The Obama Economic Record = FAILED

Obama: It is anyone’s fault but mine. Not so.

President Obama has told us repeatedly that the financial crisis he inherited was George W. Bush’s fault. But a closer look reveals that while Bush spent more than Republican presidents generally spend, it fell far short of what “tax-and-spend” Democrat presidents typically spend. An even closer look reveals it was Democrat policies that created the dangerous economic conditions and the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac trigger that set off our financial crisis.

So the financial crisis inherited by Obama was in great part caused by himself and his own party. Obama’s blame game is not only based on a politically motivated fabrication, even if it were true it serves only to distract us from Obama’s responsibility as president to deal effectively with the crisis. It has been his economy for years and his record cannot be hidden or spun away. The Obama economic record gets a failing mark. He has managed to give us the worst economic recovery in 70 years. That is not hype, it is fact.

He not only blames former president Bush, he also blames Republicans for blocking his recovery plans. Yet for the first two years of his presidency, his party was in complete control of Washington and he passed almost every item on his agenda. So once again, he attempted to place responsibility for his failure on anyone but himself.

It should also be noted that while Obama dishonestly accuses Republicans of doing nothing, the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed a budget every year in addition to passing over thirty pro-growth bills, including many jobs bills. In contrast, the Democrat controlled Senate is constitutionally required to submit an annual budget, yet they have not done so in almost four years. They have also refused to vote on the many bills submitted to them by the Republican House. It is Obama’s own party in the Senate that has done virtually nothing to deal with our economic problems, not the Republican House. So President Obama is not only an ineffective leader, he is also blatantly dishonest.

Let’s take a look at Obama’s more obvious failures:

• Our nation’s unemployment rate has exceeded 8 percent for more than three years—the longest period over 8 percent since the Great Depression.
• He promised to cut the deficit in half. Instead, he increased it, dramatically.
• He told us that his budget achieves $4 trillion in deficit reduction and recently claimed, “Since I’ve been President, Federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in 60 years.” – yet he gave us unprecedented trillion-dollar deficits for four consecutive years and added over $5 trillion in new debt in just three years—more than all other presidents from George Washington through George H. W. Bush, combined!
• Since he took office, he has piled on a slew of new government initiatives, including an almost trillion dollar stimulus and a massive new healthcare entitlement.

Obama’s fiscal record has been a failure by any honest, credible measurements and his assertions to the contrary are more than misleading. His budget proposals for the future would perpetuate his failed policies and make an already dangerous fiscal situation worse.

Some more things to consider:

Measuring Obama’s record relative to the economy also shows that he has boosted spending sharply above historic norms. Federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of the economy during the past 50 years. Not only did Obama significantly increase spending by 21 percent from 2008 to 2009, but he kept it far above the historic norm well after the end of the recession in mid-2009.

• Spending surged 18% in 2009 reaching 25% of GDP – the highest since World War II
• Deficits have exceeded $1 trillion in each year of Obama’s term
• Gross debt has increased over $5 trillion since Obama was inaugurated
• Even adjusting for a weak economy and Bush-era policies, President Obama has signed legislation increasing annual deficits by $1.6 trillion over his term
• Republicans in the 112th Congress have stopped the spending spree and have forced Obama to accept over $2.3 trillion in future deficit reduction
• Spending surged a remarkable 18 percent from 2008 to 2009 – a rate of growth in year-over-year spending that has occurred only once since 1960.
• Spending will be 22 percent higher at the end of the Obama’s term compared to when he took office and is projected to continue higher under his proposed 2013 budget.
• The deficit soared to $1.4 trillion in 2009 – a 208 percent and $958 billion increase above the previous deficit record.
• Obama added nearly a $1 trillion stimulus package within a month of taking office .
• Non-defense discretionary spending increased by 10 percent from 2008 levels in that year alone.
• He pursued the creation of a new open-ended healthcare entitlement funded by huge tax increases, a raid on Medicare, and gimmicks to hide its true cost.
• He added even more to subsequent year deficits compared to those projected at the time he took office and has made no progress in reducing them.
• His 2012 deficit is projected to be 173 percent larger than the 2008 deficit before he took office, and each of his four years in office produce record deficits in excess of $1 trillion.
• Over the longer term, his budget request would keep deficits higher than any level experienced during the Bush administration, never dropping below $488 billion.

Bottom line: Obama spent much more than the government took in.

