My sentiments, exactly! Why did it take nearly 3 YEARS into his presidency for Obama to suddenly take an interest? Oh, that's right! Because the presidential election season is upon us!
by Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times:
Speaking on behalf of millions of Americans who've grown angry and frustrated over the president's 32-month ineffective inactivity on the job creation front, President Obama on Thursday told members of Congress they really have to do something about the crummy employment situation -- and do it quickly.
Citing the plight of millions of struggling Americans whose wishes for jobs Obama ignored for most of the 961 days he's been in office while chasing shinier healthcare and financial reforms, Obama said it was time that Congress stop blaming others. He said it was time members take responsibility for their inaction and halt their phony partisan games and political circus acts that pervade Washington culture.
Because the Americans Obama hasn't been listening to are really hurting now. And -- who's....
....counting? -- but it's only 424 days until Nov. 6, 2012. No plan yet to pay for Obama's ideas. But he wants immediate passage of his American Jobs Act anyway. Obama, whose Democratic spending priorities have pushed the national debt beyond $14,000,000,000,000, said it was important to curb spending and keep to the deficit reduction plan agreed to earlier this summer while also investing in, you know, many important things.
He then provided a joint session of Congress with a broadly ambitious list of goals that sounded to many people very much like a lot more spending, like, say, the $787 billion economic stimulus bill of 2009 that didn't stimulate much of anything except that national debt.
With the national debt already increasing $3 million every minute of every day, Obama wants to repair and modernize 35,000 schools. Obama wants $35 billion to go toward salaries for teachers, firefighters and police.
Obama wants $140 billion largely to update roads and bridges. Obama wants another $245 billion in business and individual tax relief. Obama also wants to extend unemployment benefits.
And Obama wants it all right now. Seriously. Now that his Martha's Vineyard vacation is over, this situation is urgent.
Obama didn't have room in his 4,021 word speech to mention how he intended to pay for all this new sounds-an-awful-like-increased-new-stimulus-spending-but-we're-not-using-that-word-anymore.
Aides said Americans should trust the president and sometime soon he would be outlining the finances that would not increase the national debt by one dime, honest.
Today in Virginia and next week in Ohio, Obama begins an aggressive autumn of travels selling his sounds-like-new-spending plans by day and fundraising by evening, bashing guess who for not solving the job crisis long ago.
Because like pretty much every sentient American, he knows full well there isn't one chance in Haiti of the divided Congress approving this package.
In fact, Obama's counting on that because grandiose program-proposing like this costs nothing-zero-nada, except the limo gas to the Capitol. Yet it gives perpetual candidate Obama tons of swell-sounding details to talk about during the 2011-12 reelection campaign.
Because he can't blame his mother-in-law for the nation's economic mess. When's the last time you heard a Harvard grad say, "Boy, did I blow that!" So, the only culprits left are in Congress, especially those Repugnicans.
But here's the catch that Obama and his Windy City wizards missed: Most Americans are not politically obedient machine Chicagoans. Like a linebacker reading the quarterback's eyes, they've already figured out this South Sider's game.
This week's ABC News/Washington Post Poll found that, based on their 961 days' experience with the current White House crowd, 47% say Obama's new economic program will have zero effect on the economy.
Worse politically, twice as many -- 34% vs 17% -- say Obama's plan will actually make matters worse, instead of better.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll the other day found 73% of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. That's 23 points more than felt that way at the beginning of summer.
Funny coincidence. The last time the revealing wrong track number was this high (78%) was in the autumn of 2008, just two weeks before Americans bought Obama's "Change to Believe In" line.
And they have the pink slips to prove it.
