Even the Best Ideas need a Sales Pitch

In a recent poll conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa I was shocked at how poorly the Obama Administration has "sold" it's performance in the last 18 months.

Not unsurprisingly the biggest concern of those polled was the economy- 70% said the economy is mired in recession. Equally unsurprising was the view cited by 7 out of 10people that the top priority was to reduce unemployment. To me, however, what was interesting was that over 50% thought that the deficit was "dangerously out of control".

The US budget deficit is scheduled to reach a record $1.5 trillion-around 10.5% of GDP. That the public is concerned about the size of the budget is clear-but what the deficit really means, and how to go about reducing it appears to be narrowed down to a binary understanding of the problem.

Spending is good, or spending is bad, and the ancillary of this, big government or little government.

The poll revealed that the public was apparently skeptical of the administration's stimulus program and more spending in general. After a year of economic growth led by an increase of first quarter corporate profits up more than 33%, an increase in the S&P 500 of over 36% there were still some 71% that felt the economy is in recession.

Indeed, 63% felt the government was on the wrong track. Well my question is what track do they think we are on? They were unhappy with the $862 billion economic stimulus package, the bailout of General Motors and somehow now two thirds of the respondents felt that the Troubled Asset Relief Plan (TARP) that Congress passed in 2008 to stabilise the financial system was described as an "unneeded bailout" as opposed to "necessary".

If the banks had not been bailed out we would be in a Depression- no question. It is very easy to forget how bad things were in 2008. The world was teetering on the edge of total meltdown. The TARP, ugly as parts of it's implementation were, combined with massive downsizing across the entire economic spectrum stabilised things to a point that we could stop worrying about the patient dying and start to think about life after the crisis.

And that is where we are today. The battle lines have once again been drawn on partisan lines with the average Democrat advocating social spending to jump start the economy and the average Republican decrying the size of the budget deficit and the socialism of the Obama Administration.

The real problem is employment. Everyone agrees we need to encourage employment growth. But no one seems to really want to discuss it. On the one side we have the Democrats struggling with the budget deficit and trying to stimulate employment and on the other hand the Republicans harping on, hoping for Obama to fail so they can introduce austerity budgets and tax cuts.

I think the fact that the successes in the economy are not registered by the mass of the public is because their top priority is employment. Profits flowing into corporate coffers that don't translate into business investment/increased employment reflects the dichotomy of our society.

The Obama Administration inherited much of the mess we have today, and are starting to build some of their own. They should do a better job of highlighting their successes. Things are getting better-it's just that the person in the street that is either worried about keeping their job, or worse yet doesn't have a job can only see their predictiment.

Obama has to move the argument from Democrat or Republican to a discussion of an industrial policy that is focused on employment in America at the expense of short term corporate profits if necessary. This is not spend or don't spend. It's not big government or little government. It is government working in the interests of all its' constituents whose first concern is their livelihood.