Excerpt
Why does Paul Ryan scare the president so much? Because Obama has broken his promises, and it’s clear that the GOP ticket’s path to prosperity is our only hope.
I was a good loser four years ago. “In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.”
Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.
Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.
In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.
COMMENTS: I am glad the Right has a fully functioning crystal ball that accurately predicts the future. I am sorry the the rest of us, including President Obama, do not.
I, for one, never expected ANY President to dig our economy out of the deep hole that Republicans dug in 8 years of control, in just 4 years. It could not be done, especially after we got the block-everyting-Obama (aka no-governance) U.S. House.
As to our economy now, it is doing better except for jobs. Anyone who pays attention to economic history knows that when the economy tanks the first thing that goes is jobs, and when the economy starts to improve the LAST thing to come back are jobs. Also, the deeper the recession the slower the recovery in jobs, and government cannot do much about that.
What DOES NOT help is, in the name of budget cutting, is putting thousands of government employees (local, state, federal) in the unemployment line.
When it comes to 'consumer spending' it does not matter where the money comes from. The consumer can be individuals, businesses, local governments, state governments, AND the federal government. In the context of our nation's economy all that matters is that money circulates, which is what consumer spending does. Therefore cutting government spending, at this time, does not help our economy, and in turn jobs.
Our national debt is a primary concern AFTER our economy is back on track IN THE FUTURE.
As to "GOP ticket’s path to prosperity is our only hope." The Republicans who have NOT changed their political philosophy and dug the economic hole our economy is in today? We the people, are suppose to trust they will do better? The Republican Party (aka Tea Party) lost my trust mid-2000.
Finally, Niall's long article is very good and detailed, but the overall premiss is still wrong. Maybe his crystal ball is malfunctioning.
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