Accountability issues

President
Obama told NBC News yesterday in an interview that he expects to be held
accountable for his policies but not those of his predecessor. “This is
going to be a choice between the policies that got us into this mess and my
policies that are getting us out of this mess. And I think if you look at the
vast majority of Americans, even those who are dissatisfied with the pace of
progress, they’ll say that the policies that got us into this mess we can’t go
back to,” said Obama. Therein lies the midterm message for Democrats: We
agree that it’s awful, but we haven’t had enough time to fix it — and we need
more.

Obama will
be held accountable for his policies all right, which is why he is running
around the country pumping the Recovery Act at every battery plant he
can find. It’s good politics, because tangible results are what Americans are
thirsting for in a terrible economy where nearly 18 percent of workers are
either unemployed or underemployed. The problem is, there just haven’t been
enough examples of stimulus working because most Americans don’t know where the
money went, don’t believe it created jobs and don’t believe it will create jobs
in the future. After promising the Recovery and Reinvestment Act would keep
unemployment from reaching higher than 8 percent, that it exactly what
unemployment did after the stimulus
program was enacted.

A CBS poll
out this week:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/13/opinion/polls/main6675137.shtml found
two-thirds of the public think the president’s economic policies have had no
effect on the economy, only 13 percent think they have helped and 23 percent
believe Obama’s policies have hurt them.

Because the
stimulus package was enormously expensive and was the very first thing Obama
did in office I explained in my column this week — ttp://digital-staging.thehill.com/opinion/columnists/ab-stoddard/108873-obamas-trust-issues —
why I believe the troubles the Obama agenda ran into all began with the
stimulus. He might spend the rest of his presidency defending it, but at this
point, Democrats can’t mention it on the campaign trail and the public isn’t
buying it.

Indeed
voters will hold Obama accountable for the stimulus at the polls this fall.

***

IS REGULATORY REFORM A VICTORY FOR
OBAMA? AskAB
returns Thursday, July 22nd. Please join my weekly video Q&A by sending your
questions and comments to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com. Thank you.