Fifty percent of the respondents in an AP-GfK poll taken last month believe that the president has little to no effect on the American economy. The poll consisted of telephone and cell phone interviews with 1,007 adults across the country.
While GfK markets its polling methodology as reliable, it is not described as drawing from a representative cross section of the nation. So, it’s uncertain whether the belief in the president’s irrelevancy to the economy is shared by 50 percent of the electorate. If it is, Obama has lowered the performance bar so much that half of the voters believe the person in the Oval Office doesn’t matter.
These poll respondents are wrong, of course, but they hardly can be blamed for their mistaken belief. It’s similar to the Stockholm syndrome where some kidnap victims who are held long enough begin to identify with their captors. We’ve been captive to incompetence for so long, it has begun to define our expectations. That’s a scary concession to performance failure.
Those who believe in the president’s negligible impact on the economy give three reasons in addition to, “I don’t know why”. Some respondents view congressional intransigence as an insurmountable obstacle to presidential action. However, that is only true under limited circumstances.
In Obama’s case, his party controlled Congress for his first two years in office giving him free rein to realize his economic agenda. The result was a parade of ineffective mortgage relief programs and a stimulus package that allowed the unemployment rate to soar above 10 percent. One year after its signing, three million fewer people were employed than when the ink dried.
Naked ineptitude prevented the stimulus from being the boon that Obama promised it would be. To begin with, the economy was in much worse shape than the administration’s naïve 2009 predictions. The stimulus, once enacted, was not directed at businesses. The bulk of the spending was merely a wealth transfer to state governments, many of which have been financially mismanaged for years. Worse than subsidizing people who can't balance a budget, the least needy states received the most money.
Meanwhile, Obama wasted credibility capital preaching that the stimulus would fund “shovel-ready” jobs only to confess later that, to his surprise, those jobs don’t exist. As for excuses, even Barney Frank winces at the president’s fantastical failed-stimulus mantra: things could have been worse without me.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Not the liberal actor
Great article! To say that Obama is inept is a very large understatement. I really like how y'all document all conclusions - something I wish commenters here would learn.
Y'all close with, "When people begin to accept ineptitude as the nation’s new normal, it’s time to change the occupant of the White House." Well said!
2 - Igor
This article is just another anti-Obama Hit Piece with poor documentation.
For example, I was interested in this statement on p.2:
The president’s bureaucrats have issued hundreds of new regulations at a cost to Americans of over $46 billion;
Sounds interesting. So I went to S&Rs citation and found this:
Abstract: During the first three years of the Obama Administration, 106 new major federal regulations added more than $46 billion per year in new costs for Americans.
No supporting documentation or citation! So S&R are simply parroting what the Radical Rightist Heritage Foundation says! That's irresponsible.
And that is what the whole article is: a recitation of fables, apparently in the hopes that half-truths (or one-tenth truths, or one-hundreths truths, or no truth at all) can convince the gullible that there is SOME truth somewhere among the mess to support their assertion.
Irresponsible.
This isn't the first time that S&R have witheld their lauded left-brain to inundate us with irrelevant fantasy-based propaganda.
Will they never change?
Come on, S&R! Unleash that left-brain!
3 - Sidney and Riley
HI, Igor. We don't view the blog as yet another Obama hit piece simply because it doesn't show Obama in a positive light. If Bush were still president we'd be writing blogs that examine his performance, too, and there was a lot to complain about. Romney's not our favorite either, especially for the way he has, as of today, decided to respond to Obama's tactics.
Regarding the citation to the number and cost of regulations, that article footnotes the statistics. They are taken from the GAO's Federal Rules database - see footnote 3 in the article. The other citations in our blog also site specific data. If you don't agree with the data or believe that its importance is overstated, fine. But, please support your position.
4 - Costello
Consiering how bad of a writer he is, a WWrren rave is not a good thing is it?
And how exactly do two people comment together? Seems like a silly writer's conceit that doesn't translate
5 - Cannonshop
#4 Costello, seems to me "Sidney and Riley" are probably two people who work on their articles and such together, kind of like how Stephen King and Peter Straub have done two or three novels together, or how most name Journos are just regurgitating what their uncredited staff put together (sometimes to their detriment, see "Dan Rather" for a shining example).
Now, I would reckon (but could be wrong) that one of those names is the researcher, the other one is the wordsmith who puts the article together FROM the research, then possibly both proof, or maybe they work on pieces then proof each other's work to cross-reference research cites and the suchlike. Ergo, NOT a conceit.
6 - Zingzing
Doubt it, cannonshop... Maybe there is more than one person involved at times, but it looks to me like it's a dog owner with a blog. There's nothing wrong with such a trivial conceit, but on the blog, he or she uses 1st person pronouns and possessives.
