After a year of claiming we are in a historic economic boom, The NY times claims Obama will now push for job creation. The reason for this theme is what I ave been arguing here, the theme of 2012 is that this is as good as it will get. The Progressives will claim Obama is really trying to create jobs, but that corporate America is not helping him. This is a typical 3rd world liberation tactic of a failed leader claiming he’s trying but others are in the way.
Three days before Christmas, President Obama gathered his economic team in the West Wing’s Roosevelt Room to review themes for his State of the Union address. The edge-of-the-cliff crisis he inherited had passed, but with more than 14 million Americans still out of work, he was looking for bold ways to bring down unemployment. The ideas presented to him, though, seemed familiar and uninspired. “You know, guys,” he said, according to someone in the room, “I’ve told you before, I want you to come to me with ideas that excite me.” Nothing he was hearing excited him.
[…]
Obama is fighting to keep Republicans, fresh from their fall electoral triumph, from reversing what he has started while prodding his own team to come up with something, anything, to put people back to work. “The president wanted to lower unemployment but didn’t see a way to get more money out of Congress,” one adviser who sat in on many such meetings told me. “He grew frustrated because the economic team didn’t have that magic combination.” Or as another adviser put it, “He was really frustrated that there weren’t solutions on the cheap.”
Read the rest: The White House Looks for Work
Obama’s attitude is startling, he really believes government can create jobs. This idea is devoid of reality and truly a fallacy. Instead of pushing fundamental tax and regulatory reform, he thinks that twisting the arms of business leaders will create joins. Never mind that he pushed Obamacare and the resulting higher insurance costs lead many companies to not increase wages.
As always the NY Times paints a rosy picture of this Obama Boom.
There is a compelling case that Obamanomics has produced results. An economy that was shrinking in size and bleeding more than 700,000 jobs a month is now growing at 2.6 percent and added 1.1 million jobs last year. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus, produced or saved at least 1.9 million jobs and as many as 4.7 million last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The much-derided Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, started by George W. Bush and continued by Obama, stabilized the financial sector, and the big banks have repaid the money with interest. According to a Treasury Department report sent to Congress this month, TARP will cost taxpayers $28 billion instead of the $700 billion originally set aside. The nearly $80 billion bailout of the auto industry may cost taxpayers only $15 billion, as the restructured General Motors and Chrysler come back to life with strong sales. The stock market has surged; corporate profits are setting records.
That’s right, 2.6% growth and 1.1 million jobs created last year is considered an economic miracle. When Bush had similar numbers in 2004-2007, it was called anemic and stagnant. This is the politics of low expectations that Obama hopes will get him re-elected in 20o12. Thus he will appear to be actually trying find ways to create jobs, when in reality he will not take the steps to restore American economic opportunity.
The NY Times can spin it all they want, but Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Tags: NY Times, Obama Boom
