Remember when Republicans pounced on President Obama's July remark that his economic planned "worked"? Democrats went ballistic, accusing conservatives of taking the president's words "out of context." He was referring to President Clinton's tax policies, you see, not his programs, per se. That was the argument, which I contended was a tacit admission that his plans hadn't worked. Well, guess what The One had to say in Wisconsin just today?
We tried our ideas. They worked. The economy grew. We created jobs. Deficits went down. We tried their ideas. They didn't work. The economy didn't grow, not as many jobs, and the deficit went up.
This is nonsense on stilts, and the context is crystal clear. There's a reason why voters disapprove of the president's economic stewardship and strongly disapprove of his performance on deficits. His wildly expensive "stimulus" and other so-called economic solutions have fallen woefully short of the metrics his own administration established for them. By now, unemployment was to have fallen to 5.2 percent, thanks to shovel-ready and "green" jobs. Last month, the U-3 rate rose to 7.9 percent, higher than when Obama took office. The economy is growing, but at a dreadfully slow rate. It has slowed over the last two years, leading even the mainstream media to describe the recovery as the "weakest since the Great Depression." And on deficits, come on. Everyone knows it's been an unmitigated disaster with four consecutive trillion-dollar deficits. And didn't a certain someone pledge to halve the deficit by now? As for "their ideas," President Bush's average unemployment rate was 5.3 percent and his average annual deficit was less than $300 Billion (and dropping prior to the 2008 meltdown). A lot of that blew up after the economic crisis -- the causes of which are myriad and not exclusive to either political party, to be charitable. And all of this is to say nothing of the historic Reagan boom, which was fueled by "their ideas," too.
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Yet on literally the last day before the election, the president is reiterating his short-lived "it worked" mantra, which his backers had excoriated Republicans for even mentioning when he first served it up. If Team Obama were so confident about the assertion that the president's policies on jobs, GDP growth and deficits were glowing successes, why wasn't that the central message of his re-election campaign? The obvious answer to that rhetorical question tells you everything you need to know about the reality, and the necessity of Chicago's "Kill Romney" approach.
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