The President of Excuses

October 5, 2011

Obama Admits Americans Aren’t Better Off Under His Job-Destroying Policies, But Blames America for Having “Gotten a Little Soft”

President Obama defended his economic policies in a recent interview by claiming that America has “gotten a little soft,” seemingly blaming America for the ongoing struggles of the economy and exempting his administration’s job-destroying policies from blame for making a bad economy worse.
Obama’s comments are especially noteworthy given that they were disputed by none other than Vice President Joe Biden. The vice president this week admitted that he and President Obama must take responsibility for the bad economy.
Yet Democrats continue to push for more of the same failed spending and job-destroying tax hikes despite little to show for them the first time around, even as economic data remain bad. What Obama and his fellow Democrats fail to realize is that three years into his term, excuses won’t cut it anymore.

BACKGROUND

President Obama defended his economic policies in a recent interview by claiming that America has “gotten a little soft,” seemingly blaming America for the ongoing struggles of the economy and exempting his administration’s job-destroying policies from blame for making a bad economy worse:

OBAMA ON MONDAY: “I DON’T THINK [AMERICANS ARE] BETTER OFF THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO”: ” ‘I don’t think [Americans are] better off than they were four years ago,’ Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview Monday. ‘What we’ve seen is that we’ve been able to make steady progress. … But the unemployment rate is still way too high.'” (Michael Memoli, “Obama Says Americans Aren’t Better Off Under His Watch,” Los Angeles Times, 10/3/2011)

AFTER HE BLAMES AMERICA THAT “HAD GOTTEN A LITTLE SOFT” BEFORE HE TOOK OFFICE: “President Obama told an Orlando television station that the United States ‘had gotten a little soft’ in the years before he took office, and needs to regain its ‘competitive edge’ in the global economy.” (David Jackson, “Obama: U.S. ‘Had Gotten a Little Soft,'” USA Today, 9/30/2011)

OBAMA “ECHOES [FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY] CARTER’S ‘MALAISE'”: (Neil Munro, “Obama Echoes Carter’s ‘Malaise’: U.S. Has ‘Gotten a Little Soft’,” The Daily Caller, 9/30/2011)

SAYS “SOFT” ECONOMY IS TO BLAME FOR LAGGING ECONOMY: “President Barack Obama told a Florida TV station yesterday that the United States is facing economic difficulties because it has ‘gotten a little soft’ during the last 20 years.”(Neil Munro, “Obama Echoes Carter’s ‘Malaise’: U.S. Has ‘Gotten a Little Soft’,” The Daily Caller, 9/30/2011)

IT’S NOT THE FIRST TIME OBAMA HAS TRIED TO EXCUSE DEMOCRATS’ MISERABLE ECONOMIC RECORD:

OBAMA IN A STATE OF DENIAL: THINKS HIS POLICIES DIDN’T FAIL, IT’S THE ECONOMY’S FAULT IT FAILED TO RESPOND TO THEM… WE’RE CONFUSED, TOO: “Obama has mused in several private settings that if he loses re-election, it won’t be because a Republican beat him: It will be because the economy was impervious to his attempts to revive it.” (Marc Ambinder, “One Small Step for Jobs, One Big Target for Republicans,” National Journal, 9/7/2011)

OBAMA: NEW ECONOMIC FEARS ARE DUE TO “BAD LUCK”: “Over the last six months, we’ve had a string of bad luck — there have been some things that we could not control.” (“Remarks by the President in a Town Hall Meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota,” The White House, 8/15/2011)

OBAMA CLAIMED “WE’VE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT WE’D HAVE UPS AND DOWNS.” (“Remarks by the President on the Monthly Jobs Report,” The White House, 7/8/2011)

NY TIMES: WHITE HOUSE HOPING “MAYBE IT’S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID”: “Maybe it’s not the economy, stupid. White House officials have begun to entertain the idea that they can run for re-election without being able to point to a strengthening economy. For one thing, they may not have a choice.” (David Leonhardt, “Negotiating Election Headwinds,” The New York Times, 7/19/2011)

OBAMA CLAIMED HE WAS “LARGELY SUCCESSFUL” IN STABILIZING ECONOMY, DESPITE THE FACT THAT “STUBBORN” UNEMPLOYMENT IS FAR ABOVE HIS 8 PERCENT MARKER. (“Press Conference by the President,” The White House, 7/11/2011)

AFTER OBAMA SAID HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT NOT A PROBLEM BECAUSE THERE ARE ALWAYS “BUMPS ON THE ROAD.” (“Remarks by the President to Chrysler Workers in Toledo, Ohio,” The White House, 6/3/2011)

Obama’s comments are especially noteworthy given that they were disputed by none other than Vice President Joe Biden. The vice president this week admitted that he and President Obama must take responsibility for the bad economy:

JOE BIDEN SAYS ATTEMPTS TO BLAME BUSH ARE “NOT RELEVANT”: “Biden said he understood Americans are unhappy about high unemployment and the sluggish economy nearly three years after Barack Obama was elected president in the midst of the worst recession since the 1930s.

