When Is It Obama's Fault?

President Truman famously had a plaque on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.”  Events that happened the last century are often frowned on and those who focus on historical statements are derided as someone who wants to take us back to the Fifties.  But, every now and again, our old, white male leaders made an important point.

If in 1946 the buck stopped with the president, where does the buck stop now?  From the way the current president has talked the last five-plus years, the buck seems to hit his desk and ricochet back in time to the desk of George W. Bush.   Can anyone think of something negative President Obama took responsibility for?  He has no problem touting good news that happened while he’s president, but he’s something of a savant at deflecting the blame for gloomy news to others.

The media never seems to call him on it so, let’s pretend this blog is an actual news service that has finally asked the question, “When is it Obama’s fault?”

This post was spurred in part by a news story that pointed out the lack of inventory for home sales in the wealthiest zip codes.  It seems the nation’s richest homebuyers are ready to write a check, but there aren’t enough 20,000 square foot homes for hungry real estate agents to show them.  What this dire circumstance in real estate demonstrates is, under Obama, the rich have indeed gotten richer and the poor and middle class – now with record numbers on food stamps, unemployment and disability – have gotten poorer. 

Spoils going to the wealthy aren’t supposed to happen under a democratic administration but the storyline goes that they are under greedy republican polices.  The facts tell us the reverse is the truth and particularly are so under this president.  Wall Street is in the midst of an embarrassing shower of riches of late, created in large part by democrat-backed legislation such as Dodd-Frank, the auto bailouts and the nearly $1 trillion economic stimulus that was little more than corporate welfare that picked survivors out of the bucket of democrat contributors. 

And there have been plenty of contributors from Wall Street as nearly all lined up to support Obama’s 2012 campaign.  Of course this is nothing new as big business always supports the party in power.  Wall Street never cares about a candidate’s foreign policy or social policy, but it cares mightily about how much they can continue to utilize a financial system they lobbied to create.  It’s precisely why Wall Street supports immigration reform.  It’s not about poor immigrants yearning to be free, it’s a little about brining in new customers and a lot about cheap labor.  The bottom line always trumps good policy.

Nothing that Wall Street and corporatists are doing is new.  What’s new is how shameless Obama talks of division of the classes; saying he’s working hard for the middle class as if he’s only president for one segment of our population.  However, the middle class has been hit the hardest under his presidency and will be hit even harder once Obamacare is fully implemented.  It would be more accurate to say he’s been the president for the One Percent.  If the Occupy Wall Street crowd needs to occupy a CEO’s private residence, may I suggest 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.?