COMMENTARY | Do you know how to tell people recognizes they are in trouble for something they claim isn't their fault? They can't stop talking about how it's not their fault. Between [still] blaming George Bush, business owners who are too afraid to hire, Congress - particularly Republicans - the Arab Spring uprisings, a Tsunami in Japan and the European debt crisis and even ATM's, the president has pretty much absolved himself of every catastrophe that his economic policies have set into motion.
In 2008, Obama said he would create jobs. He said his stimulus bill would create jobs. Nancy Pelosi said Obamacare would create 400,000 jobs "almost immediately". In 2009, Obama told the private sector to create the jobs. When asked what the president was doing now to create jobs, White House Press Secretary John Carney said "the President is having meetings with his senior staff" and "called on Congress" to create jobs.
Then the president tells voters to pressure Congress to create jobs. "I don't think it's too much for you to expect that the people you send to this town start delivering."
In other words, in true community organizer fashion, Obama continues to talk about creating jobs.
Meanwhile, stocks have plunged below 11,000 -- again. Jobless claims are up. The price of gas and other consumer goods are rising. One-in-five children have families living below the poverty level and American satisfaction of the condition of the United States has plummeted to11 percent.
In the meantime, he hits the campaign trail (cleverly disguised as another jobs tour) then takes off on a 10-day vacation to Martha's Vineyard with his family - which will cost American taxpayers millions - where he plans to play golf and stuff his face with foods his wife forbids the rest of us to eat.
In Aug. 2009 the president said it would take "many more months" for the U.S. to fully recover from the recession as employers continue to eliminate jobs and he vowed he wouldn't stop "until every American who wants a job can find one." Then he took off to Martha's Vineyard with his family.
In July 2010, Obama again vowed, "I will not rest until everyone has a job, a good wage and benefits." Of course, this was during the BP oil spill for which the president also promised he "won't rest until leak is stopped," after which he took off to Bar Harbor, Maine on his third family vacation since the spill began. At taxpayer's expense, his wife and daughters also spent five lavish and sun-splashed days in Spain.
Another year, multiple vacations and rounds of golf later, President Barack Obama is literally reading the same string of words from his teleprompter, that he won't stop "until every American who wants a job can find one."
Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act in Sept 2009. While White House officials avoided giving an estimate they promised these initiatives would create a "pretty significant" number of jobs. The jobs never came.
In 2010, when the Democrats controlled both houses of congress, they rammed through a $26 billion jobs bill we were told would save 300,000 teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs. President Barack Obama immediately signed it into law. That didn't work either.
Earlier this month, President Obama made yet another speech about jobs; this time about how he would help veterans get back into the work force. Clearly his teleprompter had not yet told him what to say as he stood at his podium for a good minute or so in total silence. "Just waiting, here," shouted one man in the audience. "Awkward," shouted another.
Have you noticed how much Obama talks about creating jobs? In fact, according to a report by the New York Times, Obama has used the word "jobs" more than any other president in the 75 years of studying patterns in State of the Union addresses and CBS reported that talking about jobs is one of the things highest on the president's ever evolving list of yet to be accomplished "top priorities."
Now the president has another plan, a secret plan on how he is going to create jobs. He won't tell us what's in the plan until next month -- but he dared Republicans to block it.
Brendan Buck - spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner - said Obama should scrap the campaign bus tour speeches and just hand over a detailed plan to Congress. "Seriously, just drop it in the mail," Buck Tweeted. "Podium not required."
One year ago, at a Washington town hall meeting, Velma Hart had something to say to her president. She is an Obama supporter and self described "middle-class" woman and she wanted to express her concern about the increasingly tough economic times and the effect it has had on her and her family.
"I'm exhausted," Hart said frankly. The unprepared president smiled and shifted uncomfortably on his stool. "Frankly I'm tired of defending you."
Today, even loyal Obama defender, Rep. Maxine Waters (D- Calif.) isn't buying his fluffy words anymore. Just like Velma Hart, Waters and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are tired and frustrated by Obama's failure to create jobs.
"We're supportive of the president," Waters assured an audience in Detroit Tuesday. "But we're getting tired, ya'll. We're getting tired." And while Maxine is still willing to "give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he's prepared to lead on," in the meantime she knows, "our people are hurting."
Similar words were spoken by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) last month when he called for Americans to "march" on the president "and protest." Speaking at a press conference held by members of the House Out of Poverty Caucus, Conyers said quite bluntly, "We've And while Obama continues to waste time making speeches and whining about "what the Ds are doing and the Rs are doing in the House and in the Senate," Conyers added, "we're suffering!"
"The unemployment is unconscionable," said Waters.
Indeed. Unemployment among African Americans is at 16 percent, much higher than the national average. "We don't know what the strategy is," Waters continued. "We don't know why on this trip that he's in the United States now, he's not in any black community. We don't know that."
According to Conyers, the unemployment rate in Detroit stands at 31 percent. "That's a depression. That's not a recession," he said
"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."
First of all, since he has assumed office, when has any economic indicators signified that the economy was moving again? Second, if Obama is relying on luck rather than effort to solve these problems he should consider the words of R.E. Shay.
"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit."
