Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:39 pm
The latest “evidence” that the right wing is using to proclaim to President Barack Obama a failure is the state of the stock market. Their explanation is that Obama’s economic policies are causing the market to plummet, but is this wise move when the president is popular and Wall St. isn’t?
Here is a video compilation of their remarks courtesy of ThinkProgress
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Of course, The Wall Street Journal parroted this line today, by calling Obama’s budget, a declaration of hostility against capitalists, “The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they’re no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.
No one should be surprised by this rhetoric. What is really going on with the markets is that the bill is coming to do for all of the high living that they did during the housing bubble. The reality is that the Obama administration has been too slow on mortgage relief, as was the Bush administration. The dilemma of how to get banks to lend is a question that all sides are wrestling with right now. To say that the market is solely reacting to Obama’s policies is a gross oversimplification. Obama is not driving the market down. Continuing bad economic news is what is propelling this downward spiral. One only has to watch CNBC for a day to see this.
The hostility towards capitalism argument is straight out of the Republican Party. The reality is that the market is going to keep crying until they get what they want. They want the taxpayer to buy all of their bad assets. It is silly to blame the market decline on Obama, because the market lost 40% of its value in the last year of the Bush administration. The market isn’t behaving in a partisan way, no matter how much Republicans try to spin it.
The stock market doesn’t change based who the president is. The only way Obama could fix the market is if he announced tomorrow morning that he is clearing all the bad assets off the corporate books. That would lead to a 500 or more point jump in the market. The hypocrisy on the right is stunning. They want smaller government and less spending unless that money is going to corporate America. They have no problem with giving trillions for bad assets, but it is socialism is the money is spent on real people who are struggling. The political reality is that Obama is too popular for this argument to work, but the right is grasping at anything to attack the administration with.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
