The message below was emailed to the White House on 06-09-11 at 0440P.
Dear Mr. President:
I wrote you a very angry message on June 7 in which I said: ” You have been AWOL from the economy for two years, and you have refused to put on the table a serious long-term plan to resolve the federal deficit. I am a strong Democrat and have voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since Adlai Stevenson in 1952. But if an election were held today, Mr. President, I would not note vote for you. You don’t deserve it.”
Today I read a piece by Zachary Goldfarb published in the Washington Post on June 7. He wrote: “Lawrence Summers, then the director of the National Economic Council, and Christina Romer, then the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, argued [in 2010] that Obama should focus on bringing down the stubbornly high unemployment rate. This was not the time to concentrate on deficits, they said.”
In this case you listened to Tim Geithner and decided to do essentially nothing.
When Geithner argued this year that you should put a bold plan on the table to resolve the long-term federal deficit, you listened to your political advisors and decided to do less.
In both cases you took the more timid approach. What has happened to the man we elected that used to talk about “audacity” and “yes, we can”?
Without bold initiatives to stimulate the economy and resolve the long-term deficit, you will probably lose in 2012. And I regret to say that you will deserve this loss.
I urge you to act in the spirit of your 2008 campaign and take bold initiatives to get the country moving again.
Please lead, Mr. President.
Respectfully,
Bill Allen
June 9, 2011