3 years not enough time to fix economy

When Mitt Romney selected Tea Party supporter Paul Ryan, it became apparent that economics would be the major issue in the presidential race. This makes sense since we’ve experienced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. The arguments that Republicans make, however, do not make sense to me.

It seems contradictory to claim that it’s the president’s fault that we have high unemployment and at the same time argue that government can’t create jobs. The Great Depression started in 1929 and ended with World War II — 12 years of terrible economic times under both Republican and Democratic administrations. My question is why do we expect President Obama to restore the economy to full recovery (pre-Bush levels) in only 3½ years? I thinking just stopping the economic fall and beginning forward movement would be admirable. By the end of the Bush administration we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. We have had 20-plus months of job creation under Obama.

The housing and stock market collapse occurred before the president came to office in no small part due to a Republican administration, which supported two unfunded wars, an unfunded Medicare drug benefit and a tax cut that gave the most to the wealthiest 2 percent. It took our country from a surplus to deficit. Deregulation and trickle-down were not effective economic polices. They have resulted in record corporate profits and a hollowed-out middle class. It’s as though the Republicans want to blame the firefighter for the burned out building and put the arsonist back in charge,

I think we should be thanking the president for all that he’s done so far and then ask the Republicans to apologize.

Michael Zerafa

Schaumburg