Andrew Sullivan: How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics

[eridani]

51. The notion of some longterm economic game is just utter tripe

The long term game seems to be placid acceptance of a completely disastrous "new normal." To be sure, tinkering saved the economy from hitting rock bottom, but it is utterly inadequate to deal with the ongoing disaster. "I know we still need to do more" is just weak tea bullshit in the face of--

--labor force participation at postwar record lows
--foreclosures continuing to rise
--homelessness and food insecurity at highest levels ever
--29% of mortgages underwater
--long term unemployment at highest leves ever recorded
--parasitic banksters continuing the same mortgage slicing and dicing that crashed the economy
--current job growth levels on track to give us a full 20 years of ZERO net job growth, unprecedented in US history AFAIK
--fully 48% of the population low income or outright poor. That is to say half the country having ZERO discretionary income in an economy that consists of 70% consumer spending

The worst thing is four years of spouting Republican values, such as taxes are bad and lowering them is good, regulations are bad, government has no role in promoting recovery other than granting benefits to the private sector, that private sector job growth should be applauded even as those gains are cancelled out by public sector job losses, that public goods (especially education) are really bad, or at best inferior to the private sector, that Republican ideas are better than and preferable to anything the "purist" left can come up with, that what actually got done to help the economy is all that is necessary--we just need a bit more time.

All I hope is that another real disaster doesn't strike before the election, because a Republican administration would totally destroy us.

And don't bother to comment that Obama couldn't get more done because of opposition. That is perfectly true, but what that situation calls for is something that Obama has refused to do--flat out admit that what he accomplished is not enough, and that that is the Republicans' fault.