” ‘Even though 50-some percent of the American people think the economy tanked because of the last administration, that’s not relevant,’ Biden said.” (John O’Callaghan, “Election is Verdict on Obama Economic Record: Biden,” Reuters, 9/29/2011)

MORE BIDEN: “WE’RE THE ONES IN CHARGE AND IT’S GOTTEN BETTER BUT IT HASN’T GOTTEN GOOD ENOUGH”: ” ‘Right now we are the ones in charge and it’s gotten better but it hasn’t gotten good enough … I don’t blame them for being angry.'” (John O’Callaghan, “Election is Verdict on Obama Economic Record: Biden,” Reuters, 9/29/2011)

AND EVEN MORE: 2012 ELECTION WILL BE “A REFERENDUM ON OBAMA AND BIDEN, THE NATURE AND THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY”: ” ‘Understandably, totally legitimately, this is a referendum on Obama and Biden, the nature and the state of the economy,’ he said, echoing the views of many analysts about which factor will most influence the outcome of the election.” (John O’Callaghan, “Election is Verdict on Obama Economic Record: Biden,” Reuters, 9/29/2011)

Yet Democrats continue to push for more of the same failed spending and job-destroying tax hikes despite little to show for them the first time around, even as economic data remain bad. What Obama and his fellow Democrats fail to realize is that three years into his term, excuses won’t cut it anymore:

GALLUP/USA TODAY: A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS BLAME OBAMA FOR ECONOMY: “Twenty-four percent say Obama deserves a great deal of the blame, up 10 points since 2009. For the first time since he took office, a majority of Americans — including six in 10 independents — say he deserves a great deal or moderate amount of blame for the nation’s economic woes.” (Susan Page, “Poll: Economic Pessimism Deepens, and More Blame Obama,” USA Today, 9/21/2011)

MORE FAILED STIMULUS SPENDING:

“OBAMA’S JOBS SPEECH: DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN?”: “The speech mostly gave us a sense of déjà vu. From the president’s language, you would never know that Congress already has acted under his watch to save jobs — the $800 billion stimulus plan passed shortly after he took office.” (Glenn Kessler, “Obama’s jobs speech: deja vu all over again?” The Washington Post‘s The Fact Checker Blog, 9/9/2011)

ABC NEWS’ JAKE TAPPER: “NEW, SECOND STIMULUS” BASICALLY “FOLLOWS THE SAME CONTOURS” OF THE FIRST ONE: “The president’s plan, aimed at answering his critics’ recent calls for boldness, follows the same contours of the $825 billion economic stimulus package he signed into law three years ago.

“This new, second stimulus of sorts features a mix of tax cuts for businesses and workers, billions in new infrastructure spending and aid to states, and an infusion of aid for the long-term unemployed.” (Jake Tapper, “President Obama Pushes $447 Billion Jobs Plan in Address to Congress,” ABC News, 9/8/2011)

DETROIT NEWS: “OBAMA OFFERS STIMULUS LITE.” (Editorial, “Obama Offers Stimulus Lite,” The Detroit News, 9/9/2011)

$2 TRILLION MORE IN TAX INCREASES:

“OBAMA VOWS VETO IF DEFICIT PLAN HAS NO TAX INCREASES”: (Helene Cooper, “Obama Vows Veto if Deficit Plan Has No Tax Increases,” The New York Times, 9/19/2011)

THE PRICETAG? $1.5 TRILLION. (Helene Cooper, “Obama Vows Veto if Deficit Plan Has No Tax Increases,” The New York Times, 9/19/2011)

RIGHT AFTER OBAMA OFFERED $467 BILLION IN TAX INCREASES TO PAY FOR STIMULUS 2.0: “The Obama administration is asking Congress to raise taxes by $467 billion over 10 years to pay for the President’s one-year $447 billion stimulus, which he announced during a speech Thursday before a joint session of Congress.” (Neil Munro, “Obama Asks Congress for $467-Billion Tax Increase to Fund Jobs Plan,” The Daily Caller, 9/12/2011)

NFIB: OBAMA TAX PLAN “THE LAST THING THIS ECONOMY NEEDS TO GET BACK ON TRACK,” “SENDS A BAD MESSAGE TO JOB CREATORS”: (“NFIB Statement on White House Deficit Plan,” National Federation of Independent Business, 9/19/2011)

750,000 SMALL BUSINESSES WOULD SUFFER UNDER OBAMA TAX HIKES: (“How Tax Facts Stack Up in Small-Business Imbroglio,” Associated Press, 11/30/2010)

MORE JOB-DESTROYING REGULATIONS:

NEW STUDY: NEW AND PENDING EPA RULES WILL DESTROY 1.65 MILLLION JOBS: “Over the period from 2012 to 2020, about 183,000 jobs per year are predicted to be lost on net due to the effects of the four regulations. The cumulative effects mean that over the period from 2012 to 2020, about 1.65 million job-years of employment would be lost.” (“Potential Impacts of EPA Air, Coal Combustion Residuals, and Cooling Water Regulations,” NERA Economic Consulting, September 2011)

4,257 NEW REGULATIONS IN THE WORKS, MORE THAN 200 WILL COST OVER$100 MILLION ANNUALLY—15% MORE REGULATIONS THAN LAST YEAR.“Appropriate and responsible regulations play an important policymaking role. Yet the Obama administration has turned rule-making into an assault on American businesses and the jobs they create. Right now, 4,257 new regulations are in the works, 219 of which will cost over $100 million annually — 15 percent more than last year.” (Editorial, “How Obama’s Rules Hold Back Chicago Business,” The Chicago Sun-Times, 8/30/2011)

WHITE HOUSE “STRONGLY OPPOSES” GOP EFFORT TO MAKE EPA STOP DESTROYING JOBS: “The White House Wednesday said it strongly opposes a House bill that would delay several Environmental Protection Agency rules on air pollution, setting up another showdown over Republican-led efforts to postpone the agency’s agenda.” (Ryan Tracy, “White House Opposes House Bill to Delay EPA Rules,”The Wall Street Journal, 9/21/2011)