Publisher's Note: One of the most significant things you can do to promote Liberty is to support our mission. Please make your gift to the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you! —Mark Alexander, Publisher

September 20, 2016

No Thank You, Obama

Last week, while touting the new Census report on income and poverty in America, Barack Obama took credit for $2 a gallon gasoline, and immodestly shouted to his crowd of supporters: “Thank you, Obama.” I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but given that for eight years your administration has done everything to decapitate the oil and gas industry that gave us low gas prices, sorry: No thanks are in order, Mr. President. Even more amazing was Obama’s victory lap on the income numbers. Yes, incomes for middle-class families rose by an impressive 5 percent in 2015. And poverty fell. Thank goodness. It’s about time. But the Census report was anything but cause for celebration. It is a stinging indictment of the policy results of both the George W. Bush and the Obama legacies. They both miserably failed and are equally culpable for the sad state of the American family’s finances today.

Last week, while touting the new Census report on income and poverty in America, Barack Obama took credit for $2 a gallon gasoline, and immodestly shouted to his crowd of supporters: “Thank you, Obama.”

I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but given that for eight years your administration has done everything to decapitate the oil and gas industry that gave us low gas prices, sorry: No thanks are in order, Mr. President.

Even more amazing was Obama’s victory lap on the income numbers. Yes, incomes for middle-class families rose by an impressive 5 percent in 2015. And poverty fell. Thank goodness. It’s about time.

But the Census report was anything but cause for celebration. It is a stinging indictment of the policy results of both the George W. Bush and the Obama legacies. They both miserably failed and are equally culpable for the sad state of the American family’s finances today.

Census found that American incomes are lower today (adjusted for inflation) than they were in 2007. What kind of recovery is this, when we still haven’t made up the lost ground from a recession that happened seven years ago? Thank you, Obama.

Even more worrisome is the Census revelation that Americans are poorer today than they were in 2000. In other words, for 15 years, average families have made no progress at all in terms of their personal financial situations. That’s a decade and a half of no growth. That’s sad. The Bush administration has to be held accountable for this malaise, since most of it happened on Bush’s watch. This is a good point to make to the pro-Bush “never-Trumpers,” who keep sanctimoniously denouncing Trump’s policies as reckless. They should look in the mirror.

Other decade-long trends brought to light by the Census report were equally gloomy. We still have more than 43 million Americans in poverty today. About 1 in 7 of our citizens is poor. The absolute number of poor people is so large it is now the equivalent of every resident of California being in poverty. Obama’s record on fighting poverty has been a complete failure. The number of families that are poor grew by 3.2 million since the self-proclaimed savior entered office. Thank you, Obama.

If the poverty rate stood today where it was 15 years ago, we would have 7 million fewer Americans under the poverty threshold.

Why is poverty higher? Two reasons. One is that economic growth has been abysmally low over the last decade. And second: a smaller share of adults are actually working. Getting a job and a paycheck is usually a good way to move out of poverty, but we now have a near-record number of adults who are unemployed. Thank you, Obama.

These numbers are not just worrisome; they are scandalous. They point to a decade of failed policies enacted by our clueless political leaders. As the great Reagan economist Arthur Laffer has put it so aptly, we keep punishing success through taxes and rewarding failure through welfare, and then we wonder why we are getting nothing but failure.

One other depressing statistic is the lack of economic progress for black Americans under Obama. You won’t likely hear this from Black Lives Matter or the NAACP, but blacks have lost ground economically since Obama entered office. Their incomes have fallen by 2 percent. That’s especially disappointing because blacks already have much lower incomes than whites and Asians, so they are falling further behind relatively. Thank you, Obama.

The left’s flimsy explanation for all this slow growth is that this is the best America can do in the 21st century. But Donald Trump put it very well in his economic speech last Thursday at the New York Economic Club when he admonished the liberal policies that have put us in this current state. “This isn’t the best America can do; this is the best they can do,” he explained.

He’s right. Tax cuts, regulatory relief, energy production, school choice and repealing Obamacare will fix these problems and create, as John F. Kennedy put it half a century ago, a rising tide that lifts all boats.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.