Our national debt could destroy us

The result of record deficits has been an explosion in government debt since Obama took office. Gross federal debt increased by 19 percent from 2008 to 2009, and is on pace to increase by 62 percent by the time Obama finishes his term. The debt would double in just eight years versus when Obama took office assuming his budget is implemented.

Our debt is projected to be higher than the total of everything we produce as a nation.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Obama’s fiscal record is the amount of debt he has accumulated versus the nation’s ability to pay for it. Gross debt jumped from about 70 percent of GDP in 2008, to 85 percent in 2009 – a 22 percent increase in just one year and by 2014, it is projected to reach 110 percent of GDP. Particularly troubling about this is that a larger share of the future economy will be absorbed by higher interest payments resulting in more tax dollars being diverted away from government services and paid to creditors, many of whom are foreign nations. With the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates artificially low, debt service costs (interest payments on loans) have not risen significantly, but once rates normalize the additional cost could run in the trillions.

President Obama’s own budget makes this clear by stating:

“Beyond 2022, the fiscal position gradually deteriorates mainly because of the aging of the population and the high continuing cost of the Government’s health programs. By 2030, the deficit is projected to be 4.5 percent of GDP, and by 2040 it is nearly 6 percent. The deficit continues to rise for the next 75 years, and the publicly-held debt is also projected to rise persistently relative to GDP.”

Despite sharply higher taxes, Obama’s budget would remain woefully unsustainable. Out-of-control spending is clearly the root of the problem and Obama has no plan to address it.

Note: Obama’s budget was so bad that not even the Democrats would vote for it.

Obama is a blamer not a solver

Presidents usually enter office to solve problems and not to blame their record on their predecessors. President Reagan could have said he “inherited” a weak economy, high taxes, soaring inflation and interest rates, a weak defense in the face of the Soviet threat and done nothing about it. Instead, he took action to address all of these problems that he could have claimed he “inherited.” Even so, if one removes the effects of enacted laws and economic conditions prior to President Obama taking office, his fiscal record is still dismal.

Republicans managed to slow the rate of spending but much more needs to be done.

With the election of a Republican House of Representatives in 2010, the spending explosion ended. The Republican House immediately stopped the huge increases occurring in discretionary appropriations and fulfilled the Speaker’s goal that any increase in the debt limit should be accompanied by a greater amount of deficit reduction through spending cuts and reforms. While a Republican House has slowed the growth in spending, much more needs to be done in order to avoid a fast approaching fiscal crisis, and it will take both strong Presidential and Congressional leadership to achieve it.

Another Obama term could literally destroy us!

Sources: U.S. House of Representatives—House Budget Committee and other government sources.

He has some ideas about Obama’s hidden school records

When a Columbia classmate challenges Obama, it is worth a read.

Wayne Allyn Root, a former classmate of Barack Obama at Columbia University, Class of ’83, has his own ideas about why Obama has spent millions to hide his Columbia records from prying eyes. Root, one of Las Vegas’ star oddsmakers, says:

I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

Root is well aware of how the nasty Obama-Axelrod style Chicago politics works. He says,

Team Obama has decided to distract America’s voters by condemning Mitt Romney for not releasing enough years of his tax returns. It’s the perfect cover. Obama knows the best defense is a bold offense. Just keep attacking Mitt and blaming him for secrecy and evasion, while accusing him of having a scandal that doesn’t exist. Then ask followers like Senator Harry Reid to chase the lead. The U.S. Senate Majority Leader appears to now be making up stories out of thin air, about tax returns he knows nothing about. It’s a cynical, brilliant, and vicious strategy. Make Romney defend, so he can’t attack the real Obama scandal.

Of course this is the same strategy-of-personal-destruction that Obama has used to win virtually all his elections. It’s simple: He slanders his opponents through insinuations and leaks designed to ruin their reputation and character. At the same time, they are so busy defending all the bogus lies Obama throws at them, they have little time to press Obama for the real issues like his sealed school and health records.

As this is being written, Obama continues to push Romney to release more tax records, thereby insinuating that Romney has something to hide. Yet Obama himself has been hiding massive amounts of important information for years. Then Obama henchmen like U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and the ever-willing Obama Media, step up the attacks on the bogus Romney Tax issue while ignoring Obama’s much more serious issue of his sealed records.

