Obamanomics

[B-Man]

Barack Obama flops in Knox: the president’s speech was a disaster

 

By Nile Gardiner

 

FTA:

Today’s speech at Knox College, Illinois, was supposed to be the president’s come-back moment, the first of a series of addresses aimed at retaking the initiative by the White House. Instead it was a train-wreck. In an hour-long address, which seemed to last forever (and par for course started 15 minutes late), the president spoke in deeply partisan terms, often with bitterness and anger, lambasting his political opponents, dismissing criticism of his policies, and launching into his favourite theme of class warfare, attacking the wealthy and what he calls the “winner takes all economy.” In a display of extraordinary arrogance (even by his standards), he condemned what he called “an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals,” a direct reference to the Congressional investigations into the IRS and Benghazi scandals, which most Americans don’t see as phony. He also defended his increasingly unpopular Obamacare proposals, attacking what he calls “a politically-motivated misinformation campaign,” while failing to acknowledge that moderate Democrats are “steadily turning against Obamacare” as The Washington Post reported today.

 

This was a highly defensive speech, with President Obama in full campaign mode. There were no fresh ideas, just a tired rehash of earlier campaign rhetoric. It was also another love letter to big government, with a clarion call for yet more federal spending on environmental measures, infrastructure, manufacturing, and a laundry list of liberal pet causes. There was not a word about reducing the burden of government regulation, and getting bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs. His speech promised more government spending at a time when America’s national debt is approaching a staggering $17 trillion. He rejected tax cuts, and bashed the rich, at times sounding more like Francois Hollande than the leader of the free world.

 

Once again, Barack Obama demonstrated why he has built an unenviable reputation as a perpetual campaigner in chief, with an overwhelmingly partisan agenda. Obama is no Ronald Reagan, who always sought to bring the country together based on the common ideals of the Founding Fathers. President Obama’s message will do nothing to reassure a sceptical American public. With unemployment still above 10 percent in 27 major US metropolitan areas, and nearly one in six Americans living on food stamps, the economic record of this administration leaves much to be desired.

 

http://blogs.telegra...-a-train-wreck/

[B-Man]

So what did Obama tell us in his speech today? “Washington” has taken its eye off the ball by failing to focus on the economy!

"But with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals,

Washington has taken its eye off the ball

. And I am here to say this needs to stop. This needs to stop

."

 

 

So after 4 1/2 years in office, Obama is still campaigning against “Washington,” as though his administration’s failures have nothing to do with him.

 

In recent speeches, Obama has taken to counting down the number of days he still has to serve as president; the number now stands at somewhere around 1,200.

 

We can be sure of one thing: on not a single one of those 1,200 days will Obama ever take responsibility for the consequences of any act or omission he has committed in office.

 

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/07/the-economy-wouldnt-be-so-rotten-if-barack-obama-were-president.php

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please note the date.....................................and the fact that this cartoon can apply throughout Mr. Obama's administration.

 

[B-Man]

Nothing ‘phony’ about O’s scandals

 

With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.” — President Obama, Wednesday

 

Question: How many Americans have to be murdered in an al-Qaeda attack on a U.S. consulate before it stops being a “phony” scandal?

 

Answer: If Barack Obama is president, more than four

.

Writers across the spectrum — from the liberal New York Times to the conservative Wall Street Journal — have beaten up on President Obama’s latest “dreadful, cliche-ridden” (James Taranto, wsj.com) speech on economic policy, the second-longest speech of his presidency.

 

How can a man talk for more than an hour on a single topic, as Obama did on Wednesday, and say absolutely nothing new? As columnist Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post explained, “It’s because the president has nothing to say about the economy.”

 

Liberals complain that all conservatives ever say is “Cut taxes and cut spending!” Perhaps they’re right, but that’s two more ideas than Barack Obama has offered during his entire presidency.

 

Which is why the only line from this Teleprompter novella that’s gotten any traction is his “phony scandals” feint.

 

“Phony”? What’s phony about the fact that the IRS targeted citizens based on their ideology? That the discussion of this targeting went all the way up to the president’s hand-picked IRS chief counsel William Wilkins? That Wilkins met with Obama in April 2012 just two days before “new guidance” on how to handle Tea Party applications was sent from Washington to IRS operatives?

