Posted by
Bert Chapman on Monday, September 03, 2012 11:21:01 AM
This week the Democrats are gathering in Charlotte to renominate and start the process of reelecting Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They will distort, deceive, demagogue, and lie about the Republicans to attempt to mask their failed performance since January 2009. Even Maryland's Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley has said Americans are worse off now than they were when Obama took office. During recent Sunday morning talk shows, some Republicans were careful about not saying some voters were unwise in voting for Obama in 2008. I am under no such restraint.
Obama could have used his 2008 election as an opportunity to demonstrate political and economic courage and reduce government spending. Had he done so, even moderately successfully, he could have claimed the mantle of fiscal responsibility and undercut GOP claims to that attribute for several election cycles. Unfortunately, fiscal restraint is not part of Barack Obama's political and ideological DNA. Statist solutions, enhancing government power, and reckless spending such as the economic stimulus, the overreaching Dodd-Frank financial services regulation, and the precipitate plundering of $716 billion from Medicare to fund his health care legislation demonstrate that enhancing societal dependence on the government is the raison d'être of Obama's political and governing philosophy.
The following statistics demonstrate the abject failure of this approach and of his presidency.
According to the Energy Information Administration gasoline prices have risen from $1.79 in January 2009 to $3.55 in August 2012. The federal budget deficit, according to the Office of Management and Budget, has risen from $1.912 trillion in FY 2009 to a projected $3.795 trillion at the end of FY 2012 on Sept. 30. OMB projections show this continuing to rise. The Treasury Dept's Office of Public Debt tells us that national debt was $10.626 trillion on January 20, 2009 and $15.990 trillion as of August 30 with the $16 trillion level expected to be reached tomorrow when the Democratic convention begins. According to Senate Budget Committee Republicans that makes the national debt burden of individual Americans $49,800. The CIA's World Factbook tells us that the U.S' debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio was 67.70% in 2011 ranking it 35th highest among 145 countries and higher than countries such as Pakistan, Iran, and Bolivarian Socialist Venezuela. The U.S. has also seen its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history during the Obama Administration.
It is said that women, blacks, and Hispanics are Obama's core supporters. However, unemployment among women 20 and over has risen from 6.5% to 7.5% during the Obama Administration; black unemployment has risen from 12.7% to 14.1% between January 2009-July 2012; unemployment among Hispanics has risen from 10% to 10.3% during this period. The national unemployment rate has risen from 7.8 to 8.3% during this same time period. The upcoming Friday release of August unemployment figures is UNLIKELY to show any improvement. The actual unemployment rate is probably somewhere in the mid teens since it does not adequately measure underemployed and discouraged work seekers. Do you really think that such an abysmal record of job creation merits reelection? Employers are not likely to hire with an uncertain tax and regulatory environment and uncertainty over the additional costs that will be imposed by the misnamed Affordable Health Care Act.
The Agriculture Dept's Food and Nutrition Service which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps, reports the number of this program's recipients has risen during the Obama Administration from 33,490,000 in 2009 to 44,709,000 in 2012.
The Obama Administration has failed to pass a single government budget during its tenure and has had to rely on continuing resolutions to keep funding the government. In contrast, the last two years have seen House Republicans, under Paul Ryan's stalwart leadership, pass federal budgets on time only to see them languish in the Democratic controlled Senate.
This will truly be an epochal election. Under Mitt Romney's and Paul Ryan's leadership and wisdom, we have the chance to begin taking the painful steps necessary to restore national fiscal solvency and promote job creation. We also have the chance to restructure entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare which are fiscally unsustainable and make them more responsive to 21st century economic and demographic realities by giving consumers more choice. If we reelect Barack Obama and Joe Biden, we increase the mommy and daddy dependency mentality many currently have toward the federal government. We also will increase our national debt, budget deficit, economic stagnation, and create a situation where we are highly likely to experience the economic crisis and social unrest countries such as Greece are experiencing because they lived beyond their means and failed to prudently plan for the future.
On a historical conclusion, all U.S. presidential elections have dealt with consequential issues, had controversies, and featured larger than life personalities. The University Press of Kansas has a series of books on individual presidential elections called American Presidential Elections featuring detailed analysis of these elections. I've read the ones on the 1888 and 1980 campaigns and commend them to you.