The President Who Blames Others

U.S. President Obama has a problem with tactics. The world’s most powerful man is declaring himself powerless.

Three years have now passed since Barack Obama was elected America’s president. 16 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. is going in the right direction, while 77 percent believe it is going in the wrong direction. Troubling figures for a president who is seeking reelection, it would seem.

However, Obama has his campaign strategy ready. The world’s most powerful man shall declare himself powerless and blameless. The stagnant economy is blamed on everything and everyone — except his own policy. The president relates most problems to Congress’ decision not to adopt the job package that he proposed in September.

No president has succeeded in being reelected with unemployment higher than 8 percent. Unemployment in the U.S. is now over 9 percent. Approximately 150,000 new jobs (net) must be created every month just to keep the percentage of unemployed unchanged. Time is starting to run out for something drastic to be done about this reality before the 2012 election. Obama, therefore, is resorting to artifice, which is not unheard of in American politics. “Don’t solve the problems; just make folk believe that others are the reason that they haven’t been solved.” “Others,” in this case, is chiefly Congress. The American political system is so fragmented that there are always “others” to blame. The president can point a finger at Congress, the House of Representatives can point at the Senate, the Senate at the House of Representatives or the individual states or the courts or the banks or the public authorities or China.

Barack Obama has several problems with his tactics, which have become increasingly apparent in recent weeks. One difficulty is that he actually pushed through a great number of his economic programs in 2009 and 2010: a gigantic stimulation package, enormous sums of federal money to the car industry, a historic health care reform package, significantly tightened regulations of the financial sector, and more. The result is a debt increase in southern Europe but little recovery in the economy. To now try to maintain that the poor economy was caused by others hindering Obama’s policy is hardly in accordance with the truth. In reality, during his first two years, Obama had the unusual favor of a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

A second difficulty is that the job package only contains further doses of the same medicine that has already proved itself ineffective. The president wants to extend unemployment insurance yet again. Economists agree that a nigh on never-ending unemployment insurance promotes long-term joblessness; job seeking and willingness to seek alternative careers falls significantly. The U.S. now has by far the longest unemployment insurance term — 99 weeks, almost two years! That’s longer than Sweden, with 64 weeks. The president wants to further extend contributions to health care and pensions through 2012. The proposal is grossly irresponsible, considering that both of these systems are on the road to bankruptcy and need all the revenue they can get. More federal support to individual states to keep public sector workers is also included. This may be reasonable, but the support comes from a nation with 100 percent of the GNP in debt and a budget deficit of approximately 8 percent of the GNP.

On his own initiative, and by serious stretching the constitution, Obama is now pushing to increase subsidies for college loans (to buy the young people who so enthusiastically supported him the last time) and for homeowners who, with a normal credit check, would never receive a loan (which is the same type of policy which led to the economic collapse in 2008). He refuses to consider the reasons why American companies do not invest, despite sitting on funds of approximately $300 billion. One of the main reasons is the knowledge of the tax hit that awaits entrepreneurs in 2013 if Obama wins. He who will be beheaded in 2013 won’t cheerfully invest in 2012 just because of the occasional dangled carrot.

Even a number of Democratic senators have refused to support the president’s job package. It doesn’t matter so much now since it was clear from the beginning that the president didn’t want to get it through Congress. He strives for a no so he has a basis to blame others for high unemployment. “Rough and tumble,” the tactic is called in Chicago political tradition.

A third difficulty concerns the question of how long before an election a president can fail to govern and instead devote himself to a reelection campaign. During the first eight months of 2011, Obama took part in 40 “fundraisers” — dinners for the affluent, many of whom were from Wall Street. The cost: $71,000 per participating couple! His goal is to raise $1 billion for his campaign for another term in office. Nothing can stand in the way of the campaign. When the commission that the president himself appointed — Simpson/Bowles, with heavyweight representatives from both parties — came up with a bold proposition at the beginning of the year to seriously get a grip on the American budget problem, Obama turned his back on it, despite the commission’s proposal containing exactly the blend of spending cuts and tax increases the president later said he wants to see.

Why should anyone reelect a president who has chosen to use half his time in office to drive an election campaign instead of governing?