Failing economy is Obama all the way

I can sympathize with those supporters of President Obama who have had to endure (and defend) two and a half years of failed promises: unemployment to stay under 8%*, closing Gitmo, pulling out of Iraq, general economic prosperity, etc.  Obama has spent a good amount of time blaming his predecessor for America’s downfalls that have happened under his watch.  His only “success”, Obamacare, is about to be ruled unconstitutional, and he won’t even have that on which to hang his hat.

But here’s the rub: even if we were to grant to Obama that the economic woes we currently face were in fact to blame on former President Bush, Obama promised he could change the course.  There is a certain implicit (if not explicit) promise that things will get better due to the policies a candidate will enact.  After two and a half years, two of which he enjoyed a full green light on any policy he could dream up.  The Congress and Senate were as blue as could ever have been wished for by a sitting Democrat President.

If Obama was as politically astute as he appeared to be as a candidate, his policies should have had us well out of the economic disaster by now.  If he was as competent as he (and his supporters) claimed, we shouldn’t be in the position we are currently.  His policies should have long ago corrected the problems, having no political opposition in a position to thwart his efforts.

If however, Obama bears no liability for our financial conditions, and they could not have been avoided, then he is not as politically astute as he (and his supporters) asserted.  He should have been honest and informed us that he was not the man who could get things done.  Are things so bad he is not able to fix our woes?  If he cannot do it, maybe someone else can.

In either case, for the country to be in the dire straits it is, it’s evidence he is undeserving of a second term.

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The average unemployment rate under G.W. Bush’s presidency was 5.26.  So far under Obama, the lowest the unemployment rate has been is 7.8, and that was in January of 2009, his first month in office (though he did not take office until the month was 2/3 complete).  Starting in February 2009, Obama’s first full  month in office, the unemployment rate rose to and has never been lower than 8.2, and in October 2009 climbed as high as 10.1.