Yearning for the Bush years

Rock star personage can take a president only so far. If truth be told, President Obama is just as ordinary and helpless at times as the rest of us.

When will President Obama understand that he bought the cow and now has to milk it?

The Obama administration is already into its 16th month, yet Obama continues to tell voters, "Remember Bush," as when he spoke on June 3 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh about the economy: "And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future."

Despite sinking poll numbers and a questioning of his leadership skills, Obama's charade and his uplifting on-the-trail pep rallies continue. Because it has been said so often, perhaps Obama actually believes that he possesses mystical powers.

What about the Bush administration blunders of the past? President Bush spent far too much and was roundly criticized for doing so over eight years, but Obama has outspent Bush in less than a year and a half.

The Treasury Department reported on June 2 that the federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, making this the first time the government has sunk so far into debt. Over the 500 days since Obama took office, he has raised the debt level by $2.4 trillion, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. Even so, a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, claimed the administration was "committed to restoring fiscal responsibility."

Heard almost daily is how the American economy is turning around thanks to President Obama's $862 billion stimulus bill and other measures. But how could this be when nearly 10 percent of the American people are still out of work?

Consider the month of May when of the 431,000 jobs added, 411,000 of them were temporary government census jobs, leaving an unacceptable 41,000 jobs created in the private sector. Even more dismal is how the U.S. economy has lost a net total of 2.2 million jobs since President Obama signed his stimulus bill. The Obama administration is now 7.2 million jobs short of what Obama promised the American economy would support by 2010.

Contrary to what the President's economic wizards and others claim, massive government deficit spending does not stimulate job creation or economic growth.

The Obama administration, in its attempt to shift a leadership deficit and failed economic policies back to the Bush years, is trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

It is to the credit of the American people that more and more are beginning to realize that the Bush years were not so bad after all.

Nancy J. Thorner

Lake Bluff