal.

It goes like this:

"Voting for Obama sucks. He's just going to do more stuff I hate, like bailing out banksters and starting more wars while ignoring the terrible economy. But what else can I do? I can't vote for some science-denying, Bible-thumping Republican ignoramus who'd be even worse.

"Not voting? That's almost as bad as voting Republican. With so much at stake, there's no choice but to hold my nose and vote Democratic."

This powerful argument has kept liberals in the Democratic fold since 1976, when Jimmy Carter pushed the party to the right with his huge defense build-up.

Fear of a GOP nation drove them to vote for Bill Clinton, even though his major accomplishments--welfare reform, NAFTA and the WTO--were right-wing.

There's always something at stake. Every election is "one of the most important elections of our lifetimes." As a result, there hasn't been a liberal presidential nominee for 40 years. Mainly, this is because liberal voters are willing to vote for right-wing Democrats.

Here's what I tell them:

First and foremost, your vote (or lack thereof) cannot and will not put Rick Perry or Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin in the White House. It's simple statistics. By definition you can only change one vote: your own. And no state's electoral votes have ever come down to a single vote.

No election in U.S. history has ever come down to one vote. Not even a local one.

Even in Florida in 2000, the outcome hinged on about 150 ballots. I don't care how big your family or circle of friends is--you are not going to change 75 or more votes one way or the other. Mathematically speaking, your vote is purely symbolic.

Point two: Democratic Party strategists take liberal voters for granted. Don't take my word for it; check out books by Washington insiders like former Clinton pollster Dick Morris and "The Political Brain" author Drew Westen. Democratic leaders obsess over "Reagan Democrats," "soccer moms," "security moms" or whatever catchphrase equates to "swing voter" during a given year--people who might vote Republican one election, Democratic the next. That's why "Democrats" run as--and govern like--Republicans.

As for liberals, progressives and leftists, Democrats ask: Where else are they going to go?

Refusing to vote for Obama answers their question: If you don't stop taking us for granted, we will take our votes elsewhere--whether to the Republicans, a third party, or limbo, boycotting the process altogether.

Point three: Voting for immoral leaders makes you immoral.

Most Americans and the vast majority of lefties were against the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. During the campaign Obama pledged to send even more troops there. From a moral standpoint, the blood of every Afghan wounded or killed after January 2009 is on the hands of those of us who pulled a lever, pushed a button or punched a chad for Barack Obama. (That includes me.)

Obama lied about other issues. He promised to close Gitmo, to push for a real healthcare plan (one with a public option), and to withdraw from Iraq. Now, however, we know that he lied.

Knowing what you know now, a vote for Obama in 2012 would be an enthusiastic vote of support for torture, extrajudicial assassinations, drone attacks, corporate healthcare, doing nothing about jobs and staying in Iraq. Your eyes are open. A liberal who votes for Obama would be directly responsible for the torture, the killings, and the suicides of the desperately unemployed.

The two-party trap is the sort of sick game that sadistic concentration camp guards like to play.

"I'm going to shoot this old man or this little boy. You decide which. If you refuse to choose, I'll shoot both."

There is only way to deal with ideological terrorists:

Let evil scum do what they like. You can't stop them anyway. If the guard shoots both the man and the boy, it's a terrible crime--but the blood is all on his hands.

For a progressive, voting for Obama is like asking the camp guard to shoot one person rather than two. In the short run, it seems like the right decision. In the long run, the man and the boy die--and it'll partly be your fault.

http://news.yahoo.com/fight-powerles...223203313.html

[Jolie Rouge]

[Jolie Rouge]

Axelrod: Obama faces "Titanic struggle'
By STEVE PEOPLES - Associated Press | AP – 3 hrs ago

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — President Barack Obama's chief political adviser on Tuesday conceded that a dark cloud looms over the American economy and Obama's political future, describing the president's road to a second term in the White House as "a Titanic struggle."

"We have the wind in our face because the American people have the wind in their faces," David Axelrod told an audience of New Hampshire politicians and business leaders. "So this is going to be a Titanic struggle. But I firmly believe we're on the right side of the struggle."

