President Obama Unleashed
His Six Years Defies G.O.P Sabotage Attempts
Under the headline “Job Market Looks Ripe for Liftoff,” and sub-header “Best Stretch of Hiring Since 1997 Suggests Stronger Wage Growth Ahead,” The Wall Street Journal on its front-page trumpets the creation of 257,000 new jobs in January under the Obama administration.
This brings to a total of close to 6 million jobs created since Obama inherited the George W. Bush great Recession.
Americans should cheer this even though many Republicans must be cringing at this good news. Their best bet to win the White House in 2016 is if President Obama “fails” as Republican Guru Rush Limbaugh had hoped for.
Here’s how The Journal’s weekend edition tells the story: “The best three-month stretch of hiring since 1997 has positioned the U.S. labor market to start delivering stronger wage growth for a wider swath of Americans after more than five years of sluggish recovery from a deep recession.”
The Journal reports that the new hiring spree has boosted the public’s confidence, causing more Americans to return into the job-market, so the unemployment rate upticked slightly to 5.7% from 5.6%; this is one of the few good occasions for the unemployment rate to shift upwards.
Suddenly memories of the so-called Midterm election disaster are almost gone.
President Obama has been vindicated on the economic front although he now must focus on dismantling the historical structural impdediments and legacy that have kept Black unemployment twice that of Whites over the past 50 years. They include: discrimination in hiring; indiscrimination in and lack of job training; abysmal education in many urban African American communities; and, lack of financial access to seed money for starting businesses.
In 1964 when White unemployment was at 5% Black unemployment was over 10%. In December last year when White unemployment was 4.8% Black unemployment was over 11%.
Still, the president has defied the naysayers and Republicans who wished him ill. Whatever happened to the so-called “incompetence” factor that Mitt Romney and other Republicans tried to tag the President with?
Their pettiness, resentment and even racial animus didn’t deter President Obama from doing the job Americans elected him to do — twice, as he was forced to remind Republican lawmakers during the State Of The Union speech.
The January jobs report also says that wages are moving upwards. What a long way the nation has traveled since January 2009 when Obama was sworn in as president and the nation was shedding almost 800,000 jobs per month.
We can only imagine how many more millions of jobs could have been created and how earlier the Bush Recession might have ended had the Republicans, rather than blocking President Obama at every instance, actually worked with him to pass new jobs bills.
Republicans opposed every measure beginning with the financial stimulus package at the outset of the Obama adminsitration. Had the Republicans had their way the auto industry would have collapsed and the fall of several major financial institutions could have triggered a run on the banks and collapse on Wall Street.
Continued economic recovery is good news for the country and for President Obama.
Since the Democrats lost the mid-term election in November, Obama has been unleashed and seems to be having more fun than ever on the job.
He moved decisively on immigration, offering temporary reprieve from deportation to millions of undocumented immigrants and paving the way for many to emerge from the shadows to enter the job market.
He ended the detrimental U.S.-Cuba policy and the majority of Cuban Americans now support him. The policy was a relic of the cold war era, as is continued opposition from people like Senators: Menendez; Cruz; and Rubio.
Obama has now turned his attention to the American middle class.
He wants: to triple by $3,000 tax-credits for households with children, for up to three children; he wants financing at $60 billion to cover the cost of free community college for the nation; and, he wants tax cuts for the Middle Class by raising more than $300 billion over 10 years by taxing the richest 1% more, by increasing the tax rate on inheritances and unearned income, and through a one-time 14% on the profits of U.S. companies overseas and a 12% annual rate thereafter.
While Republicans are preparing for a fight with the President — simply to continue their six years of obstructionism– Obama now has something tangible in the form of a restored economy to show to the American people when he travels around the nation to promote his budget proposal.
He simply needs to say: “Six years ago I said I would restore the American economy and I have done so even without support from Republicans. Now I want to deliver for the Middle Class — help me by telling Republicans to support my budget proposal so I can deliver again.”
