Right Change: Despite Stimulus, 23 Million Unemployed

Most Americans love a man who can admit his faults and learn from them. It’s the stories of comebacks and second chances that move our hearts and bring tears to our eyes. However, the President of the United States is rarely afforded a second term when he fails in his first, whether he admits his mistakes or not. President Obama admitted his mistake (as in, ONE) – he says it was not communicating to the American people how well the stimulus helped the middle class.

In his interview with Time Magazine Obama said he didn’t do a good enough job selling the American people on the stimulus and auto bailouts because he was so focused on fixing the economy. That’s right, Obama’s problem was that he was so focused on fixing the economy he just couldn’t explain to us dumb Americans how well his plan was working.  ““[We] were in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, so we had to just do stuff fast. And sometimes it wasn’t popular,” Obama told Time. “

And we didn’t have the luxury of six months to explain exactly what we were doing with the Recovery Act, which was basically a jobs act and making sure- middle-class-families-didn’t-fall-into-poverty act.” Obama does deserve some credit here for truthfulness. It is quite difficult to explain to 23 million unemployed/underemployed Americans why your plans can’t create any jobs, but it does bail out big labor, failing green energy companies and campaign bundlers.

Perhaps one of the more outlandish answers he gave during the interview is when he explained why he ran in 08 and why he will run again. The message I have for them is no different than the message I have for the rest of the country, which is, I ran for office to not only deal with a looming economic crisis but also reverse a decade in which middle-class families had seen their security erode. And everything I’ve done — most of the time in cooperation with Congress , but sometimes working around Congress — has been geared toward that central goal of making sure that we have a strong, vibrant, growing middle class and we got ladders of opportunity for people who are willing to work hard to get into the middle class. It’s just hard to get people to really believe these lines when Americans have lost nearly 40% of their wealth over the last 4 years. 

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