JOBS/JOB GROWTH
After 42 months in office Obama has left us far worse off in terms of growing the jobs market. During his campaign, he and his constituents derided the Bush Administration for an unemployment rate hovering around 6%. For nearly his entire term, the official rate has been significantly above 8% as far as the numbers are concerned. Those numbers don't include the under-employed and those who were receiving unemployment benefits but no longer are - which includes a lot of people.
The actual unemployment rate at this point is above 11% and climbing north. Things are not improving in this area. For blacks, the group of Americans who thought they'd benefit the most from this presidency, the unemployment rate is hovering between 12.8% and 14% in different parts of the country. The white house press releases and the presidential rhetoric say otherwise but they don't reflect the facts on the ground.
Obama, in his infinite wisdom, ended the work requirement for welfare. Last time I checked, if you wanted to get people back to work, you don't loosen the work requirements, you tighten them. Now, people who are on welfare can just keep receiving Obama checks without having to show any indication that they are even looking for work or that they at least worked at some point. Thank you Mr. President. I can't get unemployment after working my tail off for the last 22 years but the guy down the block contributing nothing in the way of taxes or productivity has a larger apartment, a serious smoking habit and drinks over-sized containers of cheap alcohol while receiving food stamps and a check for it.
Apparently, this is spreading the wealth. With 23 million Americans out of work and 47 million on food stamps, the administration's performance in this area speaks for itself.
THE ECONOMY
The $825 Billion stimulus was a joke. It stimulated nothing and the folks who perpetrated this disaster (namely the Center for American Progress) didn't have any clear idea of how the spending was related to actually stimulating anything...and they still don't. The net/net of the stimulus package on jobs is that there are about 700,000 more unemployed than when Obama first took office, and this omits those who have given up looking for work or the underemployed, which includes millions of previously employed Americans. Also, remember; the majority of the jobs created or "saved" have been civil servant positions which cost more taxpayer money than they generate, as opposed to private sector jobs.
The President, his administration and the flailing Congress he presided over in the first two years of his presidency spent us into oblivion after running on a "fiscal responsibility" ticket and repeatedly bitching about Bush's war spending.
Remember the promise to "cut the deficit in half"? Remember Obama boldly stating that adding to the debt is "unpatriotic"?
The country has been pushed to the brink and we have had our credit rating cut.
If we want to clarify the facts about spending we can look to the White House itself, which put out these numbers. During his eight fiscal years, Bush ran up a total of $3.283 trillion in deficit spending, mainly from the vast increases in wartime budgets and the growing security/intelligence budgets. In Obama's first two fiscal years he ran up a total of $2.826 trillion in deficit spending: $1.294 trillion in 2010, $1.267 trillion in 2011 and the $265 billion in “stimulus” money that was spent in 2009 that can't be attributed to Bush.
Thus, Bush ran up an average of $410 billion in deficit spending per year, while Obama is running up an average of $1.413 trillion in deficit spending per year — or $1.003 trillion a year more than Bush. This constitutes a greater increase in Obama's first THREE years than in Bush's EIGHT. Got that? More in three years than Bush spent in eight years.
Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the bunch insist all this spending was necessary. However we have to take into account that the average inflation-adjusted deficits through Obama’s first two fiscal years will be more than ten times higher than the average inflation-adjusted deficit during the Great Depression. Even as a percentage of the gross domestic product, the average deficits in Obama’s first two fiscal years will more than three times higher the average deficit during the Great Depression.
Obama’s deficits have, by any standard, more than TRIPLED those of the Great Depression.
This cannot be blamed on the current recession. The basic economics of his spending simply don't make sense. No excuses. Claiming Obama is fiscally responsible is a joke. With Obama in office we're looking at $20 Trillion in National Debt by 2016.
Unmanageable. Unacceptable.
FOREIGN POLICY
Obama has been broadcasting a message of American weakness. A prime example of this is our bending over backwards to reach empty agreements with the Russians on our missile systems in eastern Europe. When Obama took office, the first thing he did was throw Poland and the Czech Republic, our staunch allies in Eastern Europe, under the bus. He then embarked on a program of ceding U.S. global primacy to the regional powers and to radical Islam. Where there was once some semblance of stability, there is now a growing, chronic disorder in addition to a chasm only being filled with a resurgent Russia, a menacing China and a consolidation of radical Islam soon to include an unimpeded, nuclear-capable Iran.
