Rick Raw: Recovery Running on Empty–Again Obama Shows Lack of Leadership

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

When Congress ran off on vacation after failing to pass the Job’s Bill, which includes extension of unemployment benefits, President Obama went out and made a speech on immigration! This left millions of unemployed facing a grim future with no more jobless benefits. What was he thinking?

Again, Obama showed a lack of leadership by not making sure this bill got passed. He is the President of the United States and could have brought his office’s power to persuade the Republican block-heads that this bill was a priority. He could have made quid pro quo deals and twisted arms. Alas, he did none of that.

In fact Obama said "that the recovery is headed in the right direction but not as fast enough for a lot of Americans." Well, yeah, dummy. When you’re out in the cold with no job and no prospects of getting a job, of course gaining an extension in jobless benefits is not fast enough! What planet is Obama living on to make such a dumb comment.

The truth is: The recovery is running out of gas and will stop without a rapid infusion of new jobs. But, just the opposite is happening. Companies are still laying off thousands of workers as their budgets collapse. Of course, the enemy is the GOP’s lame excuse of passing the Jobs Bill will raise the deficit. As always, the GOP is doing everything they can to sabotage President Obama’s administration.

The Republican dunderheads didn’t care about the deficit when they authorized 700 billion dollars of the tax payers money to bail out Wall Street and the Banks. Not a peep. "Yeah, give it to them" the GOP leadership said.

Now the recovery is waning. Funny, economists advise stimulus spending over concerns about the deficit. However in their lust for power, Republicans will block Democrats from claiming any legislative accomplishments. Of course, Obama knows this to be true. However, he has options to use his office to influence the Republican backlash. Come on Obama, show some backbone. Fight for what is right.

The companies that are not laying off workers have frozen salaries and hiring. "The Wall Street Journal" said "that employers see the destructive impact of higher taxes, trade restriction, and more regulation." In the same "WSJ" piece, they said "Obama claims that even more government action will finally jump-start the economy." Yeah right, and all my hair will grow back and turn from gray to brown.

We already know that Obama’s stimulus efforts did not revive hiring. What’s worse, the Obama administration has all but ignored the fractured jobs market, thinking that it would revive itself with the massive stimulus spending.

Wrong! The states’ austere budgets reflect the dark cloud over the jobs revival. The states are enacting an "anti-stimulus program" that will greatly set-back any advantage in jobs growth that the stimulus was supposed to fix.

And remember Obama’s green energy campaign that was touted as the hail-mary for jobs growth. Well, it hasn’t panned out. Yeah, some new jobs were created in solar and wind power generation. But, it was a small and insignificant jobs’ stimulus.

The truth is: Lawmakers on the Hill are not hawking jobs growth. They’re getting geared up for the November elections, including the Obama administration. The Prez and his advisors are already holding strategy meeting on the elections instead of making sure the stimulus is working.

Meanwhile, there are still millions of long term unemployed who are still pounding the pavement or given up and living in their vans. Yes, this is serious, and unless the Obama administration wants to see bread lines in Washington D.C., then they better address this problem.

I know people who have lost their homes and cars and are living in poverty when, not so long ago, they were middle class. Yet, Obama doesn’t seem to get it. People are beyond disgusted. They are livid and Obama will pay the price this November and in 2012.