Root says,

My answer for Romney? Call Obama’s bluff. Romney should call a press conference and issue a challenge in front of the nation. He should agree to release more of his tax returns, only if Obama unseals his college records. Simple and straight-forward. Mitt should ask “What could possibly be so embarrassing in your college records from 29 years ago that you are afraid to let America’s voters see? If it’s THAT bad, maybe it’s something the voters ought to see.” Suddenly the tables are turned. Now Obama is on the defensive.

Root guesses that Obama will never release his records because they would destroy his chances of re-election. He predicts,

Once this challenge is made public, my prediction is you’ll never hear about Mitt’s tax returns ever again.

Root adds that not only did he not know Obama at Columbia, but he didn’t know anyone else who knew him.

If anyone should have questions about Obama’s record at Columbia University, it’s me. We both graduated (according to Obama) Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law and Political Science majors. And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia. I certainly thought I’d heard of all of my fellow Political Science majors. But not Obama (or as he was known then- Barry Soetoro). I never met him. Never saw him. Never even heard of him. And none of the classmates that I knew at Columbia have ever met him, saw him, or heard of him.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that Fox News randomly called 400 of Root’s Columbia classmates and never found one who had ever met Obama.

After all these years, the media continues to ignore the very large question: Why would Barack Obama spend millions of dollars to hide something from us? But perhaps the larger question is: Why do we the people let Obama and the media get away with it?

It gets worse. Obama has not only sealed his Columbia records—he has sealed all his records all the way back to his high school days in Hawaii and his stint at Occidental College!

Of course other questions logically flow from the huge cloak of secrecy Obama has wrapped around his past. For example: Is he hiding his school records because of poor grades? If so, how did he manage to get into an Ivy League school? If his Columbia grades were poor, how did get into Harvard? – Yes, those records are sealed too. How did he pay for his costly schooling? If he did it with scholarships, he would have needed good grades.

Wayne Allyn Root has some ideas:

“Here’s my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did he ever change his citizenship back? I’m betting not.

If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:

A) He rarely ever attended class.

B) His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C) He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D) He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr. President. What are you afraid of?

If it’s okay for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go on a fishing expedition about Romney’s taxes (even though he knows absolutely nothing about them, nor will he release his own), then I think I can do the same thing. But as Obama’s Columbia Class of ’83 classmate, at least I have more standing to make educated guesses.

It’s time for Mitt to go on the attack and call Obama’s bluff.”

I’m with you, Mr. Root. It’s time “Mr. Transparency” comes clean and it’s way past the time for the corrupt Obama Media to clean up their act and start serving the American people and the interests of their nation.

NOTE: Obama supporters like to point out that, technically, the school records are not “sealed.” Apparently no court of law has officially sealed them. Of course this does not change the fact that the records are still confidential and unavailable to the public. Also, according to one source Mr. Obama did release a summary of his medical records in which his personal physician “… pronounced him to be in ‘excellent health …’”

Why Does Obama Hide His Records?

It is unprecedented

The Obama school records are still sealed! So are his health records. Most if not all presidential candidates and presidents—directly or indirectly—make their school and health records available to the American people. Bush did, Kerry did, Gore did, and so on. Yet Barack Obama—a candidate and a president who has repeatedly told us how transparent he is—absolutely refuses to release his records. So the obvious question is: What Is President Obama Hiding?

Many have tried and all have failed.

Media reporters, journalists, political organizations, and more, have followed every lead and procedure in pursuit of Mr. Obama’s school and health records without success. His records are either missing entirely or they have been sealed by Obama’s lawyers. In either case, the result is the same: Our president does not want you to see them.

Let’s take a look …

Obama’s High School Records and SAT Scores

Barack Obama attended one of the best private high schools in Honolulu, Punahou School. He has refused to release a single transcript or his SAT scores to the public. Many citizens and media people have tried to get them and all have failed.

Financial aid and scholarship money

Candidate and President Obama has refused to release his financial aid and scholarship records for both Punahou School and Occidental College. His refusal has created an ongoing controversy, which suggests that Obama may have enrolled at Occidental College as a foreigner as opposed to a U.S. citizen in order to receive foreign student aid.

World Net Daily reports:

“In a legal action, handled largely by Gary Kreep of the U.S. Justice Foundation, officials at Occidental College were served with a demand to produce records concerning Barack Obama’s attendance there during the 1980s because they could document whether he was attending as a foreign national.”

When Mr. Kreep petitioned Occidental demanding the Obama records, Obama’s lawyers managed to have the petition thrown out. Hence, Obama’s Occidental College transcripts and financial records remain sealed. Then in 1991 when Obama’s literary agent published a booklet that listed Obama as having been “… born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii” the “foreign national” controversy was reignited. No wonder!

