Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson is disappointed in you.

In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

Says the guy with the job and the six-figure salary to all of you out-of-work bums.

Why are the American people spoiled brats? Because they don’t know all the good the the Obama administration has done for them. Governing is hard. Obama needs more time. He’s not superhuman. It takes time to get the economic car out of the ditch that Bush put it in (and drive it over a cliff).

Remember when the war in Iraq wasn’t going well, was Robinson sitting there telling the people they were spoiled brats because war is hard? Don’t bother looking.

The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.

Which is what Obama promised to do. “This is the moment the seas stopped rising…” sound familiar?

And one thing [Obama] really hasn't done is frame the hard work that lies ahead as a national crusade that will require a degree of sacrifice from every one of us. It's obvious, for example, that the solution to our economic woes is not just to reinflate the housing bubble. New foundations have to be laid for a 21st-century economy, starting with weaning the nation off of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means there will have to be an increase in the price of oil. I don't want to pay more to fill my gas tank, but I know that it would be good for the nation if I did.

Sacrifice. You sacrifice your job, Robinson sacrifices a couple of soy lattes each month to pay for the extra buck a gallon for gasoline.

There were a lot of people back when the War on Terror was starting up that were perplexed, anxious and even angry that President Bush wasn’t asking the public as a whole to sacrifice for the war effort. Instead, Bush famously told people to go shopping. It was like there was some requirement to suffer. In actuality, Bush saw more clearly than many of the complainers. The way to pay for the war (scroll down to the OMB chart below on war costs as a portion of the federal budget deficit) was to spur economic activity that would increase tax revenues – and it was working until the housing bubble burst.

The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes -- not because they're bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation's income and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don't pay more, there won't be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.

Will someone inform Mr. Robinson that the interstate highway system was funded by a gasoline tax – a regressive tax.

And here’s how to get rich people to pay more in taxes: lower the marginal rates. I’m aware there is a left side to the famous Laffer curve (there is a point at which lowering the marginal rate results in less income), but I’ve seen no evidence that we’ve yet reached it. As ABC News’ Charlie Gibson famously pointed out in one of the 2008 Democratic primary debates, each time the capital gains tax has been lowered, revenues from it have gone up.

You need more money for government coffers? Get people participating in the economy. Get people hiring. Get people working.

The American people aren’t spoiled brats for not being happy with this (from Advisor Perspectives):

For the record, (via Peter Wehner) Robinson had a completely different impression of the American people immediately after Obama was elected.