Not good.
The Obama Administration has politically stranded Israel and turned a blind eye to the slaughters in Syria and while allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to make massive gains in power.
The President is supposed to put the priority of U.S. sovereignty and security first. Instead Obama has made the priority global governance and cooperation with the ineffectual United Nations. This administration has been an atrocious foreign policy disaster. Our adversaries see us as soft and our allies see us as unreliable.
The events in Libya have clearly shown us that Obama and his inept administration are a failure in dealing with and reacting to security-related events. Furthermore, they lie, dodge, prevaricate and run with ever-changing narratives. Then, Obama stands there during the debates and says he is "offended" that anyone even suggest he would feed us false information about the murder of four brave Americans during a terrorist attack?
That is precisely what he did. The coverup will have ripple effects for many years to come. Keep your eye on this one. Benghazi will go down as one of the greatest screw-ups in Oval Office history. And just one in a long line of Obama lapses in dealing with foreign policy.
DOMESTIC RELATIONS
Rather than emerging from his victory at the polls in 2008 as a great unifier, Obama has been an incredibly divisive President, carefully choosing sides on issues and events. His handling of Bill Maher's ugly and inappropriate attacks on Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann while taking $1 million in campaign funds from Maher was a clear cut case of selectively "doing the right thing". He was so supportive of Sandra Fluke and was all about women's rights when it came to Rush Limbaugh's disgusting comments. He even called Fluke and offered his support, personally. But when it suited his political agenda he chose not to denounce a fellow liberal who was so clearly out of line.
Obama foolishly inserted himself into the Trayvon Martin case in Florida in a clear attempt to whip up the fervor of black voters. Once it became more apparent that Martin wasn't just some innocent black kid who got shot by an overzealous white guy cruising the neighborhood, Obama and his staff went silent on the case. We haven't heard back since.
The administration's handling of the Fort Hood shooting has been a slap in the face to all Americans. An Islamic Jihadist attacked our servicemen and women on OUR soil while shouting "Allahu Akbar (God is great)", killing 13 and injuring 29. This constituted the worst incident to ever occur on a U.S. base within the country, yet Obama and his crew of goody-goods won't call it a terrorist attack because they don't want to associate the mass killing with radical fundamentalist Islam. He's so intent on making nice with Muslims, he can't even call something what it clearly is - terrorism - because he doesn't want to offend their sensibilities.
One of the issues that was a repeated talking point in the last election was "transparency". This is laughable now. This administration has been the LEAST transparent one in history. After needling Bush and his staff about the Patriot Act, clandestine operations, surveillance, wire tapping and information control, Democrats sat silent as Obama continued most if not all of the Bush-era policies and stonewalled in investigations and inquiries. This administration has provided a thick fog of stall tactics, disinformation and bald-faced lies. And the left has not a word to say about it.
For a group so upset about water-boarding terror suspects and so intent on closing down Guantanamo Bay, this President has our drones knocking off people at an incredible rate with stunningly little coverage regarding collateral damage. Where are the protests? Where is the media once so concerned with the lives of non-combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Let's face it. By now, it's obvious; Obama has done a very good job re-writing his past and the elite media has let him get away with it. The guy has lied about who his father was, where he was born, how he was raised, his education, who he dated, who he associated with on his ascent to the White House and just about everything one would want to know if they were voting for the guy. He and his fellow political cohorts lie constantly about what the president said, what he meant when he said what he said, the decisions he has made while in office and how his policies will affect our lives.
The administration has also taken to editing reporters' work. Lately the White House has actually insisted on signing off on the quotes transcribed or recorded during interviews. Who does this? Just recently, Vanity Fair writer Michael Lewis wrote an article about Mr. Obama for the September issue. The White House ultimately disallowed very little of what Lewis asked to use with almost all of the interview and subsequent discussion remaining "on the record".
ENERGY POLICY & GAS PRICES
Many people may not recall but Mr. Obama said he would allocate substantial government resources and invest in America's renewable energy endeavors. Back in 2008, while campaigning, he said he'd spend our tax money "so that we're not talking about high fuel prices next summer or the next summer after that..."
