A sobering new round of polls shows President Barack Obama’s public support flagging as the economy shows little improvement and talk of a second stimulus persists.
“They are definitely spooked by recent continuing job losses and the failure of the economy to convincingly find a bottom,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said of the administration. “Now they’re worried about the second half of ’09 being flat.”
Some economists have been calling for a second round of stimulus spending, saying the $787 billion bill Obama signed in February was too small and hasn’t produced the job creation used to sell it.
The administration has declined to rule it out a second infusion of federal spending, but so far has stuck to defending the first round as not fully realized.
“Were it not for this recovery plan, you would see states in a much, much more difficult place with far deeper holes to dig out of,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. “We’re focused on the implementation of the first bill, and understand and acknowledge that adding jobs is going to take some time.”
Pressure on the administration to show results is increasing. A new Gallup Poll found Obama with a 61 percent job approval rating in June, down from 65 percent in May, and below his previous low of 62 percent in March. Other polls show similar drops in approval.
Cash-strapped states like California present both political and financial challenges for the administration. One scenario under consideration by the administration would allow states to request individual bailout packages, rather than risk a massive political fight over a second national stimulus.
There appears to be little appetite for undertaking a second round of stimulus on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers from both parties are criticizing the slow rollout of initial stimulus funds and pre-emptively denouncing talk of a second.
With damage control in order, Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday heads to Cincinnati to talk up the stimulus — days after a new Quinnipiac poll found Obama’s approval rating in Ohio a dismal 49 percent.
In Virginia, a state Obama flipped to the Democratic column in the last election, the president’s approval rating is 48 percent, according to Public Policy Polling. Both states will be key to Democratic prospects in the midterm races and central to Obama’s hopes for re-election.
Signals from the administration are increasingly muddled. Laura Tyson, a member of the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said in a speech she believed the first stimulus was too small, and blamed White House economic projections that proved rosier than accurate.
Biden this week also said the administration “misread” how bad the economy would be when officials were formulating the stimulus package. Obama, traveling overseas, told ABC News that the prospects for an employment recovery were “something that we wrestle with constantly.”
“There’s nothing that we would have done differently,” Obama said.