7 - El Bicho
According to their full bio, they are two dogs who write articles individually. They differentiate themselves with their sign-off, yet make no effort to when commenting in the plural, so your reckoning is about as wrong as it gets.
"In Obama’s case, his party controlled Congress for his first two years in office giving him free rein to realize his economic agenda."
No it didn't. You lack a very basic understanding of how Congress works. A President doesn't control every member of his party and how they vote, as plenty who came before Obama can tell you. It's a group of individuals who may identify under some meaningless team banner looking out for themselves first and their state second.
When a party is short votes, a few in opposition willing to compromise gain power. When a party has enough votes, those willing to break from their party gain the power.
8 - Igor
Obama was hobbled in his first two years by conservative dems who sided with reps. One could complain that the dem party is insufficiently partisan to compete successfully with the ultra-partisan reps. The reps have discovered that by saying "no" always they can stymie presidential initiatives in the House.
Actually, considering the utter roadblock in the congress, Obama has done a pretty good job, just using Executive opportunities. This congress will go down as one of the most contrary in history.
Obama ended the war in Iraq, which the reps couldn't do when they were in power in all branches of government.
Obama is ending the Afghan war, which the reps couldn't do, either.
Obama has avoided new expensive war entanglements in Syria, Libya, Egypt and Palestine, as well as avoiding a major war with Iran.
Obama saved Chrysler and GM and all the jobs they represent.
Obama supported and signed the Lilly Leddbetter law which will improve the working lives of half of working Americans, the female half, by bringing them up to parity.
Obama reduced the unemployment rate from 11% to 8% when we were facing total Great Depression.
Meanwhile, the republican congress has done NOTHING. Other than repeatedly wasting time and money with 30 symbolic ineffectual repeals of the ACA.
It is the republican house that has shown itself to be unwilling and unable to act in the best interests of Americans and America.
It is the reps who have thrown a temper tantrum to impede American progress, figuring that people will blame it on Obama. But only S&R are gullible enough to swallow that.
The rep house talks about "repeal and replace" without saying what they would replace ACA with. One suspects that after 'repeal' there will be no 'replace'.
All in all, it is the reps in the House who have failed to rise to the occasion in this time of great national need. They have acted directly against the best interests of America.
And so history will see this period. And another thing, it will be very easy for history to say that Obama was opposed by racism.
9 - Dan(Miller)
As to President Obama's interest in promoting private business, his only interest that I have found lies in his hope that the monthly employment statistics will improve before the election; they have not been doing so of late. He probably expressed his view best during an address on business creation when he said
If you’ve got a business __ you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
I disagree with his thesis, as indicated here.
10 - Costello
How on earth is anyone supposed to take serious a person who claims to write as a dog yet nowhere reveals a dog's perspective in their writing?
Dan reveals himself to either be a dishonest hack or not very bright, though I will concede it may be a combination of the two like Warren. He and many conservatives conveintly leave off Obama's prior sentence where he was talking about the roads. It's the roads private business didn't build. If Dan can't or chooses not to grasp that, there's no need to follow his link.
11 - Dan(Miller)
re #10 -- He and many conservatives conveintly [sic] leave off Obama's prior sentence where he was talking about the roads
I did, in fact, deal with the entire paragraph. As to roads, I opined that President Obama could more reasonably have said,
Your tax dollars and the tax dollars of those who preceded you allowed your State and Federal governments to spend on roads, bridges and other projects; without your money earned through your own work and initiative and on which you paid taxes, that would have been impossible.
I see no useful purpose likely to be served by responding further to a comment on an article by someone who has not read it and has no idea what it says.
12 - Zingzing
Dishonest Dan.
13 - Costello
Wasn't commenting on your article. I was clearly commenting on your comment above where you make no mention of the roads and bridges. Seems rather obvious so I'm not why I would bother to read an article by someone unable or unwilling to tell the difference.
14 - Glenn Contrarian
Costello -
Dan(M) and I disagree on most things, but he is quite intelligent and I've seen no indication that he's dishonest to any significant degree. He might be mistaken on some (or quite a few) things, but what a lot of people don't get is there's a big difference between being wrong and being "unable or unwilling" to say what's right.
15 - Dan(Miller)
Re #14 -- Thanks, Glen.
If my facts or analysis are wrong,
then I'd like to have it pointed out to me in language I can understand. Ad hominem remarks don't help me to see the way. Their frequency at BlogCritics is among the reasons I no longer writing here.
