Generally, people are ignorant (note that I said “ignorant,” not “stupid”). They don’t know enough about the situation to realize how far back these current problems go. They know that they’re hurting now, they look to who is in the White House, and they place blame.
More locally (Ohio, not actual localities), our economy was actually in something like the top 5 nationwide in terms of growth over the past 2 years. We were positioned pretty well and would likely have weathered this current dip much better than most. [Did you know that we, Ohio, actually ended the fiscal year with a surplus? A surplus that was, of course, a direct result of the last administration’s work; how often do you hear that reported?] However, in the past 2 months, that has completely changed. Why? Our governor’s budget (which went into effect July 1) has cut too much spending from too many of the wrong places and has put too many people out of work.
If you read through all of their budget documents, you see that they expected these cuts in the public sector (though they all continue to refuse to acknowledge that all of the current layoffs are a direct result of their budget; they continue to maintain that their budget is a job creator and is not costing jobs anywhere; if you can figure that one out, you let me know). Yet somehow they still expected – supposedly – the economy to grow. How you put people out of work and still grow the economy just baffles me:
Fewer people working
= less income for the state via income taxes and less spending by people in the marketplace
= less income for the state via sales taxes and large private companies reducing their orders for goods from manufacturers while smaller private outfits actually close their doors
= even more people out of work and even less income for the state via both income and sales taxes
= well, I think we all get the picture.
And of course, this leaves out the increased government spending via little things like unemployment, mediwhicheveritis, food stamps, and all the other increased social services that will be necessary given the glut of people out of work and fighting to survive.
My point being (I did have one…) that as clear and obvious as all of this is… there are still a number of people who blame this all on Obama and are using it in their efforts to avoid “Obamacare”. And some who voted for Obama are incredibly disappointed by him because he has not been the radical change they had hoped for, and so they blame everything on him. These people, in my opinion, are either fools or slept through their government classes. Obama cannot act alone. And the House and the Senate are currently incapable of getting along. So very little can be done and nothing “radical” can happen on the national stage.
So again, ignorance by most. Outright stupidity by some. And overwhelming ambition by others. That’s why Obama is being blamed.
*In the spirit of full disclosure: though I did vote for Obama in the general election, I did not vote for him in the primary. I never believed that he would bring a breath of fresh air to D.C. or that he would be an historical agent of change. Yes, of course his presidency is itself historical (as Hillary’s would also have been). However, given politics today, it takes a village to change the direction of things and D.C. is simply not prepared to work together as a village.
