Monday, October 22, 2012

Obama's Record-Where We Are After Four Years

I was asked recently to research where we are as a country after four years of Barack Obama as president. I found that while there is tons of information out there about the Obama presidency, it wasn't all in one place, so I compiled a short summary. While this list is hardly comprehensive (I didn't even get into foreign policy, which actually could be the area of this president's greatest failure), I think it catalogs pretty well the reasons that it would be an unprecedented disaster to rehire this president:

Unemployment

Job Wages
  • “...while 60 percent of the jobs lost during the 2008-2009 financial crisis were in middle income occupations, the vast majority – 58 percent – of jobs created under President Obama are low-wage. Those jobs include “retail sales, food preparation, home health and customer service.”

  • ...Since the economic recovery technically began in June 2009, median household income has dropped 5.7 percent. And since Obama took office in January 2009, the median income has fallen 8.2 percent, from $55,198 to $50,678.




Federal Deficit

  • . Fiscal year 2012 marked the fourth consecutive year of $1 trillion deficits.  (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/10/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2012)



Gas Prices

  • Average retail gasoline prices have more than doubled under President Obama, according to government statistics, rising from $1.84 per gallon to $3.85 per gallon. (http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gasoline-prices-more-double-under-obama-184-385)


Welfare
  • The welfare reform of 1996 requires that after three months on food stamps, recipients be engaged in some kind of work activity for at least 20 hours a week. Tucked away in the mammoth 2009 so-called “stimulus” spending bill was the suspension of this requirement for able-bodied adults with no children.
The result has been that between 2008 and 2010, the number of these able-bodied adults on food stamps doubled—from 1.9 million to 3.9 million, according to CRS. (Total participation is now at roughly 47 million, or one in seven Americans.)

  • Today, the federal government spends nearly $1 trillion a year on approximately 80 different federal welfare programs. If President Obama has his way, spending will only continue to increase despite welfare already being the fastest-growing part of government spending. (http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/19/food-stamp-participation-doubled-among-able-bodied-adults-after-obama-suspended-work-requirement/)


Stimulus Waste


Life Issues


Religious Liberty

  • Liberal Social Agenda Driving Out Good Samaritans: In the wake of state laws redefining marriage, faith-based adoption and foster care providers in Massachusetts, Illinois, and the District of Columbia were forced to close their doors rather than violate their deeply held beliefs about marriage and the placement of children with married couples. In Washington, the White House refused to renew a grant for a faith-based organization effectively serving human trafficking victims because the group could not, on the basis of conscience, refer their clients for abortions.
(http://www.heritage.org/research/factsheets/2012/06/let-religious-freedom-ring-stop-the-assault-on-our-first-freedom)

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