Early on Republicans vowed to sabotage anything Obama proposed. Anything. Some of them even suggested killing him.

But no matter who is President, globalization will mean that incomes in the US will fall. There may be better times, but no good times. We are at the end of the time when we could realistically expect our children to have it better than we.

Any government program which is cut, whether it be a social services program, air quality, worker benefits, any program which is cut for budgetary reasons will stay cut.

We could cut the defense budget in half with no degradation to the security of the US and help things for a while. But that would be fought by every lobby there is. Somehow that would be seen as "unpatriotic", even if we cut it in half we would be spending 5 times as much as all the other countries in the world combined (or thereabouts). As Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest."

Nope, it's not Obama's fault. It is the globalization folks, and is probably irresistable. Follow the money.