 

Imagine cub reporter Barack “WoodStein” Obama being told by his Washington Post editors in 1972 that the Nixon administration using the IRS to target its enemies was a “phony scandal.” Would he have agreed?

 

“Phony”? What’s phony about the family members of a Fox News reporter being spied on by the Department of Justice? About Attorney General Eric Holder lying about his knowledge of “potential prosecution” of the media by his department?

 

And then there’s Ben-ghazi. Almost a year later, we still don’t know where the president was when the terrorist attack started, whether the military was ordered to leave Glen Doherty to die, or why the White House continued to push the phony story of a video weeks after it knew it was a terror attack and not a movie protest.

 

Four dead Americans at a consulate the Obama administration knew was being targeted but left unprotected. On 9/11. With an ambassador in it. If that’s a “phony scandal,” how many dead Americans does it take to make a real one?

 

On the other hand, Obama has a point. All the talk about Benghazi and the IRS has taken attention away from another scandal — his horrible handling of the economy.

 

We’re in year four of the worst “recovery” since World War II. How awful is it?

 

It’s so awful that we still have a lower percentage of able-bodied adults in the workforce today than we did when Obama took office.

 

So awful that median household incomes today are 5 percent lower than June 2009, the official start of the “recovery.”

 

So awful that it would take three months of Obama’s best “job creation” month (300,000) to equal one month of Reagan’s (1 million).

 

So awful that the lowest annual deficit under President Obama ($642 billion) is almost $200 billion worse than the highest deficit under George W. Bush ($459 billion).

 

This is the economic scandal of the Obama presidency. Or maybe he thinks his economic record is “phony,” too.

 

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/07/nothing_phony_about_o_s_scandals

[keepthefaith]

Only the majority of the media is keeping the majority of Americans from seeing what a dismal presidency we are experiencing.

[Doc]

Only the majority of the media is keeping the majority of Americans from seeing what a dismal presidency we are experiencing.

The last election proved they don't care. All that matters is he's a groovy guy who seems to care about them.

[B-Man]

 

Obama’s doomed attempt to save his legacy

 

by Emily Miller

 

In a desperate move to salvage his second term, Mr. Obama threw out his top liberal agenda items — immigration, gun control and race relations — and pivoted to the economy. The problem is that the only one to blame for the five-year malaise is the current resident of the Oval Office.

The president fueled up Air Force One on Wednesday to fly to the heartland for two stops in an attempt to physically distance himself from Washington.

 

“It may seem hard right now, but if we’re willing to take a few bold steps — if Washington will just shake off its complacency, set aside the kind of slash-and-burn partisanship that we’ve seen over the past few years — I promise you, our economy will be stronger a year from now,” Mr. Obama said at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.

 

The president acts like he just arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue last week. He’s had four years, yet his policies have failed to create jobs and restore economic growth.

 

“There are days I think he forgets that he is actually president,” Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, told me Thursday. “He wants to blame everyone but himself and his failure to join bipartisan efforts to create jobs, like the Keystone pipeline, is the reason we are not in a better place.”

 

The economy has never grown much more than by minuscule amounts during the Obama administration. Gross domestic product has grown at an anemic pace since he’s been in the White House, barely sputtering at 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Unemployment under Mr. Obama has averaged a discouraging 8.8 percent and still tops out at 7.6 percent.

 

Gas prices are rising again, but Mr. Obama spent a long stretch of these speeches touting the doubling of “clean energy” production on his watch. He claimed to have “saved the auto industry,” but didn’t mention that Detroit has gone bankrupt.

 

Most absurdly, he cited as a point of pride that “our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years.” He left out two key points: The congressional Republicans demanded spending cuts for increasing the debt ceiling, and the rate of decrease is high because the deficits themselves have been the largest red ink in U.S. history. Spending was $1.4 trillion more than revenue in 2009 and $1 trillion more in 2012.

{snip}

Mr. Obama’s political career has been based on his skill in convincing people to judge him on the things he says, rather than his actions. This ability is effective for a campaign but a disaster for governing.

The president now wants to play the innocent outsider taking on the Washington political establishment. No one should fall for it.

 

Read more: http://www.washingto...2#ixzz2aFrqVeNr

Edited July 27, 2013 by B-Man

[Best Player Available]

SoR-V

It's a comfort to know that things are going so well here in the 5th consecutive Summer of Recovery!

