Obama Falls Short on JOBS Initiatives While Exacerbating Economic Injustice
Nowhere does President Obama show his lack of leadership more than during this unemployment crisis.
Robert Reich has finally caught up with what many of us have been saying for a year, that Obama and his policies are DINO and woodenheadedly wrong. He can still sometimes talk the talk, but he's proven that he can't or won't walk the walk.
Reich writes that Obama's job initiatives don't measure up: "Barack Obama is trying once again for balance. On the one hand, he wants enough government spending to offset the timid spending of consumers and businesses. Otherwise, the jobs and wage recession could drag on for years. On the other hand, he doesn't want to set off more alarm bells about the budget deficit. Otherwise, conservative Democrats might join forces with Republicans to block heath care. So what does he do? A little bit more stimulus spending, but stimulus spending that doesn't look like more stimulus because it's not really adding to the deficit. It's coming out of savings from money already authorized to be spent on the bank bailout. Hmmm?
"The word in Washington is we're out of the woods. The rate of unemployment dipped from 10.2 percent in September to 10 percent in October. In our nation's capital, a one-month trend marks a turnaround. Don't believe it for a moment. The real story of October was the increasing number of Americans who dropped out of the labor force, too discouraged even to look for work.
"Main Street is hurting worse than ever. Ten percent unemployment translates into roughly 18 percent of our workforce unemployed or underemployed. Housing markets are in terrible shape: One quarter of homeowners are paying more each month than their houses are worth; the rates of tardy mortgage payments continue to rise. Thirty percent of American households contain someone who has lost a job and can't find another, and yet almost all households are dependent on more than one wage earner in order to make ends meet. A quarter of all American children are now dependent on food stamps.
"The President's small, calibrated attempt to balance a stimulus with deficit reduction will in fact make the deficit worse over the long haul. It postpones the day when we're back to near full employment, when almost all Americans who need a job get paychecks on which they pay taxes. This isn't really balance at all. It prolongs the economic imbalance."
Brendan Cooney at Counterpuch describes it this way (in an article about Obama's siding with coup-mongering oligarchs in Honduras and his caving to right wing extremists in Washington): "...most haunting of all in this mess is the man in the White House. He showed that while he has better instincts for democracy than his predecessor, the results are the same because he doesn’t act on them. What good is a quarterback who can find the open receiver if he can’t pass the ball?
"If Reagan was Teflon, and George W. Bush was rocks, Obama is cardboard. People who need help can’t lean on him; conservatives roll right over him."
Certainly not the characteristics of a leader.
Robert Reich has finally caught up with what many of us have been saying for a year, that Obama and his policies are DINO and woodenheadedly wrong. He can still sometimes talk the talk, but he's proven that he can't or won't walk the walk.
Reich writes that Obama's job initiatives don't measure up: "Barack Obama is trying once again for balance. On the one hand, he wants enough government spending to offset the timid spending of consumers and businesses. Otherwise, the jobs and wage recession could drag on for years. On the other hand, he doesn't want to set off more alarm bells about the budget deficit. Otherwise, conservative Democrats might join forces with Republicans to block heath care. So what does he do? A little bit more stimulus spending, but stimulus spending that doesn't look like more stimulus because it's not really adding to the deficit. It's coming out of savings from money already authorized to be spent on the bank bailout. Hmmm?
"The word in Washington is we're out of the woods. The rate of unemployment dipped from 10.2 percent in September to 10 percent in October. In our nation's capital, a one-month trend marks a turnaround. Don't believe it for a moment. The real story of October was the increasing number of Americans who dropped out of the labor force, too discouraged even to look for work.
"Main Street is hurting worse than ever. Ten percent unemployment translates into roughly 18 percent of our workforce unemployed or underemployed. Housing markets are in terrible shape: One quarter of homeowners are paying more each month than their houses are worth; the rates of tardy mortgage payments continue to rise. Thirty percent of American households contain someone who has lost a job and can't find another, and yet almost all households are dependent on more than one wage earner in order to make ends meet. A quarter of all American children are now dependent on food stamps.
"The President's small, calibrated attempt to balance a stimulus with deficit reduction will in fact make the deficit worse over the long haul. It postpones the day when we're back to near full employment, when almost all Americans who need a job get paychecks on which they pay taxes. This isn't really balance at all. It prolongs the economic imbalance."
Brendan Cooney at Counterpuch describes it this way (in an article about Obama's siding with coup-mongering oligarchs in Honduras and his caving to right wing extremists in Washington): "...most haunting of all in this mess is the man in the White House. He showed that while he has better instincts for democracy than his predecessor, the results are the same because he doesn’t act on them. What good is a quarterback who can find the open receiver if he can’t pass the ball?
"If Reagan was Teflon, and George W. Bush was rocks, Obama is cardboard. People who need help can’t lean on him; conservatives roll right over him."
Certainly not the characteristics of a leader.
Posted by Kaz at 12/8/2009 4:31 PM 
Categories: Barack Obama
Tags: Barack Obama Obama Administration Financial Crisis Labor
Categories: Barack Obama
Tags: Barack Obama Obama Administration Financial Crisis Labor
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