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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joseffy who wrote (58319)	11/4/2012 10:42:25 AM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

Obama's 4 Years Of Deficient Leadership: 47 Mistakes Posted 11/02/2012 07:11 PM ET The Record: Big media and left-leaning pundits are engaged in an effort to revise the history of Barack Obama's four years in the Oval Office. But the facts are clear: Obama is the biggest presidential failure in modern history. Obama is unique among presidents in large part because he fails to even recognize his deficiencies and mistakes — or when he does, he learns the wrong lessons and doubles down on his policies. Whether it's food stamp rolls that have swollen to 47 million, or the decline in household income that has left millions more with a lower standard of living, or the diminution of esteem for America around the world, Obama's time in office has been subpar. A by-no-means-exhaustive list of President Obama's deficient results follows. In four short years, he has: Produced an anemic recovery. Economic growth and job gains have been slower than in almost every other recovery on record. Had this rebound merely matched the post-World War II average, 8 million more people would have jobs and the GDP would be $1.2 trillion bigger. Since the recovery began, real GDP has expanded 7.2% vs. an average at this point since World War II of 15.8%. Put another way, since the start of the recovery, real GDP per person — a measure both of productivity and standard of living — has fallen an unprecedented 1.5%. Created a large pool of unemployed. Official figures vastly underestimate the severity of joblessness on Obama's watch. Millions have given up looking for work, for example, and don't get counted as unemployed. Between January 2009 and September 2012, the number of people who aren't in the labor force shot up 8.2 million, while the number of employed rose just 787,000. Unemployment today is 7.9% — higher than when Obama entered office. Vastly expanded the disability rolls. As job prospects diminished, millions of workers applied for federal disability benefits and more than 3.8 million were approved. Today, a record 8.3 million workers are on disability. The result is millions of workers who are likely never to return to the workforce, and billions of dollars in new Social Security and Medicare costs. Created a food stamp nation. In less than four years, the number of people receiving food stamps has shot up by 15 million. Today, almost one in six Americans is on food stamps. The lousy economy is one reason, but the Obama administration has also pushed to get more people enrolled. Massively increased regulations. The federal regulatory state is one of country's few growth industries under this administration, with increases in federal spending and regulatory jobs far outpacing the private sector. A Heritage Foundation analysis found that in his first three years, President Obama imposed nearly four times as many new rules as Bush did in his first three, with a combined annual price tag of $46 billion. In a second term, Obama's agenda could add $128 billion to a regulatory burden that now weighs in at $1.8 trillion. Hammered the middle class. Median household incomes have dropped 8%, more than during the recession that was ending when Obama took over. From his inauguration to the end of last year, real median household incomes fell 4.7% to $50,054. Only the top 20% have seen gains; every other income group lost ground. Created business uncertainty. In an interview with the Des Moines Register, the president noted businesses are sitting on huge amounts of cash. And indeed, companies have a record $1.5 trillion in liquid assets. Obama said his policies will help unlock this cash if he gets a second term, but they are what have kept this money bottled up due to uncertainty about taxes, regulations and health costs — not to mention "you didn't build that." In a recent poll by the National Association of Manufacturers and National Federation of Independent Business, 55% of businesses said they would not have started up in today's economy, and 69% said the current president's policies have hurt their business. Not lived up to the promises of transparency. The Washington Post, typically a reliable ally of the president, reported that "new evidence suggests that administration officials have struggled to overturn the long-standing culture of secrecy in Washington." Benghazi and Fast and Furious stand out among many other secrets the administration is keeping to itself. Increased the debt by 50%. When President Obama was a candidate, he promised he would halve the deficit by the end of his first term. Yet every budget since he's been in office has had a larger deficit than the year before and the debt, $10.6 trillion when took office, now exceeds $16 trillion. Rather than cut the deficit by 50%, he's increased the debt by that much. Worse, the long-term liabilities we owe are exploding — by one estimated, we now owe $76 trillion more than we'll take in over the next half century or so. We're on the path to potential insolvency, the magnitude of which the world has never seen. ... Three more pages of Obama Mistakes ... news.investors.com