For years, when faced with any challenge or failure, Obama and his Dem background singers have sung the now familiar refrain of “it’s all Bush’s fault.” Afghanistan, Iraq, Gitmo, the economy, and illegal immigration, Obama has been largely successful in sidestepping responsibility and fault by diverting blame to previous administrations and current Republican politicians. While his poll numbers continue to fall, with the help of the mainstream media, liberal politicians, and pundits who have a vested interest in Obama success, the “inherited problems” have not specifically stuck to the current President.
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This is about to change. One problem honestly inherited and compounded administration after administration is poised to derail Obama. What’s more, it will be virtually impossible for him to pass the blame.
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America’s infrastructure, once unrivaled globally for quality and sheer magnitude has disintegrated into a failing patchwork of antiquated electrical and water grids, crumbling roads and bridges, leaky damns, asbestos filled schools and hospitals, and outdated transportation instillations. While America’s infrastructure has suffered from disrepair and neglect thanks largely to lack of funding for decades, Obama is in the direct line of fire thanks to his colossal “stimulus plan.”
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Unlike other issues in which the failures can be attributed to previous administrations, support for Obama’s “stimulus plan” was largely extorted out of politicians who were stuck between staggering deficits in their own state and Obama’s promise of millions for job creating infrastructure rebuilding programs. However, despite unprecedented debt, increasing unemployment figures, and a general feeling of depression and woe in America, Obama’s “stimulus” has failed to stimulate much of anything.
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To be fair, the problem isn’t that states didn’t receive at least some money to rebuild roads and shore up dams and levees. Faced with bankruptcy thanks largely to unsustainable debt from social programs (welfare generations, illegal immigration, and an aging population) many states used the stimulus money that they received to pay entitlements and stave off bankruptcy.
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The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that it would take $2.2 trillion dollars over a period of five years to repair, replace, and upgrade America’s infrastructure which currently receives only a D rating in quality and safety. However, if Obama were truly interested in stimulating the economy, focusing on these necessary infrastructure projects would result in not only hundreds of thousands of jobs, but would result in a regeneration of the American middle and working classes through local business creation and expansion. This of course provides an increased tax base and ultimately brings prosperity to both the states and the country as a whole.
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However, while limited funding has made its way to the states, the stimulus bill money has largely gone to projects that neither create jobs nor stimulate economic growth. Massive amounts of money have been spent on upgrading computer systems and create web based programs, a pet project of Obama. The Social Security Administration has received $13 billion for computer and internet projects which seem a tremendous amount of money until you compare it to the $28 billion that Health and Human Services has received for the same thing. Millions have been spent on wage increases for government employees, bail outs for union pension funds, while billions have simply “disappeared” into pseudo-ACORN group coffers.
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Were it not for the wildly unpopular Obama “stimulus” plan, failing dams and levees, leaking oil wells, and electric grid outages could be passed on as failures in state government or blamed on past administrations. However, when Obama pledged to the country and to politicians (many who face daunting challenges to their positions) that the money would be used to rebuild infrastructure and create jobs, neither of which has happened, he will be hard pressed to side-step blame.
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To make matters worse, millions spent on signs announcing that the stimulus plan is working and putting people to work have outraged even Obama supporters who contend that it would be more cost effective and honorable to actually use the money spent on signs to fix the problems and hire workers.
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Even if a single term Obama can manage to scrape by another two years without major infrastructure collapse, he will legitimately be associated with any disaster for decades to come thanks to his stimulus con job. Politicians from all parties will blame their crumbling roads; asbestos laced schools, and busted dams on Obama’s financial trick. However, with an ever increasing mess in the Gulf, dams bursting in Iowa, and electric grid taxing heat waves across New England and the East Coast, Obama may not have the luxury of being out of office when it all comes crashing down around our heads.
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