A series of recent articles have prematurely called time on Barack Obama’s presidency. Bartle Bull, in April’s Prospect, wrote that ‘the Obama White House is in trouble’. An Economist leader declared: ‘His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy … had hoped.’ Even the normally positive Jonathan Freedland suggested in early April that there are ‘muttered grumbles that the 44th president might turn out to be neither a new FDR nor a JFK, but a JEC – Jimmy Carter [who failed to win a second term]’.

Their story is that Obama is undertaking the greatest expansion in the federal government since FDR and that this is making him unpopular. Bull goes further and suggests that Obama is making a ‘false’ comparison between the current crisis and the Great Depression to spuriously justify his plans for universal healthcare, energy and education reform.

Let’s be clear: Obama outlined these policies at the announcement of his presidential campaign in February 2007, months before credit markets clogged up. It matters little whether this is the second, third or fourth worst recession since the Great Depression, it is very bad with millions out of work. But Obama’s insight all along has been that the American economy was weak before the downturn because, among other problems, it left 47 million people without health insurance, had seen educational standards decline and suffered from a creaking infrastructure that lowered its competitiveness. On top of this, the OECD recently reported that, ‘The United States is the country with the highest inequality level and poverty rate across the OECD, Mexico and Turkey excepted.’ These problems have made the impact of the recession on ordinary people far worse than it would otherwise have been. There is no ‘cabalistic secret agenda,’ as Bull claims, the US simply cannot afford to deal exclusively with the housing and credit crises.

As to the collapse in Obama’s popularity, the articles are wrong and make selective use of polling to ram through their point. Pollster.com tracks and averages Obama’s approval ratings. They find that Obama’s net approval has never been below +25. This contrasts dramatically with Bull’s claim, based on a much criticised Rasmussen poll, that Obama’s favourability had dropped to +6.

Support for his agenda is also sky high. Ruy Teixeira, who publishes a weekly public opinion snapshot, says, ‘the public doesn’t buy the conservative line that Obama is trying to do too much by pursuing health care reform, clean energy, and a 21st century educational system.’ At 76 per cent, there is particular support for the view that, ‘America’s economic future requires a transformation away from oil, gas, and coal to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.’

All that said, a fairer critique of Obama is that he has not yet leveled with the American people on the cost of the agenda that they support. His budget is predicated on cuts in wasteful government spending and a rapid recovery. But even if he achieves this, the independent Congressional Budget Office predicts that within a decade, total public debt will double to 82.4 per cent of GDP. Even if the government pays just 3 per cent interest, this would imply annual servicing costs of nearly $350bn in today’s prices. ‘In the long run, there is no choice,’ says Michael Ettlinger, vice president for economics at the Center for American Progress, ‘we have to bring down the deficit.’

Even by his own more optimistic estimations, Obama will enter the 2012 election with a budget deficit of 3.5 per cent of GDP. He has underscored the need to obtain fiscal sustainability but with few specifics. In short, it is not yet clear who is going to pay for the fairer society and repaired social safety net that the public demands. Having promised not to raise taxes on anyone earning under $250,000, Obama’s options are narrow and politically unpalatable: reform ‘entitlements’ such as social security and medical assistance for the old and poor, slash the defence budget, raise capital gains and corporate tax rates, or raise income taxes on top earners for a second time.

Even before his foreign trip delivered a bounce in the polls, Obama’s popularity remained sound. With the Republican party’s approval at a 25 year low, and its standard bearers doing little but saying ‘no’ (lawmakers in Washington to Obama’s legislation, governors to the stimulus funds that are available for their states), Freedland and Bull’s fears of a one-term presidency look hysterical and hasty. But popularity alone will not pay the bill, and Obama faces some tough choices.