This week, claims by his big business allies that President Obama is “at his core, anti-business” broke into the mainstream media.  His response?  Fall back on the Democrats’ predictable, unerring theme: when common sense, facts, and numbers conflict with failing policy, simply continue to push more populist rhetoric.

This maneuver has become typical of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Majority in Congress.  Nearly two years into single party control of the White House and Congress, we have witnessed the supposed answers to our country’s dire economic troubles come in the form of just a few pieces of enormous, sweeping legislation – all crafted and negotiated behind closed doors and sold to the public as emergency, “do or die” solutions. 

These supposed landmark agenda items – a government takeover of healthcare, punishing financial institutions, and a national energy tax – are now the cornerstone of Obama’s presidency (not to mention, the coming tax increases).  And now, the word is finally getting out that these policies (two of which haven’t even been passed) are simply bad for the businesses, large and small, that must create the jobs needed for our economic recovery.

One of Obama’s strongest business allies, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, said last month, “By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.”

And that’s big business talking.  Imagine the pain the average small business person is feeling.

In the face of these remarks, Obama went to his populist crutch on Wednesday.  He praised the private sector, acknowledging it as the source of source of job creation, yet failed to address the fact that the uncertainty caused by his anti-growth policies have created an environment where businesses are more prudent to sit on their capital rather than hire new workers.

This tactic of ignoring the actual numbers and implications of their policies and continuing to push the rhetoric of their political agenda may be the last trick in the Democrats’ playbook. Speaker Pelosi has even advised House Democrats to shift focus away from the economy and towards continuing to sell the healthcare law.

As the nation’s debt leapt by $166 billion in a single day last week (the third largest single-day increase in U.S. history), Democrats can only attempt to divert the public’s attention from the facts.  Obama’s recess appointment of the new Medicare Chief Donald Berwick is symptomatic of this – waiting for the cover of Congress’s 4^th of July recess to make a potentially politically damaging move.  And when faced with Republican criticism last week when Minority Leader John Boehner compared the financial regulatory reform bill to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon,” Obama predictably shifted focus away from the actual content of the widely criticized bill and simply chose to call Boehner “out of touch.”