Observers are holding their collective breath before President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated speech on the economy on Thursday evening, in which he will lay out a jobs creation plan.
Some media, such as 24/7 Wall St, are pessimistic and recall that the seven biggest presidential speeches on the economy failed. Others, like The Nation, prefer to encourage the President, who is likely to face Republican Party resistance:
“Notwithstanding the skepticism and the real political obstacles he faces, President Obama is not powerless to act. In fact, there are many ways he could brighten the darkening circumstances and reshape national destiny. A president has discretionary authority, especially in an emergency, to make seismic changes in fundamental policies—without receiving Congress’s approval or even consulting it in advance.”
The Nation also proposes four big strokes that the President could take to stimulate job creation: “Write down mortgage debt for the millions of “underwater” homeowners facing foreclosure, enact trade and tax reforms to shrink US trade deficits and penalize the off shoring of jobs, let government create jobs if the private sector won’t or can’t, let the Federal Reserve lend direct financial support.”
Meanwhile the candidate for 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination Mitt Romney unveiled his own plan to rejuvenate the American economy this past Tuesday, notably advocating the repeal of President’s Obama’s health care law and the cutting of the corporate tax rate.
Two new polls found low support for President Barack Obama and his economic policies. The ABC News/Washington Post survey found that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of his action and the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicated that 51 percent voiced disapproval.
These figures should worry the President if one believes The New York Times, which reported in June that employment data is ironically the key to the President’s job:
“No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.”
According to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent in August.