Obama and the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations 3

In the first two articles in this series, we've explored the astounding failures of President Barack Obama which, in any other president, would have led to him being forced by party elders not to run for re-election or, at the very least, a resounding defeat at the polls.  Instead we seem to have around half the electorate fully prepared to pull the lever for a man who has lost two wars and dumped billions of taxpayer dollars directly into the pockets of his financial supporters, in acts of corruption unprecedented not in nature but certainly in size.

Well, let's face it: wars on the other side of the planet don't really affect most Americans on an everyday basis, and people complain about their wasted tax dollars all the time.  But there's one more monumental failure that affects each and every American each and every day, even the 1% of plutocrats on top: the economy, or as we more accurately describe it, the Obama Depression.

Failure By Any Measure

Let's be perfectly clear: the financial collapse of 2008 was not Mr. Obama's personal fault.  Yes, he supported the regulatory policies that led directly to the housing bubble and crash by forcing banks to make loans to people who had no hope of paying.  But he was just one Senator among scores, just one Democrat among thousands, all agitating for the same corrupt stupidity.

So it's not fair to blame Mr. Obama for the problems he inherited.  In fact, we don't; let's totally disregard them.

Instead, let's consider what has taken place exclusively within Mr. Obama's term as President, by definition under his responsibility and authority.  The New York Post offers up a devastating summation:

No president has been re-elected with unemployment above 7.4 percent; the unemployment rate is now 8.1 percent. No president has been re-elected with a significant majority of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track; that number’s between three-fifths and two-thirds of all Americans. No president’s been re-elected with the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index below 90; it’s hovering around 70.

Let's get even more specific.  When Barack Obama assumed the Presidency in January 2009, the labor participation rate was 65.7%.  This means that, of the people available for work - i.e. not kids, the elderly, the disabled, and prisoners in jail - 65.7% of them were working.

What of the 34.3% who weren't?  For some that was their own choice - housewives, say, or early-retired successful entrepreneurs.  Considering that the unemployment rate in January 2008 was 7.8%, though, that's 7.8% of the population who wanted to work but for whatever reason couldn't.  We should also note that that 7.8% unemployment rate was higher than any unemployment rate suffered in any month in George W. Bush's second term - he who presided over the financial collapse of 2008 that swept Obama into office!

Well, one could hardly expect Mr. Obama to fix the economy on Day One of his presidency, could one?  No.  But it's been four years, and for each and every month of those four long years, the unemployment rate has never been lower than that 7.8% he inherited.  All but one month has been worse, often much worse.

At what point does the bad economy become Mr. Obama's responsibility?  The second month?  Six months maybe?  A year in?  Can we at least agree that today, after nearly one complete term of Mr. Obama's presidency, the burden of the economy rests solely on his shoulders?

Mr. Obama has entirely, completely, and totally failed to reduce unemployment.  Thus it should be no surprise that the labor participation rate has gone in the wrong direction too.  Today it's 63.6% - lower than anything suffered under George W. Bush, lower than anything suffered in Mr. Obama's first year, in fact the second-lowest rate of Mr. Obama's entire presidency - and the actual lowest rate was just the previous month, August 2012!

And Mr. Obama wants us to believe we're on the road to recovery!  A child can see that we aren't - in fact, my children can, and have actually suggested a switch to rice and beans in an attempt to staunch the fiscal bleeding in our family.

We're not quite that desperate yet, if for no other reason than because that diet would create as much hot air as a Joe Biden stump speech.  All too many American families are directly suffering in the same way and for the same reasons.

The President knows this, which is why - surprise, surprise! - this month's statistics show a mysterious leap in total employment.  Where did it come from?  What caused it?  Why aren't any of the other statistics changing?  Nobody knows, which is why highly experienced experts like Jack Welch are condemning the number as phony.

Americans may not be as deep into the numbers, but they know how the economy feels, acts, and smells - like a dead, stinking whale carcass.  Mr. Romney hammered Mr. Obama with this in their recent debate, and again the President had no answer:

...When the president took office, 32 million people on food stamps; 47 million on food stamps today. Economic growth this year slower than last year, and last year slower than the year before. Going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it for the American people who are struggling today.

So why on earth are so many people still even considering giving an incompetent President another four years to mislead us?

That's the question we'll explore in the final article in this series.