Comments

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The reason why Trump won those midwest swing states and the election is because of the economy. Period. The unemployment rate refers to people collecting benefits, it is not a measure of people of working age who would like to work if they could find a job. Whatever fantasy the news media would like to entertain about the economy, there are lots of people out there who have barely been able to pay the rent and feed their families. Note too that basically all of the new jobs created since the recession have gone to people with postsecondary education. Which means you have a ton of high school graduates who are still waiting for this "economic recovery" to do something for them. I know that Trump is a charlatan and snake oil salesman, but it's important to know why people were desperate enough to vote for him. They knew that nothing would change if they voted for Hilary. If they voted for Trump there was at least a chance that something would change.
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Berny5: Never mind the over 600 pieces of legislation that the Republicans blocked during Obama's presidency. You know, legislation that would have helped people get back to work. Mitch McConnell laid out their plan in broad daylight ( goo.gl/ZJZXbw )and boy, did they stick to it. Forget about governing, their main goal was to obstruct!

Example: 2011, Obama gives speech under bridge in Ohio (Former House Speaker Boehner's state) to try and plead his case on a $447 billion jobs bill that would have put Americans back to work ( goo.gl/QPGHQL ). Think it passed? Nope. Why? Because at the time, the Republicans main goal was to make Obama a one-term president. Remember?

Oh, how they failed miserably... and let thousands of Americans linger in the unemployment lines while doing so.
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*correction: I meant to write MILLIONS of Americans linger in the unemployment lines, not thousands.
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DB: Obama and Hilary are both proponents of "free trade" treaties that always have an effect of encouraging companies to move jobs overseas. If the jobs disappear, how do you get people employed? You can spend all the money you want on retraining, but if the decent paying jobs aren't there, then that money is just being pissed away. If Obama had just concentrated on funding for infrastructure projects and gave as much lip service to that as he did for immigration reform, he might actually have gotten something done for Main Street. As it goes, he was able to give hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare to Wall Street banks under his quantitative easing program.
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OS: You might note he was also ā€œoff topicā€ to my original comments. I was simply explaining why people voted for Trump whether their reasons were valid or not. And you both are correct that Republicans are stonewallers and as responsible for this mess, if not more, than Obama. Having said that, however, note that one of the biggest propaganda/discussion builder outlets in America is what comes out of the mouth of the President. Over the past 8 years Iā€™ve heard a lot from Obama about immigration reform. I rarely ever heard him address Main Street economics. Bill Clinton had a hostile congress to deal with but he knew how to fight them. Why couldnā€™t Obama see at least by the second year that he was dealing with jerks who had no intention of bipartisanship?

Assuming you still think Obama is an innocent bystander, note that one of his last accomplishments as president is expansion of the H-1B outsourcing program. This is a program that allows foreigners to come to the US to get good paying jobs (much of it in the financial/tech sectors). That means an American can apply for a good paying job that heā€™s qualified for, and then find out it has been given to a foreigner. Should he be thanking Obama? Yes, Republicans are scumbags, but please tell me how this H-1B program reflects Obamaā€™s concern over the plight of American workers who are having trouble paying their rent/mortgages?

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