More Americans unhappy with Obama on economy, jobs

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Washington Post

More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But Americans’ discontent does not stop there. The survey also found that Americans harbor negative feelings toward congressional Republicans. Roughly as many people blame Republican policies for the poor economy as they do Obama. But 65 percent disapprove of the GOP’s handling of jobs, compared to 52 percent for the president.

The dissatisfaction is fueled by the fact that many Americans continue to see little relief from the pain of a recession that technically ended two years ago. Ninety percent of those surveyed said the economy is not doing well, and four out of five report that jobs are difficult to find. In interviews, several people said that they feel abandoned by both parties, particularly as debates over the debt ceiling gridlock Washington.

“What I’ve realized is it doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democrat anymore,” said Joey Wakim, 21, a used car salesman from Allentown, Pa. “We just want somebody who’s gonna get things right.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/more-americans-unhappy-with-obama-on-economy-jobs/2011/07/25/gIQABJ9sZI_story.html?hpid=z3

[BeyondGeography]

1. "Doesn't matter"?

A classic bit of American stupidity. No time to master the details, he's all about RESULTS.

[OHdem10]

4. Of course, they are. When you sound like a kinder gentler Republican

and the people are screaming--we are headed in the wrong direction.

Here is the problem in a nutshell. Ordinary Americans, those
who do not keep up with every move politicians make, still
think there is a difference between the two parties. Many, except
for Tea Party Types, suffer the impression that Democratic looks
out for the little guy. They did not get the nuances of
the change that took place in Democratic Party when DLC took
over in late 80s. This Republican Lite is confusing and it
is seen as no better than the Republican Party. They expected
something different from a Democratic President. I am not
bashing Obama.

Think about this. Bill Daley, close advisor to the President,
said on the Sunday Shows. Very strong, for him Loud Voice,
The President is willing to cut ----and goes on to call SS
Medicare SACRED COWS. We expect Newt Gingrich to say something
like this. Friends, there is less and less difference between
a Conservative Republican and Conservative Democrat. The American
see this and are betrayed. WHY DOES HALF THE COUNTRY NOT VOTE.
No one is looking out for them.

[cstanleytech]

7. True for the most part but the problem really is imo

more that we (the people) are more at fault than anything by continuing to allow the politicians to sell their votes to the highest bidder regardless of who that bidder is and until we force through reform on that and use a heavy stick to beat the lobbyists down its going to in all likelihood continue to be a problem.

[No Elephants]

42. Classic blame the victim. Okay, I'll bite. How do we the people stop this?

ETA: I would appreciate a response that bears a relation to the realities of politics in the Third Millenium.

[cstanleytech]

60. How do we stop it?

Seeing as how entrenched the problem is I'm not sure, I wish I knew how to fix it though.

[BeyondGeography]

10. This latest swing is for the worse

But the phenomenon of the low-information voter is an old story. "They're all the same" is laziness masquerading as insight. There is no excuse for consistently voting (indeed, screaming) against your interests, other than willful ignorance. The enemy ultimately really is us.

[sendero]

39. No...

... it's a fact that you are too slow to get.

[BeyondGeography]

40. Oh get stuffed

[sendero]

53. When you get a clue.

... when it comes to economic policy, war, just about everything that matters, there is no real difference between a Dem and a Rep other than useless rhetoric.

Obama could prove me wrong by drawing a line in the sand and actually letting the debt ceiling expire rather than take one of these one-sided deals, BUT HE ISN'T YOU WAIT AND SEE.

[BeyondGeography]

54. No difference between Bush and Gore either

You and the rest of the terminal defeatists will always be wrong about this.

As for Obama's pliability, I'm not a fan. But if you think this wouldn't be playing out any differently with a conservative true believer.in the WH you are well and truly confused.

[No Elephants]

43. Please see Reply 42.

Voting for our interests doesn't seem to be a realistic option anymore.

I thought I had done that when I supported Obama. I was mistaken.

We're lucky anymore if we get to vote for the marginally lesser of two evils.

[seabeckind]

18. I watched about 30 seconds of that interview

and then turned it off. If I want to hear THAT bullshit, I'll watch the "moderate" republican on FOX.

[primavera]

55. +1 n/t

[neoralme]

11. Yeah, right...

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Obama saved the economy for going off a cliff in 2009 and 2010,

and gets criticized for the results.

[MrTriumph]

6. Wall Street is having a party. How are you doing?

x

[neoralme]

20. Obama saved Wall Street--that's all.

[bitchkitty]

24. +1000

[No Elephants]

44. Well, to be fair, he bailed out Big Health, too.

[OwnedByFerrets]

28. Really? He saved Wall Street and the millionaires that

frequent it.

