Obama’s messianism makes the economy forever a secondary concern
“Obama really was more focused on long-term, historically significant accomplishments than marginal, near-term differences in the pace of the recovery,” Scheiber wrote this year. “On some level, Obama was prepared to accept (and I’m making up these numbers for argument’s sake) three years of painfully high unemployment with health care reform rather than 30 months of painfully high unemployment without it. And the reason is the one Summers alluded to (before disputing): Health care was simply more historically important than avoiding those extra six months of pain.”
For millions of Americans, however, that pain is still going on. Even if the national conversation has moved on to other issues, unemployment is still 7.7 percent, and it is only that low because many Americans have given up looking for a job. In November, the federal government’s measure of those unemployed who are looking for work, plus those who want to work but have lost hope, was 14.4 percent.
But Obamacare is a reality. And the newly re-elected Obama still has that “strain of messianism.” In the second term, legalizing millions of illegal immigrants will be a “more historically important” accomplishment for Obama than the prosaic task of improving economic conditions for suffering Americans. So that’s what he’s going to do.
Blowback
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Have Leftists accepted this yet or is it still regarded as “Foxnews Propaganda?”
visions on January 1, 2013 at 9:19 AM
Obama has always wanted to be the third person of the liberal Democratic trinity.
FDR passed social security, LBJ passed medicare, and Obama passed Obamacare.
Wethal on January 1, 2013 at 9:20 AM
They don’t care, as the fiscal cliff bill extends unemployment benefits again, too.
Wethal on January 1, 2013 at 9:21 AM
Where to begin?
1. Health insurance =/= health care. Incredible that Lawrence Summers, former World Bank economist and President of Harvard (!), does not know this!
2. ObamaCare does not cover “all Americans.” Incredible that he doesn’t know that, either.
3. He didn’t think ObamaCare would affect the pace of recovery? Seriously?
These Democrats are unhinged.
visions on January 1, 2013 at 9:31 AM
Unemployment and the economy were important to Obama mainly as they effected his re-election prospects. Now that that’s over, there are bigger fish to fry, the redistribution of income and wealth to ensure one-party dominance being foremost among them.
petefrt on January 1, 2013 at 9:39 AM
Once they are legalized they can get a driver’s license and automatically be registered to vote by checking a box. It’s on the honor system. No proof of citizenship is required.
Wigglesworth on January 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM
Barky wants to build a legacy. He doesn’t care that people out there are hurting. Oh, he tries to put on a show that hes concerned bout the economy, but it comes across as insincere. Hes in a bubble. Hes definitely got a messianic complex. The true prog believers prop him up and swallows all his lies, cos they believe in him. He’ll try gun grabbing next, but that’ll end up in a backlash.
tommy71 on January 1, 2013 at 10:03 AM
On Fox last evening they said bho was going to get on AF1 as much as he can and continue his ‘campaign’ to the states for all he wants to get done! Just think of this, another four years of bho’s constant campaigning and spending more taxpayers money paying for his ego thinking that getting his face before the public will make dc do his will?
bho spends less time in the wh and dc than most anyother president? It’s almost as if he can’t stand to be with mo/kids?
L
letget on January 1, 2013 at 10:10 AM
ALL about the O
cmsinaz on January 1, 2013 at 10:11 AM
Shows you how delusional this guy is that he thinks Obamacare is still going to be around in 50 years. Even the CBO acknowledges that Obamacare is currently unaffordable, and will contribute to the deficit (despite Barry’s infamous promise that “it won’t add one dime to the deficit”).
We’re already 16 Trillion dollars in debt, running Trillion-dollar-plus deficits every year, have many more Trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities going forward under Medicare, SS, etc., but somehow adding yet another trillion-dollar entitlement on top of that $hit pile is a great idea? What color is the sky in your world, Larry?
Oh and Larry, all Americans don’t have health care now, and all Americans are not going to have health care at any time in the foreseeable future, despite the bureaucratic behemoth known as Obamacare. The CBO estimates that there will still be at least 30 million Americans without health insurance, even after Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014. Your boyfriend’s scheme is already an epic fail, a fact that is likely to be much more clear to a majority of Americans 50 years from now than it is today.
AZCoyote on January 1, 2013 at 10:12 AM
Much as it distresses Barry, Congress gets to have a say in whether millions of illegal aliens get legal status. No doubt Barry would prefer to just issue another dictate, but our system doesn’t work like that.
AZCoyote on January 1, 2013 at 10:18 AM
He wants his place in history and doesn’t care who he steps on to get it.
1. BO = FDR, Lincoln, Kennedy, Castro, Hugo, Che, basically all the liberal heroes combined.
2. BO = Robin Hood and Santa Clause. Hero of the 99% and slayer of the 1%.
3. Cap and trade. Gaia’s white knight.
4. Universal free healthcare to all. Be it a citizen or not.
5. Everyone is a citizen with total amnesty for illegals.
6. Ban on all firearms and confiscation of them.
7. America’s first Dictator/King.
This is the legacy he craves and will work to achieve even if he has to destroy the country to do so. Academics, historians and media will make sure that no matter what he does he will be viewed as the greatest leader of humankind. After all, the winner gets to write the history and as he has said, “I won”.
Dr. Frank Enstine on January 1, 2013 at 10:26 AM
I’ve got a swamp in my back yard I’m getting rid of for a good price. Interested?
Dr. Frank Enstine on January 1, 2013 at 10:28 AM
His goal is to drag the country as far to the left as he can before his term is out.
That’s why I roll my eyes every time I see a group of well-fed pundits sitting around a table clucking sagely that sooner or later he’ll have to be “pragmatic” in order to secure his “legacy.”
He doesn’t give a damn about his ‘legacy’ in the traditional sense.
And it seems obvious to me that what he’s attempting to do now –with complete support of and complicity by the mainstream media — is create a bad situation, and then have the public blame that bad situation on the utterly hapless House Republicans. Then come 2014, he gets a Democrat House.
That gives him two years at the end of his term to ram it all
up our ashome.I’m thinking that’s why Nancy Pelosi is still hanging around.
Typhoon on January 1, 2013 at 11:01 AM
Exactly. Add Lincoln to that — the Emancipation Proclamation.
Paul-Cincy on January 1, 2013 at 11:34 AM