What makes Barack Obama such a lousy president? (unemployment rate, Congress, Iraq)
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Disgraced JournoLister Jonathan Alter Asks, "You Think Obama's Been a Bad President? Prove It" .... and here we do exactly that.
Quote:
Obama has failed by his own standards. It's the Obama administration, not the RNC, that said if his stimulus package was passed unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. It's Obama who joked there weren't as many "shovel-ready" jobs as he thought.
It's Obama who promised to cut the deficit in half. It's Obama who said if we passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care cost curve would go down rather than up. It's Obama who promised us recovery and prosperity, hope and change. What we've gotten instead is the opposite.
What makes Alter's challenge particularly delicious is during the Bush years he spoke out about the importance of a "reality-based" presidency (as opposed to a "faith-based" one). "They [Republicans] could end up winning in November by distorting the argument," Alter said in 2006. "But on credibility and the facts, they’ve lost."
With Alter's devotion to credibility and facts in mind, let's take an empirical, reality-based look at economic life in America during the Age of Obama:
• Under Obama's stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs. He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.
• The unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent. Chronic unemployment is worse than during the Great Depression.
• The youth employment rate is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948.
• The share of the eligible population holding a job has declined to the lowest level since the early 1980s.
• The housing crisis is worse than in the Great Depression. (Home values are worth roughly one-third less than they were five years ago.)
• The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the Great Depression decade. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, we experienced five consecutive quarters of slowing growth.
• Fiscal year 2011 will mark the third straight year with deficits in excess of $1 trillion.
• During the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion.
• America saw its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history under the Obama presidency.
• Consumer confidence has plunged to the lowest level since the Carter presidency.
• The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.
• A record number of Americans (44.5 million) now rely on the federal government's food stamps program.
Feel free to add to President Obama's Greatest Failures list.
Barry is an academic who has never lived in the real world. He is still unqualified for the job even after 3 years.
His slow learning curve and inability to "grow into the job" is astonishing. Homer Simpson would be a better president after 3 years of on-the-job training - how can a supposedly intelligent individual learn absolutely nothing from his experience???
Not sure if anyone remembers the worst recession probably in USA history that occurred just before Obama took office. Millions of jobs lost and the banking, housing system collapsing all around us. The Stimulus package to bolster the Banks, the HUGE debt to China, The Iraqi war that cost trillions, the virtually non existent Immigration policy, Enron scandal, deregulation under the two Bush's and Clinton, etc etc etc, All of which contributed to the recession that caused financial destruction during the period BEFORE Obama.
It can now be seen that recovery is on the way and after only nearly three years in Office... Obama is doing as good or even better job than any other President could do under the extreme circumstances. To say that Obama has caused or is making worse the situation from the HUGE recession is just plain Dumb or just anti-Obama rhetoric by Obama haters........
"The July update of the USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index shows real GDP growth, at a six-month annualized growth rate, slowly gaining strength in the second half of the year. Lower oil prices, improved auto production and sales, increased business equipment spending, strong exports and recovery in the multi-family residential sector are expected to push growth above 3% in November and December. High unemployment and continued weakness in the single-family housing sector remain drags on growth."
It is a fact that the last thing to recover after a recession are Jobs but they will recover.
Barry is an academic who has never lived in the real world. He is still unqualified for the job even after 3 years.
Obama belongs in the world of academia. He is an idealist, not a nuts-and-bolts pragmatist. Plus, he doesn't have the necessary temperament. He is too thin skinned, can't take responsibility and has no ability to deal effectively with people who do not share his ideology.
Not sure if anyone remembers the worst recession probably in USA history that occurred just before Obama took office. Millions of jobs lost and the banking, housing system collapsing all around us. The Stimulus package to bolster the Banks, the HUGE debt to China, The Iraqi war that cost trillions, the virtually non existent Immigration policy, Enron scandal, deregulation under the two Bush's and Clinton, etc etc etc, All of which contributed to the recession that caused financial destruction during the period BEFORE Obama.
It can now be seen that recovery is on the way and after only nearly three years in Office... Obama is doing as good or even better job than any other President could do under the extreme circumstances. To say that Obama has caused or is making worse the situation from the HUGE recession is just plain Dumb or just anti-Obama rhetoric by Obama haters........
"The July update of the USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index shows real GDP growth, at a six-month annualized growth rate, slowly gaining strength in the second half of the year. Lower oil prices, improved auto production and sales, increased business equipment spending, strong exports and recovery in the multi-family residential sector are expected to push growth above 3% in November and December. High unemployment and continued weakness in the single-family housing sector remain drags on growth."
It is a fact that the last thing to recover after a recession are Jobs but they will recover.
The games that Democrats played with the mortgage industry gutted this country.
Hmmmm, that was pre- Bush.
This by no means is an endorsement of the Bush Administration itself.
...and has no ability to deal effectively with people who do not share his ideology.
Well he never had to deal with anyone who disagreed with his ideology before. Small wonder he's not too good at it. Clinton was that way too, but even in a backwater state like AK he was exposed to some token opposition. And as president he actually learned to deal with it. Obama just doesn't seem to have any of the qualities that make a good president, or even a good politician...
Considering pretty much everything you listed is the result of the recession that started before Obama took office and officially ended within a few months of him taking office, it is entirely inaccurate. In Econ 101 you learn that jobs are the very last thing that recover after a recession and it can take years and years for that to happen regardless of the actions of the government. It also doesnt help that large corporations are hoarding money in cash positions and not hiring at the rate they normally would.
The things that are listed here would likely be happening regardless of who is elected. Believe it or not, the president can only do so much and does not deserve blame or credit for everything that goes down. Obama has not been a perfect president but if you are going to list things as his failures then at least list things in which he has a direct impact over. He is not a dictator and there is a system of checks and balances in place. The fools that have been in congress during his presidency deserve far more blame for everything than he does.
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