I just heard a woman on the radio (frankly I don't know who she was but she must have been a political candidate or someone in a party committee or something such). She claimed that (1) we have never had such a protracted period with the unemployment rate over 8%; and (2) that the price of gasoline is 110% higher now than when Obama took office.
All this led to a pitch for Mitt Romney as better qualified to be President.
Let's look at these claims and examine whether they are to be blamed on Obama. First, the price of gas. It's been stated many times that one reason that gas prices have risen is that world demand for oil, led by increasing living standards in China and India, has been rising. Everybody has heard of the law of supply and demand: with greater demand, the price is going to rise.
Second, Obama has been guiding the US back to economic health after a worldwide near-meltdown of the economy and the banking system in 2008—before he took office. The economy is still not robust and thus employment has been improving only gradually. It probably would take New Deal–style programs to make a big difference in that—programs which the Republicans definitely would fight tooth-and-nail and almost certainly would successfully block.
I heard someone talking about the power of the President. The bottom line was that the president does not have as much power as people tend to think. Our government is divided into three branches—the so-called Separation of Powers, which has shown itself to be a wise provision of those who established our form of government. So the Executive Branch (the President and his cabinet departments) can't do everything on their own.
Where government departments and agencies can influence the economy, we have (again) Conservatives and Republicans crying out that the government has too much power and advocating for little or no regulation—the "free market" philosophy which, as they'd like us to forget, is what caused the economic mess in the first place.
So it looks like they (the Conservatives and Republicans) want to blame Obama for any and all problems the country is experiencing, but at the same time they want to negate or thwart any power he or his cabinet departments might actually have to affect those same problems.
Looks to me like they just want to blame.
Updated May 13, 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
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Good thread. It has been no secret how much republicans would like to bring the Obama team down or what tactics they might resort to do so. Despite how long Mitt Romneys $42 million per year purse strings might reach, I'd never look for him or his 1% pals to trickle down prosperity or tackle economic woes.
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