Now that's funny.

 

With your permission I'm stealing it.

[Nanker]

Now that's funny.

 

With your permission I'm stealing it.

Go for it. Stealing is all the rage these days.

[Koko78]

Spending was $1.4 trillion more than revenue in 2009 and $1 trillion more in 2012.

Read more:

http://www.washingto...2#ixzz2aFrqVeNr

 

So if my Democrat spin doctor math is correct, Obama has reduced the federal deficit by 40% in just three years!

 

#forward!!!!1111oneoneone

[/dev/null]

 

So if my Democrat spin doctor math is correct, Obama has reduced the federal deficit by 40% in just three years!

 

#forward!!!!1111oneoneone

 

Spending and revenue bills originate in the House

In 2009, the House was controlled by Democrats

In 2012, the House was controlled by Republicans

 

But please, go ahead and continue your spin

[3rdnlng]

 

 

Spending and revenue bills originate in the House

In 2009, the House was controlled by Democrats

In 2012, the House was controlled by Republicans

 

But please, go ahead and continue your spin

 

Is your sarcasm meter off today?

[dayman]

Obama is the most radical fiscal hawk of all time. Bow down before the face of fiscal responsibility!

[Koko78]

Is your sarcasm meter off today?

 

To be honest, I figured that anyone who was dumb enough not to get the sarcasm would have attacked the math rather than who controlled the House in what year...

[B-Man]

Is This The Recovery Obama (And Jack Lew) Is Talking About?

 

Obama: "...the economy is far stronger now than it was four and a half years ago."

 

...as long as one ignores the reality of the following chart...

 

 

http://www.zerohedge...a-talking-about

 

 

 

The economy is growing at 1.8%. The federal debt is growing at close to 5%. Sooner or later you have to get the growth of debt lower than the growth of the economy. Good luck doing that with this bunch.

 

I am reprinting this statement from a poster (Nip) on another site.

 

IMHO the “economy” is composed to several interlocking but totally distinct segments.

 

One such segment is the stock market. If you base your evaluation of the “economy” strictly on the DOW average the “economy” is doing great.

 

Another such segment is the housing market/industry. If you base your evaluation of the “economy” strictly on the hosing market/industry the “economy” is so-so.

 

Another such segment is personal disposable income. If you base your evaluation of the “economy” strictly on the personal disposable income the “economy” is in the crapper.

 

And there are several, dozen or more?, other segments that can be used to judge the health of the “economy”.

 

My bottom-line is the politicians are, again, cherry-picking the indice to base the health of the “economy” on. And unless they use personal disposable income as their indice they can lie to us with a straight face while the “economy” continues to tank.

 

Why do I base my judgment on personal disposable income? In my world I recognize that the economy is driven by personal spending habits. Without a person going out any buying something, major or minor, there is no market activity and the ‘economy” tanks.

 

It is the individual and collective fear of the total impact of “ObamaCare” that has stopped any future spending. That coupled with the reduced personal income that has reduced personal spending in the here and now that has stopped current future spending. And, until BOTH indices are changed for the positive we will look at a 2% GDP growth as “good news for the economy”.

 

.

[B-Man]

Under Sequester, U.S. Giving Islamists $500 Million

 

Mideast: The sequester has "cost jobs," says President Obama, and "gutted investments in education and science and medical research." But somehow he's earmarked $500 million for Hamas terrorists.

 

Circumventing Congress and with no fanfare, President Obama last week issued an executive order enabling him to send an additional $500 million directly to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — much of which you can bet will wind up going to the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist organization.

 

According to Obama, "it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions of" Congress' legislative restrictions "in order to provide funds . .. to the Palestinian Authority."

 

At the beginning of his first term, Obama promised close to $1 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledging none of it would reach Hamas.

 

http://news.investor...m#ixzz2aXJ1wdnU

[TakeYouToTasker]

Under Sequester, U.S. Giving Islamists $500 Million

 

 

Mideast: The sequester has "cost jobs," says President Obama, and "gutted investments in education and science and medical research." But somehow he's earmarked $500 million for Hamas terrorists.

 

Circumventing Congress and with no fanfare, President Obama last week issued an executive order enabling him to send an additional $500 million directly to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — much of which you can bet will wind up going to the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist organization.

