Obama Approval Falls as Unemployment Rises

A new poll released Thursday shows that President Obama's approval rating slipped following news that the country lost another 467,000 jobs last month.

Meanwhile, Obama supporter Warren Buffet said on ABC Thursday morning that he predicts the current 9.5 percent unemployment rate still "has a ways to go" before it peaks.

The daily presidential tracking poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports shows that 30 percent of the nation's voters now "strongly approve" of Barack Obama's performance as president and 38 percent "strongly disapprove," giving Obama a presidential approval index rating of –8. Rasmussen's presidential approval index is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve.

Before the jobs report was released on July 2, which Obama called "a day of sobering news," the president's approval index rating was -2, with 33 percent strongly approving and 35 percent strongly disapproving of his performance. The falling index for Obama seems to be linked to the continued loss of jobs. The president also has the tracking poll's lowest ratings yet on the economy, with 39 percent giving the president good or excellent marks for handling the economy, while 43 percent say he is doing a poor job.

The president tried last week to put a good spin on the job loss numbers, saying that "while the average loss of about 400,000 jobs per month this quarter is less devastating than the 700,000 per month that we lost in the previous quarter, and while there are continuing signs that the recession is slowing, obviously this is little comfort to all those Americans who've lost their jobs."

Clearly the American people aren't buying what he's selling. Jobs keep disappearing and unemployment keeps rising, and all the money thrown away on the stimulus plan seems to be a waste. "The administration promised the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent and they promised the stimulus would create jobs immediately," House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. "It's pretty clear now that the administration was wrong."

Since President Obama's stimulus bill was enacted to supposedly trigger job creation, the economy has shed 1.6 million jobs, according to the AP. The White House, though, continues to cite the estimated 150,000 jobs that were created or saved by the $57 billion stimulus package spent so far.

Even if the White House estimates are correct, that means the taxpayers have spent $380,000 FOR EACH JOB. I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that it would have been better just to employ 1.5 million people for $38,000 a year.

Talk now of yet another stimulus package is just going to further lengthen the recession. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Obama's economic adviser, said the White House will "think about over the next several months whether we need a stimulus package and what it should include."

Another ineffective stimulus bill so we can owe more money to other countries and do nothing to get us out of the recession is wrong and bad policy.