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Obama Jokes About "Shovel-Ready" Projects But Then Declares He's Not Out Of Touch On The Economy? | Missouri Political News Service

Obama Jokes About “Shovel-Ready” Projects But Then Declares He’s Not Out Of Touch On The Economy?

June 14th, 2011 by mopns · No Comments

The Hill writes today, “President Obama on Tuesday dismissed the notion that he doesn’t fully grasp the scale of economic anxiety in the U.S., calling the idea that he was calm about joblessness ‘nonsense.’ The president rejected the suggestion that Americans think he should be angrier about the poor state of the economy, and strongly asserted that he understands the struggles facing many households because of the slow recovery.”

It’s certainly understandable why so many Americans see the president as out of touch on the economy. Following weeks of bad news on unemployment, housing, inflation, and growth forecasts, Obama responded by saying, “There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery. We’re going to pass through some rough terrain . . . .  We know that.”

But calling the gloomy economic news simply a “bump in the road” isn’t the only reason the president seems out of touch. Over two years after Obama and Democrats in Congress passed their nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill, with promises that it would keep unemployment from exceeding 8%, the unemployment rate is 9.1% and millions have lost their jobs. And yet in North Carolina yesterday, President Obama joked that “Shovel-ready was not as… uh… shovel-ready as we expected.”

Recall that this is after the president and his Democrat allies went on and on in 2009 selling “shovel-ready jobs” that would get funded with stimulus money. Obama said, “…I can say that 14 days after I signed our Recovery Act into law, we are seeing shovels hit the ground.” Vice President Joe Biden said, “The Recovery Act, as we call it, provides a necessary jolt to our economy to implement what we refer as ‘shovel-ready’ projects . . . .” And Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said, “I have heard colleague after colleague say: well, what job is going to be created through this spending? Well, let me tell you very directly. If you have a shovel-ready project, we can put that into place tomorrow. There are thousands of them across the country ready to go.”

But two years later after millions of jobs have been lost and almost a trillion dollars has been added to our debt burden, the president jokes, “Shovel-ready was not as… shovel-ready as we expected”?

Related:

CNSNEWS.com: 1.9 Million Fewer Americans Have Jobs Today Than When Obama Signed Stimulus

Politico: Obama fundraiser underwhelms

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