We need more than hope for real change

The truth about “hope and change” is that unemployment is in crisis, home values have dropped 13 percent, worker health insurance increased 23 percent, the cost of gas is up 90 percent, more Americans live in poverty and our national debt has exploded.

The (false) “hope” and (inappropriate) “change” has resulted in the number of workers out of work for more than a year increasing from 15 percent to 30 percent, with 6 million more people living in poverty, 44 percent more people receiving food stamps, the national debt increasing 44 percent, more than $400 billion annual interest on our debt, and payments to the unemployed increased to almost

1 ½ years.

President Obama has many broken promises: ease income tax on seniors, close Guantanamo, give Americans five days to review non-emergency bills, double funding for after-school programs, raise minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, return earmarks to less than

$7.8 billion a year, have negotiations on health care televised on C-SPAN, “cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office,” bring Democrats and Republicans together, help us become oil independent, “create or save” the 3.5 million jobs, new era of “accountability,” “unshakable commitment” to Israel, lobbyists “won't work in my White House,” support for small businesses, and “I'll make oil companies, like Exxon, pay a tax on their windfall profits.”

How can we believe his latest promises? I think it is time for “change.”

Gary Fischer

Iowa City