Obama begins his latest email with the following large, friendly letters:
Sometimes, I admit, I just have to do what I’m told. Thankfully, this is not one of those times. So, no thank you, Mr. President. I’ll pass.
This email is all about his record. Lots of pretty graphics, a la Julia. Lots of claims. Lots of facts gotten wrong. But what does it matter? Those getting these messages as opposition research, such as myself, will just shake our heads and laugh at the latest antics that are apparently designed to appeal to a large number of us, and those getting these messages as true believers will hang on every word just as they always have. Like I’ve said before, it’s imperative that this election go landslide one way or the other. For it to come down to a nail-biting cliff-hanger will mean great damage to the already fragile ties that bind us Americans together.
But, because I’m a bitter partisan, I’ll just go right ahead and talk about this latest line of lies and exaggerations and the subterfuge the President and his election staff have concocted for us.
Just. Because. I can.
So, yes, 5.4 million new jobs have been created during the President’s term. That’s great. Every new job is a good thing, even if they are only McJobs. Beggars can’t be choosers and I, for one, am happy there are that many new jobs.
Of course, I won’t leave it at that. No, the real problem isn’t that there were than many new jobs created, the problem is that we have no way of knowing if that is a good number or a bad number. Looking at the graph in that pretty picture indicates to me we’ve stagnated. Yes, we got out of the Pit of Despair, but we haven’t really gone anywhere after that. In September, the number of jobs needed to maintain a steady unemployment rate was just over 104,000 per month. 5.4 million jobs total since Obama took office (45 months) comes out to 120,000 jobs per month, or just a smidge over the number necessary to maintain the status quo. And we see that the unemployment number has just now reached the number it was when Obama took office.
5.4 million, for all its goodness, is a number without context. And so we cannot really criticize or praise the President based on it. We can, however, look at the number of people who have dropped out of the job market entirely and who are therefore not listed in the unemployment roles, even though they, of all people, are the most unemployed, and may need employment as badly as any other. We can look at many different numbers. 5.4 million appears to be a good thing for the President. But it really isn’t. There are just too many other numbers pointing down, down down.
Obamacare did nothing to create the generics market in prescription drugs. It did make MediCare even less solvent, and it did it while making it even more unwise for doctors to participate in it. Doctors need to be paid, just like any other group. And if they aren’t going to get paid, they’ll adjust their practices so they start getting paid, or they’ll go out of business. By cutting the already low amounts doctors are paid for accepting Medicare patients, Obamacare has effectively ripped off those who relied on it for their primary medical benefits.
Obamacare also created in out consciousness the idea that 25-year-olds are “children”. Pardon while I laugh.
From Julia, to Lena, to Fluke, Obama apparently has a different sort of soft spot in his heart for women than the previous Democrat President. But both men do apparently make it primarily about sex. Lena and Fluke diminished their gender by proclaiming that women need, and should want, the government “helping” them in their reproductive needs. Where does this become empowering? Since when does trading dad for “Big Daddy”, family for Sugar Daddy Government, become a good thing in anyone’s life? And so this marketing schtick is disingenuous: President Obama doesn’t want a woman’s health choices to be between her and her doctor. He wants the government squarely involved, telling the woman what they can and cannot do with their body, telling doctors what they can and cannot do with a woman’s body. From support for government-provided contraceptives, to Obamacare, to the side he’s chosen in cultural battles, Obama things government needs to be involved in all the intimate aspects of a woman’s life.
Why has he pushed so hard for such deep involvement in lady’s health, and not gone nearly so far for men? Is he sexist or something?
Or something?
This is just false. President Bush set the timeline and the schedule by which all soldiers were out of Iraq. So the schedule carried over into the next administration, but President Obama had nothing, zilch, zip, zero, nada to do with this except not getting in the way.
Government involvement in the financing of higher education has created consistent and repeated examples of unintended consequences. Costs for higher education have risen astronomically faster than the economy has grown, in large part due to the guaranteed payments promised by more and more common and substantial financial aid programs. So he’s doubled Pell Grants funding. And the cost of college has continued to skyrocket and so the greater dollar number simply means its effectively paying for the same amount of more expensive education.
A real solution would involve cutting public college budgets, cutting grants and government-provided financial aid, forcing colleges to compete once again on price, even as they do on academics and “campus life”. Make colleges reflect the realities of the world around them, and they’ll produce graduates better prepared to go into that world and make something of it.
Why is the government providing loans to businesses? Aren’t there banks to do this? We’re broke, we don’t have any more money as a government. Sending good money after bad isn’t a good way to get out of a mess. Yes, we need to encourage the growth of business, but that can be done more effectively by getting the government out of the way than by pouring more money down the hole.
Yet another lie. Obama supported pumping millions upon millions of dollars into failing companies in hopes of preventing them from going into bankruptcy. Which they did anyways. While there have been claims that the money has been repaid, the US taxpayers still own significant percentages of stock of these automakers, and these stock have continued to lose value to such an extent that it seems Chevrolet, at least, is likely to go into bankruptcy again.
Romney supported letting the companies go into bankruptcy without the bailouts first. Obama sent the companies huge amounts of money that did nothing to help the situation. The outcome would have arguably been the same, except we wouldn’t still be losing money on the deal had Romney had his way.
Fuel efficiency only affects new cars. You’d have to shell out $20,000 to save that $8,200. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that while mandated fuel efficiency has gone up, prices of gas have gone up faster.
I’m conflicted regarding required fuel efficiency standards. I don’t like the idea of the government dictating business policy. But I’m happy that vehicle manufacturers have taken these requirements and have started developing to meet them while maintaining entertaining driving characteristics. I’d rather see import restrictions dropped so we can experience the benefit of a wider car market, eliminating the union-supported protectionism that straps our current car market. With care manufacturers fighting on a global scale, we the consumer would only benefit.
Other pretty images tout the President’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which purports to help women fight against wage discrimination, when in reality it removes standard and accepted and tested and working limitations on suing. Lilly Ledbetter was a liar and a cheat who waited until her supervisors were dead and so could not contest her claims against the company she claims she discovered underpaid her when documented evidence indicates she new of the pay disparity long before. The bill ought to have been called the Lilly Ledbetter Lying And Getting Away With It Act.
And then there’s DADT, or the “I was against it before I was for it” moment of this administration. Remember, President Obama was for traditional marriage when it would help him politically (getting more of the more traditional black American vote) and then chose, in a highly publicized moment of internal enlightenment, to support homosexual marriage when it would benefit him politically (shoring up support from the wary homosexual lobby). Craven? Yes.
So yes, the President has a plan to keep the country moving forward for the next four years. A plan of stagnation and economic ignorance. A plan of political theory rather than leadership capability. A plan of “you have to pass it before you’ll know what’s in it” rather than bipartisan progress.
No thanks. I’ll pass. The other guy’s got experience and experience. Two things you lack in spades, Mr. President.
