What's a Little Debt Amongst Friends?

Missing the Obvious

It took a while, but it has finally dawned on the MSM Commentariate that Barack Obama's support as President of the United States is dropping like a stone. Well, they probably knew all along, but it has finally got to the point where it can no longer be ignored. The fact is that Obama is now an unpopular president, and risks becoming deeply unpopular.

The Commentariate has produced a cluster of articles over the past couple of weeks (probably linked to year-end summaries and reflections) seeking to analyse why this might be the case. A classic of the genre nouveau appeared recently in the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled "Popularity that Popped Like a Balloon". The author is Anne Davies, hitherto unknown to us, but we have read several articles so similar recently that they could have all been written by the same editorial committee.

Why have people stopped liking and approving of their rock-star President? Davies gives the following explanation:

1. The economic downturn in the United States.

The economy contracted by 6.1 per cent annualised in the first quarter, nearly matching the 6.3 per cent decline in the fourth quarter of last year. Employers responded by jettisoning millions of workers. The rate of lay-offs shows signs of slowing as the year draws to a close, but economists warned that the US could expect the jobless rate to stay above 10 per cent for the first half of next year.

Clearly this is a factor.

2. Obama caught the blame for Wall Street bankers paying themselves big bonuses. This was not Obama's fault obviously, but he has been tarred with it nonetheless, is the implication.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has had to deal with palpable anger on Main Street as Wall Street brazenly proceeded to pay multimillion-dollar bonuses despite the taxpayer bail-out.

All this was bad news for Obama and good news for his opponents. The exhilaration the nation felt at the inauguration of the first African-American president in January has been replaced by surly disappointment.

The Administration can boast that it has prevented an economic calamity, but it is small consolation for many families who continue to lose their homes and jobs.

The sub-text here is that Obama has been dealt a very difficult hand.

3. Signature health-system "reform" has been delayed. The sub-text here is that his popularity will bounce once it is passed. (Davies neglects to tell her readers that the health-system reform itself is now deeply unpopular and opposed by the majority of American voters. It is an obvious reason why Obama's popularity has fallen, yet Davis suggests it is failure to close that is the problem, not the "reform" itself. But at least she mentions it.)

4. The President did not come back with anything substantial from the Copenhagen Climate summit.

Obama came back from Copenhagen with only a weak in-principle agreement to curb climate change - and was still light years from getting his former colleagues in the Senate to pass domestic legislation for a cap-and-trade scheme.

But since climate change is now a very low order issue for the majority of American voters it is hard to see why this would contribute to his falling approval--except amongst the hard-core left-greens.

5. The President is struggling with terrorism. Gitmo is still open. Things are not going well in Afghanistan. Karzai is an unreliable and malodourous ally. Clearly, these issues will have cost the President popular support--particularly on the Left.

The conclusion:

Obama ends his first year in office with the worst ratings of any modern president at the end of his first year - 49 per cent approve and 46 per cent disapprove of his job performance.

The panoply of woes is a summary of the things which the left of centre voters might be concerned about. The thing that is missing here, like a great big gaping hole, is the vast expansion of US national debt--the utterly reckless quadrupling of the fiscal deficit which Obama has driven.

Naturally, to the Commentariate this is not a problem at all. After all, socialism is that system of government which uses other people's money. That's the core function of government, is it not? Debt is just a way of spreading the net to catch other people's money generations ahead. The left-wing Commentariate repeatedly fails to see this as a problem at all, let alone a major factor in Obama's falling support.

We believe that right wing and independent voters are deeply troubled about the enormity of the public debt which they and their children and grandchildren are going to have to pay off. According to Rasmussen, 71 percent of American voters believe that Obama's policies have driven up the deficit. Eighty-one percent of voters say they think that the deficit is caused, not by people unwilling to pay taxes, but by politicians unwilling to restrain government spending.

Since most people have an inkling that debt is dangerous, and that excessive debt is very bad, it does not take a genius, given the Rasmussen figures, to expect that the vast explosion of the national debt under and by Obama is a major factor in waning enthusiasm and support for the President. But the Commentariate never seems to twig.

The vast explosion in national debt is not a problem at all, right? At least not to those who have a deep seated ideological and religious belief that they have a fundamental right to other people's money to sustain their god-given lifestyles.