Chicago Sun-Times blasts Obama for cynical leftist agenda

Decision time looms for the American voter. And the choices couldn't be clearer:

At the national level, it's whether to reward or rebuke a Democratic president and majority in Congress that ignored the will of the American people to pursue a liberal agenda at the expense of economic recovery.

At the state level, it's whether to reward or rebuke one-party rule by Democrats in Springfield that has spent Illinois into a $130 billion financial hellhole.

It's hard to fathom how President Obama so connected at an emotional and inspirational level with the voters in 2008 but managed to so misjudge what they wanted from him. Obama was essentially running even in the polls until the economy collapsed and the nation turned to the charismatic but relatively inexperienced junior senator from Illinois to resolve the economic crisis.

Instead, the new administration and liberal leaders of Congress decided to use the crisis to push a left-wing agenda on health care, energy, spending and aid to government employees. A politician who campaigned against cynicism in politics cynically used the nation's economic predicament to advance liberal political causes.

The result has been a train wreck: A health-care plan that is increasing insurance costs, prompting companies to look at dropping coverage for employees, and hampering employee tax-free and health-savings accounts for medical spending. A combination of Federal Reserve moves and regulatory reform that was supposed to rein in Wall Street is putting free bank checking for the middle class on the road to extinction. A stimulus package promising to keep unemployment below 8 percent left 14 million unemployed and the jobless rate at 9.6 percent. And, by the way, housing prices are showing signs of weakness again, and economists fear that they could end up being below the already depressed levels of 2009.