Project 21’s Derryck Green Pessimistic on President’s Performance

Upon the occasion of the grim announcement that August became the 43rd straight month of unemployment over eight percent (and actually closer to 15 percent when using the government’s “U-6” statistic that includes people who chose to leave the workforce entirely), Project 21 member Derryck Green wrote a New Visions Commentary that clearly states that “America is not better off” under the leadership of Barack Obama.

Derryck forlornly asks, “Is this Obama’s hope and change made real?”  He further writes:

This continued bad habit of the President to double down on his failed economic schemes indicates that, when it comes to understanding free market principles, he must be economically ignorant.  It reinforces his ineptitude — an ineptitude steeped in arrogance.

Obama may indeed have “inherited,” as he likes to say, an economic crisis when he took office.  But signs that the economy was in trouble were very obvious in 2008.  As such, fixing the economy should have been his first priority when he assumed office.  It wasn’t.

In noting the continuing crisis of unemployment, skyrocketing gas prices and Obama wanting to repeat his “success” (not) in allegedly fixing the auto industry to the entire manufacturing sector, Derryck adds:

In simple terms, Obama mismanaged a serious problem — making it exponentially worse.

True leaders take responsibility for their actions.  President Obama hasn’t done so.  Quite frankly, Obama has not just failed Americans when it comes to his promise to improve the economy — he’s made things worse.

Derryck’s full commentary is available here.



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.