JoeB131
Diamond Member
I don't blame Obama for the state of the economy when he took office, Kiki. I don't even hold him particularly to blame for unemployment going to over 10%. I think the economists he chose to advise him (Summers and Romer) were idiots and botched their jobs from the get go when they underestimated the severity of the problem. Obama chose them, however so the ultimate blame of their being screwups rests with him.
What I DO blame Obama for is chasing ObamaCare first instead of concentrating on fixing the economy and getting people back to work. I also hold him responsible for buying into the whole Keynesian economic theory that governments can spend their way to prosperity. For a guy that was supposedly smart, Barack Obama has shown precious little intelligence in how he's attacked problems with the economy. You've got a sluggish economy and what do you do to make things better? Propose Cap & Trade legislation that would add billions to the energy costs of American businesses? Who would be stupid enough to do that? A second year Economics major could have told him that would dampen the recovery.
Then you let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid craft ObamaCare and the Stimulus behind locked doors? Are you kidding me? Nancy and Harry isn't what the American people voted for when they voted for "Change". But Obama deferred to those two because to be quite frank...he's totally clueless when it comes to drafting legislation. Throughout his entire career he's been fed bills that were done by others. He isn't capable of telling others what to do to make a bill work because he's never done that.
All valid criticsms. Much better than the stupid nonsense we normally hear from the right.
Ironically, what may have saved Obama is that the Congress changed hands, and limited how much additional damage he can do.
The fact is, Joe...if Obama had gotten what he wanted...which was Cap & Trade and Card Check...then the economy WOULD be in worse shape and unemployment WOULD be higher. Yet progressives constantly rant about how Congress has "obstructed" poor Barry? The "obstructionists" are what saved his ass.
absolutely, I agree. Recovery has been hindered by what he actually got accomplished (some elements of the ACA causing uncertainty) and would have been worse if he got everything on his wish list.
But Republicans are really just proposing more of the same that got us into this mess. More free trade, more union busting, more deregulation, etc.
Neither party really has the answer,and neither party has a clue how to fix the problems.