Obamanomics
11 pieces tagged “Obamanomics”, newest first.
The Weakest Economic Recovery in Modern Times
Even in boom times, any president can expect candidates from the opposing party to subject his record to pitiless scrutiny. The economy under Barack Obama isn’t exactly filling voters with confidence, so it’s not surprising that presidential hopefuls are pretty severe in their critique. Listen to the kinds of things being said as candidates assure voters that they understand how shaky the economy is, more than six years into the current recovery.
Why Do Working Americans Support Job-Killing Democrats?
After years of review, President Obama has killed the Keystone XL pipeline project. The pipeline would have moved crude oil from Western Canada to Nebraska, where it would have connected to existing pipelines and moved the oil to refineries at the U.S. Gulf Coast. The exact number of jobs that the project would have created was disputed, but a reasonable estimate seems to be several thousand jobs. These would have been largely blue-collar jobs, which is why labor unions, usually a constituency that a Democratic president seeks to please, supported the project.
Obama Earns a D on Handling Economy
Hillary Clinton got the laugh of the week when she said that President Obama doesn’t get the credit he deserves for his economic performance. Oh, wait. She wasn’t joking. Not many Americans agree with Clinton’s charitable assessment. We just had a report of 1.5 percent growth in the most-recent quarter. Every poll for five years shows that voters are most concerned about jobs, falling incomes and the debt. (Climate change always ranks last or near last.)
Women Have Suffered More Under Obama Policies
Now that Hillary Clinton has, by default, sewn up the Democratic nomination, expect Democrats to play the gender card for all its worth. In August, Clinton lashed out at the GOP field: “extreme views on women, we expect from some of the terrorist groups ... but it’s a little hard to take from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States.”
America’s $12 Trillion House of Cards
What is the price tag for the audacious Obamanomics experiment? How much has it all cost — the bailouts, the debt, the stimulus plans, the printing of cheap money, Obamacare and all the rest? The answer to that question is just shy of $12 trillion. That’s the sum of the $8.3 trillion added to the national debt since Sept. 15, 2008 (the day Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy) for all the government spending and the $3.5 trillion of easy money flushed into the economy by the Federal Reserve through the initial monetary expansion — QE1, QE2 and QE3.
Pain for Many on Labor Day
My 22-year-old son lives at home and still depends on his old man for spending money. My profoundest fear is that like Will Ferrell’s character in “Wedding Crashers,” he will never leave the nest. I’m not alone. There are some 20 million college grads living at home. A 2014 study reported by CNNMoney found that half of kids who are two years out of college rely on their parents to pay some or all of their bills. It’s the new normal for 20-somethings. Gee, parents sure are getting a great financial return on the $150,000 they’ve shelled out for four years of college.