Obama’s Unhelpful Rhetoric on Jobs’ Forum

When President Obama announced that he’s going to hold a jobs forum at the White House next month, he said something that betrayed his unwillingness to do what is necessary to solve the crisis.

He said, "We all know that there are limits to what government can and should do, even during such difficult times.”

I’ve got a problem with the “can” and the “should,” and the “we all know” in that sentence. (He did follow it up with: “But we have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this
country.” Still.)

Obama hasn’t done what FDR did when he confronted an economic crisis similar to the one we’re facing now.

FDR started a massive public jobs program.

Obama hasn’t done what some governors did in the 1930s who were facing a foreclosure crisis similar to the one we’re facing now.

They imposed a moratorium on foreclosures.

Clearly, the government can do such things, even during such difficult times.

And it should do them, too.

It should on moral grounds so as to put a tourniquet around the bleeding that millions of Americans are suffering from.

And it should on economic grounds, so as to make sure that the so-called recovery takes hold across the country, and not just on Wall Street.

But Obama hid from these fundamental solutions under the thin blanket of what “we all know.” And by so doing, he feeds the falsehood