 

According to Obama, "it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions of" Congress' legislative restrictions "in order to provide funds . .. to the Palestinian Authority."

 

At the beginning of his first term, Obama promised close to $1 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledging none of it would reach Hamas.

 

http://news.investor...m#ixzz2aXJ1wdnU

 

Huh... it looks like the executive has finally usurped the power of the purse. I suppose we should really just disband Congress at this point.

[B-Man]

 

Obama: The Keystone pipeline is “not a jobs plan,” you know

 

So… is that kind of like how aggressively pushing for federal, i.e. taxpayer “investment” in public-sector infrastructure projects but actively blocking private-sector ones is “not a jobs plan”? Or, maybe it’s more along the basic lines of how more Keynesian stimulus, deficit spending, increased regulation, and top-down market interference is “not a jobs plan”? Yeah, I think that’s the one.

 

{snip}

In citing the 50-jobs number, though, the president was using the smallest possible number attached to the pipeline project. The estimate he used likely refers to a State Department finding that — after the pipeline is built — it would take roughly 50 people to maintain it.

 

But the comment ignores the rest of the State Department report that estimates the project would create nearly 4,000 annual construction jobs — and potentially “support” an annual 42,000 jobs.

 

Obama similarly ignored those findings during an interview he gave recently to The New York Times. In the interview, Obama said the project would create roughly 2,000 construction jobs and maybe 100 additional jobs after that — calling it a “blip relative to the need.”

 

Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post took President Obama to task for the claim as well, and I just can’t manage to get over the fact that not only has the Obama administration approved similar projects for oil-and-gas-pipelines elsewhere in the United States, but also that the president took the opportunity during his speech to also talk up natural gas as the great and cleaner-burning fuel that it is. If the president does indeed want to continue to foster the shale-gas boom and the jobs that come from domestic energy production, we’re going to need a lot more pipeline infrastructure — stat.

 

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/07/30/obama-the-keystone-pipeline-is-not-a-jobs-plan-you-know/

[/dev/null]

Hey guys, guess what? The Recovery® is even stronger than we thought. All we had to do was adjust the GDP formula, and BAM!

 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/wh-economic-data-revised-include-methodological-changes-designed-better-reflect-evolving-nature-us-economy_742343.html

 

Forward!

[Nanker]

Edited July 31, 2013 by Nanker

[B-Man]

Compared to 2011 and 2012, Our GDP Is Going Backwards: In order to pull off The Obama Curve, the media have to remove almost all context from their reporting. For example, in order to manufacture positive headlines for Obama today, the context is only "expectations." Since a dismal 1.7% beat even more dismal "expectations," the news can be manufactured into "brisk" and "robust."

Below, I'm going to go back further in history to prove that lie, but for now you need only go back two years into Obama's own term to understand how awful 1.7% is.

 

For four quarters, between the second quarter of 2011 through the first quarter of 2012, the quarterly GDP reached 3.2%, 1.4%, 4.9%, and 3.7%. When you are coming out of a recession, those are not great numbers, but they are at least acceptable. Since then, however, the bottom has fallen out.

 

The media won't, though, even look at or compare today's numbers to Obama's own track record for fear it might turn into a negative news cycle.

 

We Are Living Through the Worst Four Years of GDP Growth In History - Under no condition is a 1.7% GDP growth acceptable, especially when we are supposed to be coming out of a recession. But the average GDP growth under Obama is even more discouraging. This is proven by looking back sixty years to what the American economy used to be capable of:

• 1948-57: 3.80%
  
• 1958-67: 4.28%
  
• 1968-77: 3.18%
  
• 1978-87: 3.15%
  
• 1988-97: 3.05%
  
• 1998-2007: 2.99%
  
• 2008-2013: 0.73%
  

This chart does not include today's numbers, but 1.7% would do next to nothing to improve that 0.73% number.

Here is an important point for those who will argue Obama is not responsible for the recession he inherited:

 

Even if 2008 (-0.3%) and 2009’s (-3.1%) negative annual GDP percentages are dropped (something undone for the other periods) and only the 2010-13 period is averaged, the result is just 1.95% – still over a full percentage point below the previous decade’s.

 

http://www.breitbart...u-about-the-GDP