Half Of The Public Believes Republicans Are Intentionally Tanking The Economy

There is no doubt as to who crashed the American economy and threw the nation into a continuing recession -- costing the United States millions of jobs. It was George Bush and his congressional Republican cohorts. They did it by doubling-down on the trickle-down economic policies they have been following since the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The only real question is why government has done virtually nothing to help bring the country out of this jobless recession.

The Republicans want to blame President Obama. They say it is now his economy, since he has been president for over three years, and he must take the blame for failing to institute policies that would spur economic growth and job creation. The Democrats say it is the fault of Republicans, who have obstructed everything the president has tried to do to stimulate the economy and create jobs. They point to a meeting the Republicans had when President Obama took office, in which they agreed to block anything the president tried to do. Democrats say the Republicans are deliberately hurting the economy to hurt the president's chances of re-election.

So, what does the American public believe? Do they believe the Republicans are intentionally blocking an economic recovery to hurt the president? The folks at Public Policy Polling decided to find out. They conducted a survey of 1,000 registered voters between June 7th and 10th. Here's how it came out:

DO YOU THINK THE REPUBLICANS ARE INTENTIONALLY STALLING EFFORTS TO JUMPSTART THE ECONOMY TO INSURE THAT BARACK OBAMA IS NOT RE-ELECTED, OR NOT?
They are...............49%
They are not...............40%
Not sure...............11%

It looks like a bigger portion of the public (about half) believe the Democrats in this argument. And it's hard to deny that the Republicans have done nothing but say no and block all the president's efforts. But we need to be careful. By saying the Republicans are intentionally blocking recovery efforts, that could be taken to mean they know how to improve the economy (and will do so if elected). That simply isn't true. They still believe in the same failed economic policies that caused the recession, and if they are elected, they will return to those policies (and throw the nation even deeper into recession).

The Republicans have been obstructing the president, and they have done it intentionally to hurt his presidency. But there economic policies have been the same for more than 30 years now. It's a bad policy, but they have nothing better to offer. That's why they have been trying to shift the blame for their own economic failure on to the president.