No Joke: Obama Insists Republicans Are Out of Touch With America

According to the Associated Press (AP):

"President Barack Obama on Wednesday lashed out at Republicans as out of touch with the daily problems of Americans, hoping to sharpen the contrast with the opposition party as midterm elections loom."

Obama harped on two recent—and highly disingenuous—Democrat Party talking points.  First, Representative Joe Barton's apology to BP, and second, House Minority Leader John Boehner's criticism of the Democrats' fallaciously named Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which puts the keys to the economy in the hands of the same incompetents who just wrecked the family car. In response to Obama's criticism of Joe Barton, as I previously stated:

"Even if his comments were politically clumsy, Rep. Joe Barton hit the philosophical nail on the head.  The United States is supposedly a nation of laws.  Seizing a crisis as an opportunity to extort $20,000,000,000 from a business has no place in such a nation. .... While Barton’s comments might not receive such sympathy from the general population or Gulf coast residents, Obama has already worn out this card. ....  Liberal pollsters at Public Policy Polling recently found a majority of Louisiana voters give George W. Bush better marks for his response to Katrina.  The two aren’t even close.  Bush swept the question by a margin of 15 points. [Furthermore,] How does it look when Gulf coast voters who don’t follow politics every day find out Obama has received $20,000,000,000 and still hasn’t managed anything more than photo ops and inflammatory rhetoric? ...."

Since then, the Gulf crisis has only gotten worse, and team Obama has done little but obfuscate and obstruct.  Blaming Republicans won't clean up the spill or bring jobs back to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, or any other state.  Pointing fingers only reminds voters how inadequate Obama's response to this crisis has been. Criticism of Boehner faces a similar fate.  Ironically, the Minority Leader's so-called "gaffe" has prompted Speaker Pelosi to finally open up about the non-recovery of Obama's "recovery summer."  As she points out on her website, the United States has lost 8,000,000 jobs and $17,500,000,000,000 (17.5 Trillion) in net worth.  All of this has taken place since the Democrats took the legislative reigns in 2006. And of course,  after attacking a couple of Republicans who actually hold elected office, Obama couldn't resist the chance to attack his predecessor who officially stopped working 528 days ago.  According to the AP:

"'How do we get government spending under control?' he asked, giving voice to public complaints. 'That's a legitimate question. ..., all of us should be worried about the fact that we have been running the credit card in the name of future generations. And somebody's going to have pay that back.' Obama said the main culprit was not the costly emergency measures under his watch but a structural habit of the government spending more than it takes in. He said the answer is to reduce spending in a 'gradual way' that doesn't hurt people."

On its face, this comment sounds sensible, but it flagrantly disregards the facts.  Yes, we are overspending.  In the most recent decade of Republican Congresses, our nation averaged an annual deficit of $97,720,000,000.  That is unsustainable, but it's far better than the most recent decade of Democrat-controlled congresses during which we've averaged an annual deficit over 3.5 times as large at $357,950,000,000 per year. Even worse, despite rattling off his "good intentions" in a town hall, Obama has taken no action to reduce spending, even gradually.  Instead, he has dramatically grown the government.  This is right in line with the Democrats' record.  Over the past 40 years, the Democrats have never had a budget surplus or reduced the national debt.  Over the past 40 years, the United States has enjoyed only 4 years of government surplus and debt reduction. All four occurred during Republican Congressional control.

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