The reality is that gas prices have more than doubled during Obama's presidency. He has denied offshore drilling near the continental U.S. and blocked the Canadian pipeline through the center of the country which would have lowered oil prices while creating tens of thousands of solid, long-term jobs. He did this while sending billions to Brazil and Mexico for their oil exploration and spending a pile of taxpayer cash - more billions - to fund failing solar panel manufacturers like Solyndra after the financial advisers on his own cabinet warned him that these were highly risky propositions that were likely to crumble.
There is no energy policy in this country and the current administration has no plan to summon one up. Obama gets a clear F on energy policy.
TAXES
Originally, Obama and Biden promised that there would be no tax increases of any kind on families making less than $250,000. The truth is that the administration brought us the individual mandate policy, which will give us all massive tax increases year after year once Obamacare kicks in. We have also seen an increase in taxes on things like tobacco and tanning. This amounts to $670 billion in new taxes over the next ten years. (House Ways & Means Committee 2012 report).
Free health care? Trust me, you're paying for it, just against your will.
If re-elected, Obama will see to it that taxes are raised for millions of middle class, upper middle class and "wealthy" Americans while nearly half the country still pays ZERO Federal Income Tax. This is bad for the economy and is a blatant redistribution of wealth that runs counter to one of the most fundamental doctrines of our free market democracy.
The Obama Administration would have us believe that a tax increase on only the most wealthy will help solve our impending debt crisis. It wouldn't even begin to put a dent in it, but it will indeed slow growth by sharply cutting into peoples' disposable income.
We're being fed populist lies tinged with socialist rhetoric and cues. Don't fall for it.
PARTISANSHIP
There are people who still argue with me about this. I pity them for they have obviously lost their minds. For those who haven't been asleep over the last several years we all can harken back to Obama's famous speech at the 2004 DNC convention when he stated:
"There's not a liberal America and conservative America; there's the United States of America!"
There are many different Americas within this great nation but this statement, coming from Obama, is probable cause for hysterical laughter. This past June, the Pew Research Center found the partisan gap between Democrats and Republicans, based on 48 core issues, is larger now than at any point in the last quarter century: an increase of 29%. Other political analysts such as Charles Krauthammer have proclaimed the country to be more polarized than it has been in over 50 years.
Congress has been stalled for four years and Obama has shown that he is incapable of working with his peers across the aisle. In fact, even with both the Senate and the House having Democrat majorities in the first half of his term as President, he hardly got any legislation pushed through.
Dismal.
HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS
On December 15, 2009 Obama promised us that his healthcare reforms, to take full effect in 2014, would reduce families' healthcare costs. The reality is that the average premium workers pay to insure their families has increased 17.5% since Obama has been in office (Kaiser Family Foundation study).
This number is due to increase further. Obamacare, if fully implemented, will bankrupt the country and make our healthcare system a quagmire of mismanagement, overcrowding and poor service.
Obama's vision for government mandated health coverage will serve to fracture this country and greatly endanger our future. If you believe it will work, you very plainly do not understand the Obamacare legislation.
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It's election time. We have to do what is best for America. Forget what party you usually vote for or how you are registered. Forget the silly language about Republicans not caring about healthcare or Medicare or Medicaid. It's nonsense.
Obama has taken a wrecking ball to the country, the management of the Federal Government, domestic and foreign policy and keeping his house in order as President. He is essentially a case study in how NOT to govern and he has shown an apparent disdain for the tenets of what makes these United States of America THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
I didn't even get to Operation Fast & Furious and the ensuing cover up by Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder - a criminally negligent debacle and international embarrassment, or;
...how Obama screwed the GM bondholders and 20,000 Ohio non-union workers while giving a huge handout to the unions during what amounts to a sloppy, unscrupulous government takeover of General Motors or;
...the Obama Administration taking credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden after consistently and harshly criticizing the Bush Administration's policies of rendition and enhanced interrogation, which enabled us to find Bin Laden in the first place.
One could go on and on with the list of gross failures, lies and hypocritical positions of the Obama Administration but the writing is already on the wall.
If we don't see the facts and their meaning as a nation and get ourselves a new Commander In Chief, it is us who have failed.