Obama’s Columbia University records plus thesis

Twenty year old Barack Obama transferred to Columbia University from Occidental College in 1981. Once again, many tried and all failed to obtain Obama’s records. As always, they were (and are) sealed. Here’s what the New York Sun had to say in September of 2008:

“The Obama campaign has refused to release his college transcript, despite an academic career that led him to Harvard Law School and, later, to a lecturing position at the University of Chicago. The shroud surrounding his experience at Columbia contrasts with that of other major party nominees since 2000, all whom have eventually released information about their college performance or seen it leaked to the public.”

• Obama’s thesis on “Soviet Nuclear Disarmament” was and remains sealed.
• Obama’s Harvard Law School Records were and remain sealed.
• Obama’s LSAT scores were and remain sealed.

Obama’s Scholarly Articles at the University of Chicago

No scholarly articles by Barack Obama have been found even though he lectured at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Obama’s Medical Records

Candidate Obama—now President Obama—has refused to release his medical records. In doing so he has broken a very long standing practice of presidential candidates and presidents. It’s simple: They release their medical records—that is, until now.

Obama’s Passport

A clear, fully visible passport of Barack Obama is yet to be released. An unclear, blurry version of it was released on the White House website in 2010.

The most amazing thing of all

Of course it is remarkable on its face that our president blatantly hides these very common documents from us. But the most amazing thing of all is that he gets away with it! Millions of American citizens are so taken in by this man that they are in complete denial of the import and magnitude of his arrogance and his complete disregard for we the people. While he, essentially, says “Screw you.” – his followers say, “Oh what’s the big deal?” It is not only unprecedented, it is a sad commentary on our culture. Where are the grownups? Where is the Great Generation? We are in dangerous waters.

This story also points up the unusually high levels of political ignorance in America today. Many reliable post Election 2008 polls found that millions of Obama voters knew virtually nothing about our history, our system of government, our leaders, or current affairs in general. Of course that explains a lot. It was our first “American Idol Presidential Contest.” Now, three years and seven months later we are on the verge of economic collapse. Yet, ignorance is still alive and well. Far too many among us still don’t realize how alarming our situation is. For them, I will say this only once: Another four years of Barack Obama will most likely destroy the United States of America as we have known it for 236 years. Do you think that is hyperbole? Crazy? I wish it was but the state of our economy, debt, culture, political corruption, and lack of real leadership tells a different story. Barack Obama should never have been elected and the last four years of his presidency should convince all non-radical, informed voters that he must not be elected again.

See, “How Obama Got Elected“

Do not listen to the far left propaganda when they tell you that anyone who opposes Obama is a racist. This is not a racial issue. I have fought against bigotry in all forms my entire life! This is an ideological issue. It is between what our founders designed—what has made us the most fair and the most successful nation in world history—a constitutional, small federal government republic, versus a big central government made up of powerful politicians who think they know more than we the people. It is an old story. It is exactly what our founders fought against. It is simple: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more power we give our politicians, the more corrupt they will become. Believe it because history has proven it over and over again and Barack Obama is at the very least a big government politician. To think otherwise is naïve.

Final thoughts …

All Americans should demand the release of Barack Obama’s records. Whether some of you like to hear it or not, Barack Obama has a long history of deception—including his refusal to release his school and health records. You can find countless examples of it here on this website and we have not even scratched the surface. It is not hype. It is all well documented. Make no mistake, ignorance is our most dangerous enemy. I fully understand how hard it can be to accept the truth, but if we really care about our great country, we must face up to every truth about every one of our leaders and there is no better place to start than with our president.

Here is what the Washington Times had to say.

Final final thoughts …

People hide information about themselves because they don’t want others to know it. The reasons for their secrecy cannot be known for certain without having access to the information. If the reputation and character of the secretive person is important to other people, the mere fact of the secrecy becomes important. Moreover, the perceived significance of the hidden information grows the longer the information remains hidden. People then assume that the hidden information must be damaging or else it would be released.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Senator John Kerry, the Democrat nominee, refused to release his college transcripts. His reasons for the secrecy became clear six months after he lost the election when, under continuing pressure, he finally released them.