But even as he acknowledged the stark political reality, Axelrod said the president would ultimately win re-election, in part because of the flawed field of Republican candidates. He characterized their plans to repair the nation's ailing economy as the same kind of deregulation and tax cuts that caused the downturn in the first place.

"This isn't new wine and old bottles. This is old wine and old bottles," Axelrod said.

He also assailed Republican contenders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Axelrod took issue with Romney's assertion that he's among the candidates with the least political experience in the Republican field. Romney held just one full term as governor but has run for higher office four times since 1994.

"I don't know how you define a professional politician, but running for office off and on for two decades seems to qualify," Axelrod said.

He also went after Perry.

"He holds up Texas as a model," Axelrod said. "You look at Texas and they have among the lowest wages in the country, the highest rate of uninsured people, some of the worst performance in their schools."

"I think most Americans will look at that and say, 'Why would we want to emulate that?" Axelrod added.

Obama's campaign has said that the 2012 election will be a "choice, not a referendum" on Obama, making clear they intend to draw sharp contrasts with whomever Republicans nominate next year. Democrats have begun raising questions about Romney and Perry's records both in and out of government, hoping to make the case that Obama would be best positioned to restore a middle class that has been battered by the economic downturn.

http://news.yahoo.com/axelrod-obama-...144623087.html

comments

once again i lay the challenge down. to all you libs, name what you consider obamas' accomplishments. it would really be interesting for the people to see what you call accomplishments. does the question scare the heck out of you? because everytime i ask, you don't or won't reply!

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I thought the Titanic sunk!

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Axelrod should know that old wine in old bottles can be the best! So in three years in office and two of them with Democrats controlling both Houses, the President has achieved exactly what for the US domestic economy - aside from tinkering with the health system which the Democrats try to pass off as reform - which it ain't. Blaming Republicans for the next 14 months won't work. Americans expect Presidents to fix problems - not blame others. Obama's adviser's haven't got a clue as to what makes businesses employ more people and until they listen and act on the advice they receive - putting aside political prejudices - no progress will be made

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$35,000 for one dinner at Obama's fund raiser This must make the jobless Democrats feel good when Obama's dinner cost what they could have earned working a whole year!

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Being a conservative, I wasn't happy when Obama was elected - BUT I thought him to be an honest man. If he had done a quarter of what he had promised to do... if he would have changed the tone in Washington, DC... if he would have honestly reached out and worked with both sides of the political divide, he would be looking at a landslide re-election. Obama, however, immediately went hyper-partisan. He rammed through legislation that the American people didn't want... he fell back to to the failed economics of Keynes... he started a "Class War" that pits the American people against one-another... He sucks up to union bosses... he constantly blames others for the results of the mistakes he has made, and takes credit for the positive results of others policies. He is NOT the man he ran as. He is a typical (yet well-spoken) Chicago-style politician and he doesn't deserve re-election.

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Did you notice who Obama threatened when he wasn't getting his way on raising the debt ceiling? Yes I did... He threatened to not pay: Social Security Retirees, Military Retirees, Social Security disability and Federal Retirees. He did not threaten to stop payments to illegal aliens He did not threatened to take frivolous benefits such as Internet access away from violent inmates He did not offer to fire some of the thousands of unnecessary federal employees that he hired He did not offer to cut down on his or his wife's frivolous gallivanting around the world He did not threaten to not pay the senators and representatives or any of their staff He did not threaten to take benefits away from welfare recipients He did not threaten the food stamp programs He did not threaten to not pay foreign aid He did not threaten to cut back on anything that involves his base voters The list could go on and on. He is in full political re-election mode! Why are we allowing this person to destroy this wonderful country with his selfishness and his lies? His type of change is killing our country. He needs to be stopped and only our votes can stop him. Do not forget about his tactics when it's election time. Vote Obama out of the Presidency in 2012.

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Obama lied. The economy died. A nation cried. Our 401Ks are fried

[Jolie Rouge]

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