Obama Fails to Stem Middle-Class Slide He Blamed on Bush By Mike Dorning | Bloomberg â 13 hours ago Barack Obama campaigned four years ago assailing President George W. Bush for wage losses suffered by the middle class. More than three years into Obama's own presidency, those declines have only deepened. The rebound from the worst recession since the 1930s has generated relatively few of the moderately skilled jobs that once supported the middle class, tightening the financial squeeze on many Americans, even those who are employed. "It started long before Obama, but he hasn't done anything," said John Forsyth, 58, a railroad-car inspector and political independent from Lebanon, Ohio. "He kept pushing this change, change, change, and he hasn't done anything." As a candidate in 2008, Obama blamed the reversals largely on the policies of Bush and other Republicans. He cited census figures showing that median income for working-age households -- those headed by someone younger than 65 -- had dropped more than $2,000 after inflation during the first seven years of Bush's time in office. Yet real median household income in March was down $4,300 since Obama took office in January 2009 and down $2,900 since the June 2009 start of the economic recovery, according to an analysis of census data by Sentier Research, an economic- consulting firm in Annapolis, Maryland. Sitting on a metal bleacher watching her 7-year-old son at an early evening baseball practice, Mandy Copeland reflected on the expectations she and her husband had six years ago when she finished the coursework that qualified her for her occupational therapy job. "We had pretty high hopes," she said. "Now we're just happy we have jobs." http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-fails-stem-middle-class-003000342.html
you think maybe republicans refusing to pass anything that could be seen to help obama would have anything to do with it?
It takes a long time to turn an oceanliner around...Here is a chart of manufacturing's decline, topped out it 1977. http://macromon.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/u-s-employment-in-manufacturing.jpg http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/05/manufacturing-employment-in-the-u-s/
Look, Obama and his bots claim to be infinitely superior to the Republicans in every way, including how "cool" they are. Surely, such a superior species of man, beside whom Nietzsche's "ubermensch" looks like a complete nothing, could come up with some combination of magic words to persuade the idiot Republicans to do his bidding. What you gotta own up to is that your ideas just aren't that convincing, especially to the people who have to pay FOR them rather than be paid BY them.
We have to face the facts. The statistics show that the middle class is WORSE off not better. Obama had control of both congress and presidency for half his term. yet, he chose to focus on an issue that is now going to be ruled unconstitutional, leaving his legacy with a big fat zero.
The rhetorical corner that the Left has painted itself into is this: they claim to be infinitely wiser and smarter than their opponents. Well, if they really are that f-cking smart, they ought to have been able to fix things faster. Same issue with the excuse that says "We didn't know how screwed up things were". Well, smart people actually do know pretty immediately how screwed up things are, or, at the very least, they know not to say they know how screwed up things are until they actually do. Ergo, smart people don't say that $800B in stimulus will keep unemployment from going over 8% until they are pretty freaking sure that statement is true. You can't claim to be infinitely more intelligent than your opponents and then claim you need an infinite amount of time to fix your opponents' mistakes or that you didn't understand the depths of your opponents' mistakes to begin with. Neither of those claims are claims smart people would make to their bosses. They are the excuses of those in over their heads. Period. Plus, most people don't even think the country is moving in the right direction, so whatever little bit of "fixing" the Obama administration is claiming to have accomplished doesn't strike people as actual "fixing", so even his milestones along the way to turning the oceanliner around aren't resonating with people.
no amount of logical thinking can overcome an idealog,hellbent on destroying you, with filibuster power.
Well, then you're just going to have to live with it. But, your response assumes too much, i.e. that your thinking is logical and mine is ideological. That's exactly what you need to persuade me of!! Anyone can spout off the platitude "My thinking is logical and yours is ideological" or are you unaware of that fact? In fact, I will say it right now, "No amount of ideological pleading or threats will get me to give up my logical conclusions that I should use my filibuster power against ideas I find unworkable". See how that works? Liberals seem to have never even learned the basics of debating 101. Probably because they don't study the classic works of rhetoric, but, whatever the reason, it's embarrassing for you. In the "information age", there is no excuse for being so uninformed about the basics of how to craft an argument in favor of your preferences. Plus, you are wrong because, historically, the greatest minds have been able to persuade multitudes that they are correct, even when those multitudes have initially opposed them. Look at Plato's Dialogues for small-scale examples, where Socrates is able to persuade his opponents to come around to his ideas. The problem, I will state it again, is that the Left isn't actually as intelligent (collectively) as it thinks it is. It's actually one of the biggest problems facing the country because it is virtually impossible to have a dialogue with someone who assumes he is above dialoguing with you.
Its is own fault. He's the one that passed an unpopular HC law with not a single Republican vote, when he should have been focused on the economy. At the time, the Democrats controlled the WH, the House and the Senate. They could have done anything they wanted, like get rid of the Bush tax cuts. But they didn't. Pay back is a bitch, uh? And who are the real obstructionists.... In July 2011, when news first leaked that President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner were secretly negotiating a "grand bargain" of entitlement cuts and tax increases, top Democrats in Congress thought that Mr. Obama had lost his mind. After all, the Democratic playbook for winning back control of Congress was to vilify Republicans for their plan, enshrined in Rep. Paul Ryan's budget, to control the cost of Medicare. That the president was willing even to talk about making cuts to the program seemed to threaten the Democrats' No. 1 campaign issue. A rescue operation was soon under way. In "Do Not Ask What Good We Do," Robert Draper vividly describes a closed-door caucus meeting of House Democrats just after the world learned about Mr. Obama's secret talks with Mr. Boehner. Nancy Pelosi prepared her fellow House Democrats to go to battle against the president. She told them she would deliver the message directly to the White House the next day. "Do I have your permission," Ms. Pelosi, her voice rising, asked her fellow Democrats, "to go over there and say, 'We're not cutting Medicare, we're not cutting Social Security?' " The party rank-and-file "applauded wildly," Mr. Draper says. "She had no intention of letting Obama hand the Democrats' winning formula over to Boehner as a sacrificial offering." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303592404577360833838004406.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Of course, all efforts to move money back into middle-class hands are labeled "socialistic". (Which they are, even if they do use individualistic methods.)