Here’s the story:

The media and the Kerry campaign created a narrative that portrayed Kerry as a smart intellectual and his opponent, George W. Bush, as someone less than that—even dumb. It was an old Liberal, Saul Alinsky strategy: Attack the competency or character of your opponent instead of debating the issues. They had, unsuccessfully, used the same strategy against Ronald Reagan. It would fail against Bush as well. Even worse for Kerry, when his transcripts were made public six months after the election, they revealed that the “brilliant” John Kerry received four D’s in his freshman year alone, including (of all things) in his political science course! Yet Bush had received just one D during his four years at Yale and it was in Astronomy. Kerry’s response to inquiring reporters was, “I always told my Dad that D stood for distinction.” Right.

Yet, amazingly, Al Gore used the same strategy when he ran against Bush and, once again, it backfired. When Gore’s transcripts were released, it became painfully apparent to the Liberal intelligentsia that Bush had also outscored Gore! What did my mother used to say? Oh, yeah, “Some people never learn.”

NOTE: Obama supporters like to point out that, technically, the school records are not “sealed.” Apparently no court of law has officially sealed them. Of course this does not change the fact that the records are still confidential and unavailable to the public. Also, according to one source Mr. Obama did release a summary of his medical records in which his personal physician “… pronounced him to be in “excellent health …”

ANOTHER NOTE: I said earlier that George W. Bush had released his college records but according to reliable sources Mr. Bush did not release them; instead someone from within Yale University leaked them.

See also:

• Columbia Classmate Challenges Obama

We really, honestly cannot afford to reelect Barack Obama!

After just 3 years and 7 months of Obamanomics we are on the verge of economic collapse. That’s not hyperbole my friends; it is the unavoidable truth. Forget about what he inherited. Reagan inherited a similar situation and he turned it into the longest peace-time continuous period of economic growth in U.S. history. Obamanomics has failed on a scale reminiscent of the 1930’s and if we don’t grow up, face the facts, and make some seriously mature decisions, America may never recover. (See Obama Economic Record)

I think it instructive to read the following. It was written as a cautionary tale during the 2008 Presidential Election.

Originally posted during the 2008 election campaign.

A worrisome opinion on our Presidential Election 2008:

So America, are we really going to do something incredibly self-destructive, like elect a radical politician from Chicago who is probably the least qualified presidential candidate ever?

Please forgive me for being just a tiny little bit concerned and for thinking that this would be the most irresponsible thing we could possibly do. In fact, it concerns me so much that I asked as many Barack Obama supporters as I could find to tell me why they would vote for him. Here is what they told me:

• “He has a good voice.” Someone actually told me that!
• “He’s a great speaker.” He almost always uses a teleprompter to deliver carefully constructed speeches.
• “He is a good debater.” So why don’t we just have an “American Idol Debater Contest” and the winner gets to be Commander-In-Chief of the most powerful military force in the history of the world? Forget about silly things like experience and other foolish qualifications.
• “I like what he says.” Since he has no record of significant accomplishment, why should we believe he will or can keep any promises he makes? (See: Obama’s Broken Promises. Now there is a record.)
• “He’s black and it would be really good to have a black president.” Yes, it would be great, but how about a black president who is actually qualified to be president? There are many such men and women in our country right now, but Barack Obama is not one of them.

Look, I want to know as much about the candidates as I can. Yet, what every Obama supporter I spoke with left out was, “He is the most qualified candidate.” No one even mentioned it! So I asked some more questions:

• Does it matter that he has not even finished his first term in the senate? (Answer: No.)
• Does it matter that he has missed 306 votes and has spent most of his time in the senate running for president? (Answer: No.)
• Do you care about his very real history of radical associations? (Answer: No.)
• Does it matter that both Hillary Clinton and his running mate, Joe Biden, said that he is not qualified to be the President of the United States? (Answer: No.)

You get the idea. So what is going on here? Well, apparently, we have become an “American Idol” nation. (See: How Obama Got Elected.) Too many of us are acting like characters in a Hollywood movie instead of responsible citizens of the most precious nation in world history.

This is not complicated, folks. One candidate is eminently qualified to be president and the other is seriously unqualified. One candidate has spent most of his life fighting for political reform. The other candidate has no such record and has spent most of his short time in the senate making grandiose speeches full of promises in order to persuade you to make him the most powerful man in the world.

Come on America, we are not in a Hollywood movie and this is not an “American Idol” contest. Let’s get serious. Are we really going to do something incredibly self-destructive in presidential election 2008, like elect the least qualified presidential candidate ever?

That was then. Let’s get it right this time!