President Barack Obama's sagging popularity is not the result of the controversial Affordable Care Act, but rather the nation's slow-growing and lackluster economy, liberal journalist Michael Tomasky says.
"I really don't think Obamacare is the killer.... It's probably more bad than good at this point, but I don't think it's the main thing. The economy is the main thing," Tomasky told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
"I saw this poll last month [asking] do you think we're still in a recession, and 56 percent said yes … [but] according to the economists, we haven't been in an official recession in five or six years.
"But when 56 percent of the people say yes, that's your problem. I mean it's hard to get anywhere else on that."
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As well, a lot of young supporters of Obama have been disillusioned over the controversial surveillance of Americans' emails and phone calls conducted by the National Security Agency.
"Now as far as the young people, the Democratic core constituencies, a lot of those folks, really, really were disillusioned by the NSA stories and the surveillance stuff and that put a lot of people off, younger people, people in those kinds of groups who were big Obama supporters. ," said Tomasky.
He added that Republican lawmakers are behind the lack of movement in the economy.
"I blame the Republicans. The Republicans have almost intentionally done things to keep the economy from improving," Tomasky said.
"Everybody in their right mind knows, for example, that public investment would help pump up the economy. That's not a controversial point.
"It would get money moving into the economy. It would get people on payrolls. It would get people building things. There's just no question that that's true, so it's a no-brainer to do it.
"Why not do it?"
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