[FBaggins]

58. The problem is that "HEY! Just imagine how bad things COULD have been" doesn't sell.

A CEO who lays off 1,000 people won't get much traction by touting the fact that they were originally going to lay off 1,200 and he "saved" those 200 jobs.

The difference here is that workers don't have the option of voting to replace a CEO.

[Myrina]

3. It's time for him to get over his daddy-complex, put on his big-boy pants ...

... and GET SHIT DONE. To paraphrase Michael Douglas, he is "The American President". THE most powerful man on Earth (supposedly). Act like it. Stand up for the folks who voted for you. Stand up for the folks in those community centers you worked at 20 years ago. If you're not man enough to kick some ass and take some names, step away and let someone who is, do (thinking of Howard Dean or Russ Feingold, at the moment).

[Yon_Yonson]

8. My thoughts exactly

:nuke:

[seabeckind]

17. I think he's too busy playing with his "new(?)" friends. n/t

[SomeGuyInEagan]

35. + A bagillion

We're drowning out here.

Ala "Night at the Museum" movies, I'd love to see the FDR statue come to life and kick the shit out of certain "Democrats" in Washington.

[No Elephants]

45. I don't know if the elderly, disabled, poor and unemployed can stand much more of Obama

getting things done. I think he should concentrate on his re-election, which he seems to have been doing since 2007 anyway.

[bowens43]

5. a third?

So we're talking about hardcore right wing nut jobs.......

[liberal N proud]

9. The propaganda is working

They are bringing him down with propaganda.

[Botany]

12. The republicans caused these problems and now they ..

.... (the republicans) with the help of the media are blaming the President for their own crap storm.

[No Elephants]

46. Really? On C-Span, Senator Harkin mentioned, to applause, that he had

been only one of 8--count 'em, 8--Senators who had voted for Gramm-Leach, aka repeal of Glass Steagall.


As you no doubt know, pretty much every serious person who has studied the matter agrees that the crap mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps that broke the global economy could not have happened if Glass Steagall had still been in effect, at least not without breaking the law.

He also mentioned the enormous pressure members of Congress had been under to vote for repeal. Pressure from whom? Greenspan....and President Clinton.

President Clinton, not a Republican. Neither were all the members of Congress who voted for repeal. While Democrats may have been in the majority then, they were certainly numerous enough in the Senate to filibuster. And, though Democrats controlled Congress from January 2007 to January 2011, Glass Steagall remains repealed.

Did the cost of wars help break us? Yes. Has that cost been greatly lessened, now that Bush has been out of office for 2.5 years? No.

President Bush paid the first half of the bailout, but {rather shrewdly} got Obama's okay for the second. And, upon arrival in the Oval Office, if not before, Rahm and Obama began negotiating the health (or death) industry bailout.

It's no accident that Republicans seem to get their way, whether they are in the majority or in the minority. They succeed because Democratics in Congress and in the Oval Office help them succeed.

[LiberalFighter]

13. When a 21 year makes that statement it means he is making it up and clueless.

The kid doesn't have enough whiskers at his age to know that much.

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. Yes, but he does get the opportunity to vote

[LiberalFighter]

21. I understand that.

What I don't understand is when those that are barely out of school think they know everything about life. They don't have enough of the right life experiences.

[florida08]

15. that's because average americans understand

that what fuels growth in an economy is the work force not Wall Street. Insider trading is what fuels them. The so called free market has abandoned US for cheaper controlled wages and we have governors across the country trying to turn us into 'them'. The myth of free trade almost guarantees us to become and stay a debtor nation. What's to be happy about?

[w4rma]

16. Obama had better quit talking about ways to steal from the average American and give to Wall Street.

He had better quit, now.

[seabeckind]

19. So explain to me the difference in the results

when a republican is too evil to do things right for the people

and the democrat is too stupid to do things right for the people?

Far as I'm concerned I got sharply eroded with that POS stimulus cluster-fk. He showed as much leadership and ability to achieve a goal as he has in EVERY other endeavor. He did easy ones and made them look hard,
then on the hard ones he took the easy way out.

This time when it somes time to man the phone banks I'll be phoning looking for a job for me, not a job for the guy who cares more about his job and can't do it anyway.

BTW, I think this guy said it pretty good:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/151775/the_utterly_wrong_beltway_myth_driving_the_debt_ceiling_insanity/?page=1

[RobinA]

23. So True

A version of this tactic succeeds in many workplaces today. Let stuff go to hell, make a lot of noise and drama about how you have to clean it up, and then accept kudos for cleaning up your own mess.

[No Elephants]

47. Apparently, you haven't seen the list of all his accomplishments in office, all

his promises kept. (Or maybe you have.)

[midnight]

22. The White House has said that the recovery is a Jobless one....

It seems there will be no jobs bill because they believe in a jobless recovery.... Timmy and Joe went around the country telling us this a little over a year ago....

