Rick Raw: Economic Recovery Slows to Snail’s Pace–Stimulus Fizzled

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

From my corner of the world, Jacksonville, Florida, I still hear of friends and former colleagues who can’t find jobs, established businesses and restaurants going belly-up, and a forty year diner theater tradition, The Alhambra, closing its doors. My E-mails tell tragic stories of once proud independent business people going bankrupt or facing foreclosure. It’s not a pretty picture.

Yet, the 24 hour news pundits are preaching optimism and announcing an uptick in the housing market. Yeah, that may be true, but the people buying these homes are speculators buying low and selling high. The average Joe is still hurting. Big companies are either still laying people off or instituting hiring freezes.

There are no jobs for the working man. It’s true that the Recovery Act has helped some rust belt areas retool to building green energy technology, such as manufacturing wind turbines, thus providing jobs for laid-off workers. But this is just a drop in the big bucket for millions of unemployed, who have seen their middle class life degenerate into poverty. These people are the new poor thrown into a lower lifestyle with the long-term poor.

Vice President, Joseph Biden recently acknowledged that the "$787 billion economic stimulus program has not yet had the impact that the White House had hoped for." Biden went on to say, "We misread how bad the economy was." Indeed, that was an understatement.
Was it too little, taking too long? Yes, but when the Congress completed their work on the

Recovery Act back in January and February, economists warned the Stimulus Package was not going to be enough to revitalize the economy. Republicans wanted to do nothing but cut taxes, and played hard ball scaring the American public with fear mongering that the bill would cost way too much.

Now, according to a recent Gallop poll, many of the independent voters in the swing states who had voted for Obama are now unhappy with the president’s performance. The underlying perception across America is the Recovery Act is not working fast enough, and is bogged down in partisan politics and stifling government bureaucracy.

While Obama’s approval rating remains high at 56%, his shining armor of the great black hope is weakening. Unless things change more rapidly, Obama’s approval rating will plummet.

The real problem is the mind boggling delay in the bloated government inefficiency getting things done. The recent "cash for clunkers" program is a good example. Many dealerships that made the deals a month ago still haven’t been paid for their parking lot full of clunkers. Making our government more efficient was one of Obama’s campaign promises that went right out the window when he was elected.

When American banks were given billion of dollars to help refinance foreclosures for people that had good credit, the individuals got the runaround from the banks. The greedy bankers opted to hang on the money and let it make interest, rather than give these deserving people a break. Congress should have given the people on the brink of losing their houses the money instead of the banks.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in Obama’s intelligence and ability to get us out of this mess. However, he underestimated the depth of the problems created by the former administration when he took office. I blame W who royally screwed up everything.

I think Obama was overwhelmed when he faced the shocking truth that solving the country’s problems was going to take more intelligent thought, planning, and energy, as well as much more time than he had anticipated.

Obama is still fighting and struggling to get bipartisan support for his policies, but he faces an angry Zeitgeist. It must be the most frustrating job in the world. It’s like churning butter with a stick to get anything done. The jury is still out on the future success of the Recovery Bill. The American people demand action. Obama’s presidency is on the line.