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In an article at National Review Online earlier this week, Jonah Goldberg reminds us of the speech that President Obama gave in Warren, Michigan on July 14, 2009 in which he said,
“Now, my administration has a job to do as well, and that job is to get this economy back on its feet. That’s my job, and it’s a job I gladly accept. I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, well, this is Obama’s economy. That’s fine. Give it to me.”
No problem, Mr. President. It’s yours. All of it.
The $1 trillion stimulus that added to the already staggering debt but didn’t keep unemployment below eight percent as you promised, the $2.8 trillion the country has borrowed since you gave that speech, the 2.8 million jobs that vanished since you took the oath, the rising cost of gasoline fueled in large measure by your intractability on domestic oil drilling, the private sector paralysis brought about by the uncertainties attendant to Obamacare, tax rates and financial regulation.
Since you’re taking ownership of the economy, Mr. President, we’ll also make sure that you’re credited with the dismal 1.8 percent GDP growth in the second quarter and the new low for the dollar against the Euro that was attained earlier this week. Oh, and let’s not forget to give you credit for the recent statements of Moody’s, the bond rating agency, which announced that the country’s AAA bond rating is in serious danger of being downgraded.
That should cover it, Mr. President.
Oh wait.
We left out food prices. We mustn’t fail to give you credit for the amazing increase in food prices over the last year. Maybe it has something to do with those rising energy prices and that falling dollar.
And of course, how could we forget? Home prices. We learned earlier this month that home prices in most major metros have “double dipped,” that is to say after rising from their lows of 2008, they have sunk back below those terrible depths to establish all new lows here in 2011. Just yesterday, we learned that the equity in the average American home stands at just 38 percent, down from 61 percent a decade ago.
Yes sir, if you want us to “give” the economy to you, Mr. President, we’ll be happy to oblige. It is all yours.
But, you say, the President of the United States doesn’t actually run the American economy. Well, that’s what we thought. But in January 2009 you moved in on Pennsylvania Avenue, saw the mess that you are quite correct in saying that you inherited, and began telling us that you were the guy to fix it.
You got the Congress to give you stimulus money and auto company bailout money and programs to help homeowners keep from losing their homes and money for extended unemployment benefits and, of course, the sweeping overhaul of the one-sixth of the American economy that is health care.
It looks for all the world to us, Mr. President, that you meant it when you said of the economy in that speech in Michigan, “give it to me.”
So here you go. It’s all yours.
Just one thing, though, Mr. President. It stays yours. You can’t give it back to George W. Bush. It’s yours today and it will be yours in November 2012.
It’s looking more and more like you might not be so keen to own it then, Mr. President.
But own it you will.
obama needs to keep at least some of the promises he made during his campaign that would not cost government so much money – like allowing C-SPAN news/camera folks into the closed door committee meetings
AND
obama and all of his minions need to STOP blaming former president BUSH for all of the promblems they have and take accountability for what they have done/not done and they need to reduce spending and eliminate any benefits to those in prison who have been convicted of crimes and to illegals who committed a crime just by being here illegally (and their families and deport them but NOT to MEXICO)
When obama got the two stimulus packages, bailed(bought) out the auto companies, “bailed” out the banks, getting everything he ASKED for…the economy became under HIS ownership. He hawked for it, squaking about how Bush messed everything up, leaving him to fix everything. Well, when you get everything you asked for to fix something, yet it remains unfixed, whose fault is it? I would say that obama has failed either from gross incompetence or by design. It was my thought from the very beginning that if obama had just left everything alone, the economy would have worked it’s way out like it has many times before. But people far more experienced than myself in matters such as this, fell for the gloom and doom speeches obama went around the country making and how he was the man with the answers. I never could wrap my mind around what obama was saying about having to spend more money, actually it was what my Granny always said was robbing Peter to pay Paul or pouring money down a rat hole, was going to pull us out of the problem. It always sounded counter productive, but then, not be a college scholar, who was I to question the brilliant minds of obama and his cabinet?
I think that in order for someone to become President, they should have experience as BUSINESS OWNERS. President George Bush was a business owner before coming President and was doing quite well keeping unemployment down until, if people will look back and remember, the democrats won control of the house and Senate. Spending increased under them and that is when things began to unravel. It wasn’t ALL George Bush doing all that spending, but he could have stopped a lot of it by not signing the spending bills. If I were saying whose fault it really is that we are where we are, it started under Bush but by the democratic congress and just expanded under the obama administration. obama owns it!
To the poster above, George Bush was the one to bail out the banks. That passed in October 2007. Bush’s problem was he was amicable to too much spending and forgot how to use the veto pen. He did create a mess by failing to just say no to so much spending, but Obama has taken that mess and made it worse beyond belief.
Pres. Obama’s stimulus plan to create “shovel ready” projects was a complete failure; however, through it’s financing of the “Fast and Furious” program, sadly this project made “shovels ready” for many innocent people. Among these victims was one of our finest, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Shame, shame on Attorney General Holder and the rest of this sorry administration!