[ProfessionalLeftist]

25. Jobless "recovery" is not a recovery. n/t

[AndyTiedye]

29. There Will be No Jobs Bill Because It Would Have to Originate in the House

and that is not happening for the foreseeable future.

[No Elephants]

48. Democrats held the house from January 2007 to January 2011.

And the WH from January 2009 to present.

Next excuse.

[AndyTiedye]

56. There Was the Small Matter of the Never-Ending Repig Fiibuster in the Senate

With LIEberman voting with the Repigs on every cloture vote and the Repigs voting in lockstep as they always do, we never could get the votes to break the filibuster.

[Psephos]

30. I remember when the phrase "jobless recovery" was fightin' words around here. n/t

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OwnedByFerrets]

26. Oh, their just a bunch of whiney babies

and emo-liberals.:sarcasm: x10

[on point]

27. The right / wrong track polls say it all. Moving in the repuke direction is the WRONG direction!

Obama is down in the polls because he is supporting the right wing shift, which polls consistently say is the WRONG track for the country.

He lacks the spine and the leadership to move in the right track, which is away from the delusional destructive world view of the repukes and back toward the sane, effective and workable center.

[MadMaddie]

31. Yawn! So Congress can't get one simple action done

like "Pass the Debt Ceiling", and the Repugs and the MSM scream President Obama is not involved. So he gets involved and makes several attempts to broker a deal.....

Now these supposed polls are saying because President Obama is not focused on Jobs we think he is failing....

No House has ever had to be hand held like this one.....Boehner is a fuck up and powerless against the Teabaggers....

Put the blame where it needs to be...The Repugs ran on creating jobs....yet they have not submitted one Jobs bill....The Dems, however, have submitted several that haven't been allowed to get to the floor.


More bullshit....

[neoralme]

32. The Fourth Turning. This is Real Scary........I was listening to Thom

Hartman and this dude comes on and asks Thom if he has checked his book that he reviewed a few years ago called The Fourth Turning by William Strauss. Thom reviewed the book in 1995, I think he said. Anyway, we are now at the cusp of our 80-year cycle where it is time for a serious collapse in society. Anyway, this book gives the list of scenarios that might happen. This is one of them. Thom nor I could believe it. It is exactly what is happening NOW! I went home and download the book to my Pandigital Reader. This is Chapter 10 of the book, page 273, which says the following as one of the scenarios that might happen, straight from the book.

An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.

This was written years ago!

[florida08]

37. that just gave me chill bumps

I like Thom and try to watch him regularly but missed this. Going to d/l too. Don't think that scenario will happen at this juncture but if they pass this short term thing..just may the next go around.
Thanks for the posting

[No Elephants]

50. Not to worry. Whatever happens, the investor class will end up fine.

[SoapBox]

33. Uhhh, let me remind those Americans to ask Mr. Boner of Orange,

WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

SINCE, that is what the Thugs campaigned about in 2010!

Americans...not the brightest bulbs in the world sometimes.

[mvd]

34. At least they seem even more disapproving of the GOP

That's where the blame mainly lies. I wish the President would talk about jobs more and the deficit less. I'm not big on debt reduction in times of need. I now think we really can't default, but if raising the limit and letting the courts decide is the only thing that will stop these destrictive proposals, then do it. I want less compromise and more principles. The Teabaggers want 100% their way. I'm just asking for 50% to 2/3 since we have the Senate and the Presidency.

[No Elephants]

51. Great post, mvd. Sadly, no one has the Senate anymore, unless the majority leader

can guaranty enough votes to end a faux filibuster. And the traitors to their caucus are Democrats, far more so than Republicans.

Of course, the Senate had the ability to change rules by a simple majority vote a number of times since 2006, but didn't. I don't think they want their positions to be that visible to voters.

And secrecy is another problem with Senate rules--and government in general. We're paing their compensation and the rent and utility bills). How dare they keep secrets from us, secrets that are not kept secret to keep us safe, but to insulate them from voters and taxpayers?

And why do we accept it so docilely?

[totodeinhere]

36. This is what the Republicans are counting on. They will sabotage the economy as best they

ca, then they will expect that the voters blame Obama, not them.

[killbotfactory]

38. Republican obstruction is paying off

Keep blaming Obama and the democrats, "progressives"! The people won't rise until we endure another decade of republicans shitting on us!

[neoralme]

41. The people won't rise until we get a Democrat in the Chair.

[No Elephants]

52. Good luck with that. We may as well clap for Tinkerbell's recovery.

[Doctor_J]

57. Wait. I thought all of this appeasement was going to ATTRACT voters

chalk up another convincing loss for bi-partisanship, centrism, and good-faith negotiation.

[treestar]

59. 21 year old who just wants a savior

Interesting they picked that quote.

[sarcasmo]

61. The whole debt circus has taken away from what should be the real focus.

Jobs.