After spending the last few months focused on strengthening gun control laws and passing immigration reform, President Barack Obama has turned his focus to the troubling economy. In a tour of the country, Obama will be stumping for more job creation and economic growth, according to Reuters.
While visiting Austin, Obama was planning to visit a school that focuses on math and science, the president has been encouraging improvement in these two areas as a potential long-term fix for the economy for years.
While speaking through a spokeswoman former presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry is convinced that the best place in the nation to talk about economic growth is the Lone Star state.
"If President Obama is serious about getting our nation's economy working again, then he's come to the right place," spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said. "Texas' success didn't happen by accident. It's a result of policies put in place under Governor Perry's leadership with a laser focus on making Texas a beacon of economic freedom."
Perry has come under some criticism for those economic policies. Perry has touted Texas' lack of government regulation as a positive reason for business' to relocate to Texas. The fertilizer plant that exploded in West, Texas resulting in the death of at least 15 people had not been inspected by OSHA since 1985 and led to speculation that stronger regulation may have been able to avoid the tragedy.
Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, spoke of the need to create "the jobs of the future... to ensure that the skills Americans need to take those jobs are provided to Americans who seek those skills and (to affirm) that the jobs themselves provide the kind of wage and earnings that would give Americans the kind of security that a middle-class life is traditionally given in this country."
Bill Galston, who worked for Clinton during his second term, told NPR, that it's well past time that Obama turned his attention back to the economy
"Because he hasn't been talking it (the economy) consistently, the American people are not hearing him and they don't think he's focused on their problems," Galston said. "It has to be a consistent advocacy of a program to accelerate economic growth and job generation and household income."
In polling a majority of Americans said the economy is the number one issue that they are focused. Yet the president seems to have been focused on other issues lately.
"Washington seems to be obsessed with issues such as guns, immigration, Syria and Benghazi," Galston said. "My guess is that the American people looking at Washington, if they can bear to, are asking themselves: 'Why aren't the people we sent to Washington to deal with our problems talking about what we really care about?'"
