Not eight years: Times up for Obama | New Hampshire OPINION

Not eight years: Time’s up for Obama

Dec 5, 2011

President Obama is horrible at governing. He’s not bad, though, at moving goalposts.

The stimulus was supposed to “save or create” a bazillion jobs. When the jobs on the “create” side of the ledger were smaller than predicted, the administration did away with the term and started using jobs “funded.” That, of course, includes numerous pre-existing jobs (including part-time ones) at every company or government entity that received stimulus money.

In the debt ceiling debate this past summer, the White House initially agreed to a target of $800 billion in new revenue. When House Republicans put out a plan to reach that figure, the White House raised the bar to $1.2 trillion.

Now the President who gave himself one term to fix the economy is asking for another four years to complete the job.

“After all that is happening in Washington, it may be tempting to believe that change may not be as possible as we thought,” Obama told donors last week. “It has been three wrenching years for this country ... It’s going to take more than a few years to meet the challenges that have been decades in the making.”

Then the clincher: “‘I’m going to need another term to finish the job.”

We wonder if any of the donors who gave Obama money that night (he reportedly raised $2.4 million as Occupy Wall Street protesters rallied on the street outside the hotel) recall the January, 2009, Today Show interview in which Obama gave himself three years to turn the economy around.

“I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years,” he told Matt Lauer. “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

It’s been three years. Time’s up.








Not eight years: Time’s up for Obama | New Hampshire OPINION01