Obama: Republicans haven’t “lifted a finger” for job creation

Some of our politicians have taken to providing us with “weekly addresses” to lock down their messaging on recent events. The number of views attached to these vids on YouTube doesn’t exactly suggest that most Americans are eagerly rushing to their computers on Saturday mornings to watch these things (er, it actually looks like pretty much nobody watches them), but I found President Obama’s weekly address just a little too aggravating to let slide completely.

“We have the answers to these problems. We have plenty of big ideas and technical solutions from both sides of the aisle. That’s not what’s holding us back. What’s holding us back is a stalemate in Washington,” Obama said in his weekly address.

Obama said that when it comes to most ideas that would boost hiring and the economy, Capitol Hill Republicans “haven’t lifted a finger.”

“They’d rather wait until after the election in November,” Obama said. …

“Every problem we face is within our power to solve. What’s lacking is our politics. Remind your Members of Congress why you sent them to Washington in the first place. Tell them to stop worrying about the next election and start worrying about the next generation,” Obama said.

The economy faces “serious headwinds” (no, guys — seriously), it’s not my policies that aren’t working but rather our darn Constitutional government that is failing us, we need to pad public payrolls to put people back to work, more green energy investments, blah blah blah.

Enough already with this blatant lie that Republicans haven’t been doing diddly-squat to try and get America moving again. The House GOP has put together and passed gobs of legislation that would spur our economy, and while Democrats accuse them of doing so for the sake of mere political stuntsmanship (yes, I just made that word up) that makes it look like they’re doing something, President It’s-Never-My-Fault Obama is doing the exact same thing.

He calls the Republicans uncompromising, but he keeps going back to his horrible jobs bill that won’t pass. That plan is dead, Mr. President — either let it go and move (ahem) forward, or stop calling everybody else except you an obstructionist. It takes two to tango. Republicans aren’t waiting until after Obama is out of office to bother fixing the economy — they’re preventing the economy from getting worse by blocking Obama’s big-government agenda.

And why does nobody like your jobs plan, Mr. President? Because it’s a terrible idea. The government can’t spend itself into prosperity, and increasing expenditures isn’t going to accomplish anything in paying down our monstrous debt. Ahh, but cops! firefighters! and teachers!, you say — how could anybody argue with providing more of those wholesome, all-American occupations? To that point, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was the GOP’s pick for their weekly address, and he provides an excellent rebuttal:

“The president and many of his allies seem to measure success by how many people are dependent on government programs,” said Walker. “Those policies have failed. In contrast, I and many other Republicans define success just the opposite way, by how many people we can free from government dependency, by growing the private sector.”

“That doesn’t mean we want to throw folks off of unemployment, instead we want people no longer dependent on government, because they have a job,” he said. …

“More big government is not the answer as the president contends, instead we need to confront the powerful special interests in Washington and put the hard working taxpayers back in charge of our government,” he added. “We need to think more about the next generation than we do about the next election.”

• Quotes of the day
• About those “doctored” Benghazi e-mails…
• White House word of the day – Irrelevant

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