It doesn't have to be right away, but it needs to be soon.
Whether it's through a series of ads, an update to his stump speech or during the upcoming Democratic Convention - Obama needs to set the record straight.
It's not enough if it comes from surrogates or other Democrats, it needs to come from the President himself.
No, he didn't get everything he wanted during those first two fragile years of his Presidency when he had a slim majority in the House and only 58-59 Democratic Votes in the Senate.
He didn't get a Public Option.
He didn't get a Cap & Trade Bill.
He didn't get the upper end of the Bush Tax Cuts Repealed.
He didn't get a Jobs Bill.
He didn't Implement Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
He didn't get a Grand Bargain on the Budget.
He has made a lot of progress, many landmark and critical bills have been passed like Health Care Reform, Equal Pay, Civil Rights protection for LGBT persons, The Repeal of DADT, Saving and Restoring Detroit, Wall Street Reform, $Billions for Clean Energy Development, High Speed Rail, Infrastructure,and a Smart Electrical Grid. Instead of being undone, repealed and (not) replaced all of these worthy accomplishments should be preserved and extended.
The job of restoring America isn't nearly done yet. There's much, much more to do.
If there's one word that describes why President Obama hasn't been able to accomplish his goals - that word is "Republicans".
They claim that this is "blaming others", but the fact is that the President is not a King. He has to work with both Houses of Congress to implement policy and that simply can not happen when one political party is deliberately trying to destroy his Presidency and just let the country suffer the consequences in the meantime.
On the day that President Obama was inaugurated, 13 prominent Republican law makers gathered together with Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz to plot the demise of his Administration.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.).
...
The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward:
Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies. (Eight days later, Minority Whip Cantor would hold the House Republicans to a unanimous No against Obama’s economic stimulus plan.)
Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves. (The first National Republican Congressional Committee attack ads would run in less than two months.)
Win the spear point of the House in 2010. Jab Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012.
They made a collective decision, they implemented
a plan that they would do everything in their power to
sabotage the economy instead of voting for the best interests of the American people, instead of voting for the best interests of the NATION - they choose to
Vote Against the President.
Paul Ryan today says that Obama didn't accept a budget approach similar to Simpson/Bowles, when Paul Ryan was on the Simpson/Bowles commission and VOTED AGAINST the final plan.
When it comes to things like Medicare reform, David Brooks agrees with Paul Ryan. But when Ryan voted no on the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan, he missed the chance to show that he also has a governing consciousness.
Republicans claim Obama hasn't reached across the aisle when it was the Republican Leadership who
walked out of the Budget Talks when Obama was trying to craft a "Grand Bargain" on deficit reduction.
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans on Thursday abandoned budget talks aimed at clearing the way for a federal debt limit increase, leaving the outcome in doubt as they vowed not to give in to a Democratic push for new tax revenues as part of any compromise.
The breakdown was set off by the surprise decision of Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader and one of two Republicans participating in sessions led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to quit the negotiations.
Y'know who else was in those negotiations? Senator Jon Kyl.
Over the last two years Republicans in the Senate have broken their own Filibuster Record.
When the Democrats regained tenuous control of the 110th Congress in 2007, filibusters by the new Republican minority skyrocketed. Following the landslide victory of Barack Obama and progressive Democrats in 2008, there was a clear mandate for change in reform in America, yet the 111th should set a new record for filibusters as part of a clear pattern of obstruction from those who do not want change or reform.
Rate of Filibusters
This Republican Obstruction resulted in the first downgrade of
U.S. Credit Rating.
"For months, the president was saying, let's get together, let's compromise," Axelrod continued. "We thought we had such an arrangement with the Speaker of the House... then he went back to his caucus; he had to yield to the most strident voices in his party. They played brinkmanship with the full faith and credit of the United States. This was the result in that."
"The fact of the matter is that this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade," he declared. "That clearly is on the backs of those who were willing to see the country default."
They were willing to push the country into financial default - just so they could Blame Obama for it. And so far, they've gotten away with it.
He has to say that If Not for Republicans, Unemployment would already be down to 6%
Normally in a recession and recovery government at all levels increase public employment - this has happened in every GOP administration - and much of that increase is funded by federal government grants to the state and local governments. But since the Stimulus, the GOP has blocked any substantial help for the states, and in GOP led states severe austerity cuts have been the rule - even including GOP governors rejecting projects fully funded by the federal government. The economic cost of this is far more than just those 600 thousand jobs - the spillover effect on private business and local economies has been devastating - when you factor in all these effects the total job cost of austerity has been estimated at 2.3 million jobs.
President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act in his 2011 State of the Union address, and spent the next year promoting it at every opportunity. Although expensive - it contained a combination of targeted tax cuts and some tax increases, along with direct spending designed to increase consumer spending and lower the cost to business of hiring new workers, all while paying for the bill. The CBO said the bill would not only have paid for itself within 10 years, but would have reduced the deficit by at least 6 billion dollars. According to an analysis by Moody's it would have created about 1.9 million jobs.
The result of GOP obstruction with those two things cost us 2.3 million jobs and 1.9 million jobs respectively. US employment as of May 2011 is about 155 million jobs, which means those 4.2 million jobs that the GOP has prevented account for 2.7% of the unemployment rate. But let's be fair, there is a small amount of overlap in those jobs - a small portion (about 8%) of the American Jobs Act would have gone to State and Local governments to pay for teachers, first responders and the like - although for the most part it would have just prevented further layoffs rather than resulted in new hires. It is also very likely that without the economic wrecking of GOP obstructionism the labor participation rate would be higher - so instead of a reduction of unemployment to 5.5% it would be slightly higher, but still well under 6%.
The GOP has deliberately, methodically and with malice of forethought -
Sabotaged The Recovery. They used every strategy in thier power, attacked and undermined public sector unions, layoffs of first responders, police, firefighters and teachers in state after state undermining the consumer demand that is and always has been the primary engine of the economy.
They've Lied about Obama's plan for Medicare, which strengthens the trust fund instead of weakening it. They've Lied about his approach to Welfare, which doesn't remove work requirements. They've repeatedly Lied about their own Budget Ideas, and they're own Policies. They all voted for the Wars, the Tax Cuts and the Unpaid for Medicare expansion that added $5 Trillion to the Deficit, and then tried to claim that "Obama Increased Spending" when what he really did was just put all of Bush's War Spending into the Budget and implement a host of middle class and small business tax cuts. Their deregulation and negligence led us off a financial cliff and into the Great Recession, yet they complain that Obama hasn't fixed the problems they created fast enough while they do everything they can to block his path. They've tried to manipulate, block, purge and steal peoples vote from them because they apparently don't think they're lies and obstruction have been effective enough.
They've done all this simply so that they can regain Presidential Power again, not for the benefit of the nation - only for the benefit of their $multi-million donor base. All for the benefit of people like Mitt Romney, Sheldon Adelson and Donald Trump - not for the average American. The last thing that American should do, is reward them for what they've deliberately done to weaken the nation for their own gains.
America should run this Pack of Lying Sociopath Traitors out of our Government on a Rail.
President Obama probably won't say this, at least not the way I might, but I do wish he would. He needs to set the record straight because Republicans are betting on America's indifference and amnesia.
They can't be allowed to win that bet.
Vyan