From Washington Post:
Peter Orszag, a former senior White House economic adviser, said the administration has underestimated how much the nation’s massive mortgage debts would weigh the economy down after the financial crisis.
The Obama effort fell short in part because the president and his senior advisers, after a series of internal debates, decided against more dramatic actions to help homeowners, worried that they would pose risks for taxpayers and the economy, according to numerous current and former officials. They consistently unveiled programs that underperformed, did little to reduce mortgage debts owed by ordinary Americans and rejected a get-tough approach with banks.
This is the kind of statement that absolutely infuriates me. Why? Because it's the culmination of the following statements:
"The administration underestimated the depth of the recession."
"The administration underestimated the lack of cooperation from the republicans."
The administration underestimated the seriousness of the situation."
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Lets put it this way. I will vote for Obama this election but I will be wincing doing it. How the fuck do you UNDERESTIMATE what the majority of the country, if not the world, saw clearly? In fact, his actions above on the housing effort, if true, are pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. This is the ONE issue that everyone and their mother can clearly understand the implications of in terms of not doing anything or doing very little. Either this President truly didn't understand the seriousness of this crisis, which is unforgiveable, or he did and personally decided the best approach was to talk democrat and act quietly republican in his actions. Given his history on other issues, I'm not completely sure that wasn't the real plan.
We have a man in the White House who, time and again, ignores his mandate. Hopefully the power of groups like Occupy Wall Street will have some sway with him in the upcoming election. Given what I've seen, I don't think he cares all that much about what democrats want. He's shown us that time and again with his compromises, watered-down actions and downright surrender of issues we fought to elect him for.