Obama Pledges to Create Jobs in 2011

In the President's weekly address he promised to "do everything I can" to boost the economy; to create jobs. "In the year that lies ahead" Obama claims he is committed to job creation and growing jobs with an eye towards the future.

With a different president, this might be a reasonable address to the American business person. Coming from Barack Obama, however, the irony is ripe for comment. It is hard to imagine a more anti-business president from recent times. Unless Obama is speaking about government and union jobs, both of which he has focused on like a laser beam and grown out of proportion to private sector jobs, he appears to have little knowledge of how to grow jobs. This is in no small way attributable to the fact that the man has never worked in the private sector or created jobs in any business.

Obama pledges to work with both sides of the political aisle.

"In a few days, a new Congress will form, with one house controlled by Democrats, and one house controlled by Republicans - who now have a shared responsibility to move this country forward," he said. "And here's what I want you to know: I'm willing to work with anyone of either party who's got a good idea and the commitment to see it through. And we should all expect you to hold us accountable for our progress or our failure to deliver."

Thanks to the 'shellacking' which occurred on November 2, the President finds himself without a majority in the House and a limited one in the Senate. He no longer has the luxury of shutting out Republican and the GOP ideas on his policies. He no longer has the luxury of the lie told and re-told that the GOP doesn't offer solutions or different approaches, only criticizes his ideas. Now the Democrats - his party - can be the "party of no" in the House. That's politics.

The term 'witch hunt' has emerged as of recent weeks in the press. Now that Rep Issa is the incoming chairman of the House Government and Oversight Committee, and he promises to do the job, suddenly it is a GOP witch hunt. Some oversight would be refreshing in the House as we didn't get much of that under the guidance of Speaker Pelosi, though she promised the highest level of transparency and to drain the swamp of corruption. Pelosi chose to use her power in pushing through legislation instead of honoring those commitments. So much for all that change the voters expected with Pelosi's history making as the first female Speaker of the House.

President has Senate Majority Leader McConnell to thank for the amount of success he experienced during the lame duck session. McConnell drew a line and said no business will be conducted until the tax policy is handled. All of the Republican senators signed on to that decision as it was presented to Harry Reid. Obama had no choice but to move forward by bringing Republicans to the table.

With the public pledge to work with 'both sides' the time is now to live up to the words. The key is to watch what this president does, not what he says.