On Tuesday, President Obama signed new funding measures into place, and Colorlines' Imara Jones demands that he exercise the same courage of his convictions regarding economic justice that he's flexed for marriage equality.
On March 26, the president signed a temporary funding measure, called a continuing resolution, to keep the government operating until the end of the fiscal year. The bill finances government operations at painfully low levels and locks in the dramatic budget cuts outlined last month. It marks the third time in as many months that the president has signed off on sequestration.
Consequently, constituencies pivotal to Obama’s victory in November — namely youth, blacks and Latinos — will find it far harder to overcome the most severe economic downturn in almost a hundred years. And that ugly fact is having an impact on him politically.
According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, confidence in Obama’s handling of the economy has plummeted from an 18 point advantage over Republicans to now just four points. This is a stunning reversal for a president who won a landslide victory on his economic vision, and the sequester is a leading driver of the president’s downward trend.
But if sequester is a policy goal of the GOP, why is the public holding the president responsible?
Read Imara Jones' entire piece at Colorlines.
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