16 - Costello
Glen[sp], if Dan is both intelligent and honest then why use the talking point going around that makes it look like Obama said people didn't build their business? He could have used the complete statement or mentioned the context but didn't until called out. I am sure he's delighted he's got you fooled but he seems no different than the liberal BS artists who went after Bush for things not said or done
17 - Dan(Miller)
In re #16 -- Costello, President Obama did say that and any number of other things. I no longer write here so I can't post the entire article to which I referred here. If you are interested in seeing what I said, read it. If you are not, don't. I don't much care.
18 - Igor
Obama HAS been attentive to the business community:
-the NYSE and NASDAQ are at record highs,
-corporate profits are at record highs,
-corps and rich people have about $5trillion in retained earnings
-private business employment is up about 500,000
-the ARRA (stimulus) included huge tax breaks for business (despite the fact that such breaks have no documented improvement on the economy)
Indeed, private business and it's owners are among the few who have not suffered much from the failures of the economy.
19 - Sidney and Riley
Re #8, Thanks, Igor, for setting out your reasons. While we agree that many of the events delineated in your note have occurred, we don't agree that because Obama was in the White House when they happened he gets the credit. There were a multiplicity of factors that work together to produce any of these events.
As far as the republican house is concerned, it's a disappointment. Political posturing is asinine. But, the same is true of the democratically controlled senate. The congressional gridlock of the past two years can be blamed equally on both parties. We do think that there was a moment, however brief, following the 2010 election when Obama and Boehner could have worked out at least the semblance of a positive working relationship. We are worse off because that did not happen. It will be an interesting election this fall.
20 - Igor
Obama has successfully used Executive powers, when he has been denied ANY help from congress by the intransigence of House Republicans. For example:
-Obama got Osama Bin Laden, which Bush couldn't do in 7 years, even though he was known to be in Pakistan during Bush's presidency.
-Obama has almost totally ended piracy on the high seas, altho this was becoming a major problem and Bush had done NOTHING.
Both of these acts are vitally important to USA international security, and it was Bush who was inactive while Obama solved the problems. It would be fair to say that Obama is much stronger on National Security than Bush ever was.
21 - Igor
@19-S&R: You can't seriously maintain that while the reps were utterly opposed to Obama that somehow they share credit for any positives. That's a plain contradiction. Come on, engage that famous left-brain.
...we don't agree that because Obama was in the White House when they happened he gets the credit.
When the reps totally opposed Obama for the mean reason of depriving him of political credit for any successful government policy, they ceded to Obama the credit for anything he DID manage to accomplish.
Among those is:
-ending the Iraq war
-putting the Afghan war on a successful path to termination
-getting OBL
-stopping Somali piracy
-ending the malicious proscution of Ted Stevens(R-AK)
etc.
22 - Igor
@9-Dan: I hope you've learned the folly of quoting politicians. That should have been demonstrated by the futility of this thread about something that Obama said. You know as well as anyone that they change positions and try out different stances. Words are unreliable. I'll give you these homilies for free:
-Character is action
-you will know them by their deeds
-talk is cheap
Etc. I'm sure you know more, too.
The best you can get out of quoting politicians is a strawman to beat to death. A wasted exercise in rhetoric.
23 - Igor
@19 S&R: It can't be seriously argued that both parties and both houses are responsible for congressional deadlock since ONLY the House is blocked by a sworn party policy. There is no corresponding policy in the senate or among dems.
Congressional deadlock is the creature of the republicans, and just as surely as they will claim credit if any good comes of it they must accept blame when it fails.
Attempting to spread the blame around just demonstrates irresponsibility and cowardice.
24 - Sidney and Riley
Re # 20 & 21, Igor, just because we don't credit Obama as you do, doesn't mean that we credit Congress or any particular republican or group of them.
Take getting bin Laden as an example. Obama didn't get him. He was located through the efforts of several intelligence services, both here and in other countries. Those same services had been looking for him for almost 10 years. That it took that long was not Bush's fault - and keep in mind, we are not crediting Bush in any way by saying that.
Yes, Obama gave the hit order - good for him, sincerely. But, Bush would have done it also.
25 - Igor
@3-S&R:
HI, Igor. We don't view the blog as yet another Obama hit piece simply because it doesn't show Obama in a positive light. If Bush were still president .... Romney's not our favorite either, ...
Your weak attempt at appearing fair and non-partisan doesn't impress me because this remains a partisan hit-piece.
... - see footnote 3 in the article. The other citations in our blog also site specific data.
So, give a direct quotation and citation. I'm not going to chase all over 'round Robin Hoods Barn to seek support for YOUR argument. If you have data, present it, or forever hold your peace.
But, please support your position.
My position is that YOU haven't supported your position, and I've demonstrated why.
Come on: Engage that left-brain!