does anyone else read The Transom? Dude is extra salty today
THE ECONOMY:
The big issue President Obama barely talked about in his inauguration speech yesterday: unemployment.
http://vlt.tc/o3x “Today's jobless rate, 7.8 percent, is precisely what it was when Obama first took the oath of office in January 2009. It's even worse; if you combine the unemployed with those who are working part-time but want a full-time job, and those who have been too discouraged to look recently, the figure is 14.4 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is a desperately bad situation. People know it. In poll after poll, Americans list jobs and the economy as the issue most important to the country. They've been saying the same thing every day Barack Obama has been in office. And yet, in his inaugural address the president said essentially nothing about the nation's most pressing problem. Why? Because he didn't have to. His base supporters – loyalists and activists who would declare war on a Republican president with a similar unemployment rate – continue to give Obama a pass on joblessness. There are other issues, like immigration reform, climate change and raising taxes, that excite them more than economic recovery.” The grand bargain is kaput.
Obama accepts the Washington way.
http://vlt.tc/o51 “This was not the politician who campaigned in 2008 on themes of transcending the divisive politics of the past, though there were ritual calls for the country and its political leaders to seize this moment together. Instead, it was a president who has accepted the reality of those divisions and is determined to prevail on his terms.” That’s why his agenda over the next two years will be more about those other issues, and little in the way of even an attempt to get the economy moving again – it’s about the base who came out for the inauguration this time, not the twice as large crowd that came out in 2008. And voters are expecting it: “Sixty percent say they do not expect to make major economic strides during Obama’s second term, compared to just 38 percent who expect to be better off in 2016.”
http://vlt.tc/o36 He is, after all, too busy “perfecting America.”
http://vlt.tc/o4z You can read the full speech here.
http://vlt.tc/o44 The full bore endorsement of liberalism and “collective action” is being hailed by the New Yorker as “centrist Obama coming out as a liberal.”
http://vlt.tc/o46 Coming out? What presidency have they been watching for the past four years? From my perspective, this is completely consistent with his approach for the past four years: talk of togetherness, double-down on government-centered solutions, govern through creating division.
http://vlt.tc/o47 Yet of his liberal wet-dream list of policy aims, few other than immigration strike me as easy wins.
http://vlt.tc/o4a The one that is the least likely to succeed in any sense is his attempt to do something on climate – environmentalism is a luxury good, and he’d need a better economy to get that done.
http://vlt.tc/o4b