"No Question The Country Is Worse Off Today"
By Bill O'Reilly
Posted on September 4, 2012
The Democrat Convention of 2012, that is the subject of this evening’s Talking Points Memo. First of all, I’ll be travelling to Charlotte on Thursday for the President’s big speech, but for tonight and tomorrow we’ll do what we did last week. We’ll have some Factor analysis and we’ll also bring you some of the speeches. As you may have heard, FOX News dominated the ratings of the Republican Convention in Tampa, beating every TV news operation in the country, and boy are they mad. Thank you all very much.
Now, down in North Carolina, the Democrats are really up against it this year. Their story is grim, and a new poll conducted for The Hill newspaper confirms that. The survey among likely voters asked, based solely on job performance, does President Obama deserve to be reelected?
54% say no, 40% yes, 6% not sure. When asked if the country is in better or worse condition overall than it was four years ago, 52% say worse, 31% say better, 15% percent about the same.
So, you can see the mood of the country is not with President Obama and the Democrat Party. Therefore, in order to defeat Mitt Romney and the Republicans, the Democrats are going to have to do some high stepping. The first thing they’ll do is to tell voters that they are absolutely better off than they were four years ago, they just don’t know it. The Obama team will also continue to blame all the bad stuff on former President Bush.
Vice President Joe Biden: America is better off today than they left us when they left. And if it weren’t so hot, I’d go into detail about why I say that, but let me just sum it up this way folks… You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you. Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.
Bill O’Reilly: Will that bumper sticker be enough? There’s no question that the country is worse off today, despite the Vice President’s rhetoric, than when President Obama took office. And if you’re speaking to somebody who disputes that, immediately terminate the conversation, because that person is irrational - a Kool-Aid drinker.
Take a look at this chart: When President Obama took office, unemployment was at 7.8%. After three and a half years, it stands at 8.3%. Median income when the President took over was about $55,000. Now, $51,000. Gasoline prices in January 2009 were $1.84 per gallon. Now, $3.82 per gallon. That’s painful to working folks and it’s largely ignored by the President. National debt of $10.6 Trillion when President Obama took the oath of office. It is now more than $16 Trillion - an astronomical and dangerous rise. Finally, the budget deficit in President Bush’s last year was $458 Billion. In 2011, under President Obama, it had risen to nearly $1.3 Trillion - again, a dangerous amount of money to have to borrow.
There’s no way the Democrats can spin those facts; they’re in stone. The country’s in trouble, no question about it. But there is a question about how to get out of that trouble. Many voters believe that President Obama has had enough time to improve things. That if a football coach inherits a team, and that team is worse three and a half years later, the coach is out of there, the coach gets fired. But Mr. Obama says, “wait a minute!” His situation is unique.
President Obama: Historically, after these big financial crises where a lot of people are dealing with debt or a collapse of a housing market, that creates bigger challenges. And we’re seeing this, not just in here the United States, but around the world. But, what I would say is that the steps that we’ve taken in saving the auto industry, in making sure that college is more affordable, in investing in clean energy and science and technology and research. Those are all the things we’re going to need to grow over the long term.
Bill O’Reilly: Now, there’s no use in debating President Obama’s opinion. He believes it, and so do his followers. All the charts in the world are not going to change their minds. So it is up to you, the voter, to decide whether Mitt Romney and the Republicans should get a chance to improve things, and therein lies the question mark. Talking Points has said from the beginning of this campaign that the vote will be a referendum on Barack Obama. It will be an up or down vote on him.
The Republican Party knows that, and therefore Governor Romney is going to play it very safe. He’s not going to be drawn into any policy controversy. He’s not going to make any bold and fresh statements. He’s simply going to say that President Obama has failed to bring prosperity to America, and that he, Mitt Romney, will be able to do that.
As for the President, he will say that Romney’s vision will not succeed. But, of course, the President doesn’t know that. It’s a hypothetical. I believe that if America continues its record spending, continues to borrow billions of dollars every day, the economy is going to get much worse, but I can’t prove that. It’s just what I believe. Many liberals don’t seem to care much about looming bankruptcy. They just want to provide social justice, and they don’t really care about the unintended consequences. For them fiscal responsibility is not a factor at all.
So throughout this Democrat Convention this week, you’re going to hear that the Republicans want to hurt the folks by taking away their rightful stuff, and you’ll also hear about how the president wants to help the poor and middle class. And he will tax the wealthy and business owners in order to give the folks more stuff. It’s really useless to debate those points over and over. The Republicans want competition and an open marketplace capitalism. The Democrats want government control of the economy and 'social justice'. You’re going to have to make the call.
Both Obama and Romney want power, and the way to get power is to tell voters that you’ll look out for them. So the rhetoric goes around and around and around and it doesn’t get us anywhere. Talking Points is a big performance guy. The President surely knows his administration has not been economically effective. In fact, he gave himself an “Incomplete” when asked to grade his overall performance. That may be generous, with every economic category down big. With the folks paying $2 per gallon more to gas up. With the nation owing $16 Trillion, “incomplete” seems to be a soft word.
America’s in trouble, and politicians in both parties better recognize it, and they’d better do something about it, or all of us will suffer big time in the years to come. We need unselfish leadership. Abraham Lincoln leadership. And we, we the people, need to recognize the truth: The B. S. has to walk.
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