“He started it!!”
Yes, we’ve all heard it: Obama’s finger-pointing at the “previous administration”. I don’t even want to venture a guess as to how many times the president will mention how hard it is to fix an 8-year-old mess in a year, how many times he’ll blame George W. Bush, how many times he’ll complain that Republicans aren’t cooperating (gasp!!). He knows that the middle class is angry with (or at least disappointed in) him; Massachusetts made that clear enough (and let’s not forget New Jersey, whose election of a Republican governor was also quite a surprise) – the best he can do is take responsibility for mistakenly believing that his election was a mandate from the public that they wanted him to spend their money, steal from the rich, car companies, nationalize banks and health care (thankfully he hasn’t thus far been able to do all he wants with the final two). He was wrong, and people are finally catching on.
He will not admit he was wrong. There’s a good chance he will find some way to blame Republicans for his mistakes. Before he does so tonight at 9pm, let’s look at the facts from the last year.
7,949.09—Dow Jones Industrial Average close on Jan. 20, 2009.
10,198.68—Dow Jones Industrial Average close on Jan. 27, 2010. (Not so bad!)
$787 billion—Cost of economic stimulus approved by Congress. (To create jobs and boost the economy.)
13 million—Number of people 16 and older unemployed as of January 2009.
14.7 million—Number of people 16 and older unemployed as of December 2009. (Where’d the stimulus money go?)
7.7 percent—Unemployment rate January 2009
10.0 percent—Unemployment rate December 2009 (Ahem… I repeat, where’d the money go?)
$10.6 trillion—Outstanding public debt Jan. 20, 2009.
$12.3 trillion—Outstanding public debt Jan. 14, 2010. (2.3 trillion dollars spent in less than a year… I’d be impressed if I were less worried about where the money’s going.)
$296.4 billion—Federal spending from the financial crisis bailout fund before Jan. 20, 2009. (Even I must admit, perhaps this was not the best idea.)
$173 billion—Federal spending from the financial crisis bailout fund after Jan. 20, 2009. (If throwing money didn’t work the first time, why, may I ask, do we continue to do it??)
$165 billion—Amount of bailout funds repaid by banks and automakers. (Good! Now where’s that money going?)
139—Bank failures between Jan. 20, 2009, and Jan. 14, 2010.
12—Formal news conferences.
21—Foreign countries visited.
29—States visited.
10—Visits to Camp David.
2—Vacations.
*The original article (minus most of the commentary) with most of these numbers is here.
When exactly is the president going to take responsibility for his own mistakes? How nice it would be if tonight’s the night he does it – but don’t get your hopes up.
