The Travelling Salesman

Poor President Obama - called away to the G8 summit while the economy here at home tanks and support for his health care bill tanks along with it. The weekly video just doesn’t cut it when he’s far from home, unable to call on his loyal supporters in the White House press corps to help sell his agenda. So he made good use of his travel time penning a letter to another group of loyal supporters: The Washington Post. 

Nearly six months ago, my administration took office amid the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the time, we were losing, on average, 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

Yeah, we remember. You kept telling us it was the worst economy since the Depression. So why did VP Biden say that you underestimated the severity of the downturn?

The swift and aggressive action we took in those first few months has helped pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink. We took steps to restart lending to families and businesses, stabilize our major financial institutions, and help homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages. We also passed the most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation’s history.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not expected to restore the economy to full health on its own but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall. So far, it has done that. It was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall. We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.

More of the same: save or create jobs. What jobs? In Obama’s mind anyone who is still employed should thank him. It’s ridiculous. How did we ever survive before Obama? But yes, his actions were swift and aggessive. Too bad they were wrong and the economy responded accordingly.

There are some who say we must wait to meet our greatest challenges. They favor an incremental approach or believe that doing nothing is somehow an answer. But that is exactly the thinking that led us to this predicament. Ignoring big challenges and deferring tough decisions is what Washington has done for decades, and it’s exactly what I sought to change by running for president.

Now is the time to build a firmer, stronger foundation for growth that not only will withstand future economic storms but that helps us thrive and compete in a global economy. To build that foundation, we must lower the health-care costs that are driving us into debt, create the jobs of the future within our borders, give our workers the skills and training they need to compete for those jobs, and make the tough choices necessary to bring down our deficit in the long run.

There he goes again with more straw men, and accusing anyone who disagrees with him of wanting to do nothing. Another lie. And which party ingnored big challenges? His party – they refused to even discuss Social Security reform when George Bush was president and they blocked George Bush from strictly regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They built the foundation of sand that came crashing down with the mortgage crisis. And he expects us to believe they will somehow rebuild a strong economy on that same foundation of something for nothing?

Although he’s popular, his policies are not and he knows it. Rather than being pragmatic (as his supporters have billed him) and listen to the American people, he’s pushing forward with his radical agenda. This is just his attempt to sell you something you really don’t want to buy, especially when you see the price tag. And there’s no lemon law – once you  buy it there’s no refund. You’ll be left with a lifetime payment for something you really didn’t want in the first place.

Expect the President to continue his travelling sales pitch from now until 2012. All I can say is: buyer beware.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.