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Name:	waterph -	Reply
Subject:	Liberal's View of Obama
Date:	10/11/2014 10:02:53 AM

14 Facts About The Obama Presidency

That Most People Don’t Know Source: President Obama visiting iowa People have many perceptions of how the US economy or the country as a whole is doing in recent years. Depending on your political views, you may think the country is doing exceptionally well or on the verge of collapse. Listed below are 14 objective facts, without interjecting any opinion, about the state of America under the leadership of President Obama. Every statement is followed up with a link to a source where you can verify these facts for yourself.

1. We've now had 63 straight months of economic expansion. That’s right, for 63 consecutive months the US economy has gotten progressively better. That includes 54 consecutive months of private sector job growth. Forbes magazine, no fan of President Obama, crunched the numbers and demonstrated how the economic recovery under President Obama has been better in just about every measurable way than the recovery under President Reagan. http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/

2. We are currently enjoying the longest period of private sector job creation in American history. Again, this statistic comes from the Forbes Magazine article listed above. in fact, we have now had 54 straight months of private sector job creation. That is the longest period of job creation since the Department of Labor has been keeping statistics. See the link below. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/09/15/obamas-claim-that-businesses-are-in-the-longest-uninterrupted-stretch-of-job-creation/

3. Unemployment has dropped from 10.1% in October of 2009 to 5.9% and projected to reach 5.4% by summer of 2015. Not only has the unemployment rate dropped significantly, but since the recession ended, our economy as added over ten million new jobs. You can refer to the Forbes article above or check this article on PoliticsUSA. http://www.politicususa.com/2014/09/05/jobs-report.html

4. The stock market continues to set new records since President Obama has been in office. Since early 2009 there has been a steady trend in stock market growth. The Dow Jones industrial averages reached an all-time high of 17,098 in August, 2014. Since most Americans have 401K retirement investments in the stock market, this stock market growth benefits millions of middle class Americans. http://www.macrotrends.net/1358/dow-jones-industrial-average-last-10-years

5. The Federal budget deficit is shrinking. it’s been reduced by two-thirds since 2009. The $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit that Obama inherited in 2009 was in a large part due to the high rate of unemployment. When millions of people were put out of work in 2008 and 2009, it resulted in far less income taxes and less economic activity to generate federal revenue. As ten million people have been put back to work, there have been billions more tax dollars generated. As a result, the deficit has been shrinking each year. The 2014 deficit is projected to be around $500 billion, the smallest deficit since 2007 and roughly 1/3 of what it was in 2009. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

6. Under President Obama, spending has increased only 1.4% annually, the lowest rate since Eisenhower was president. You may have heard critics say that President Obama is spending money wildly and running up our debt. According to this article from Forbes, Obama has increased spending by 1.4% annually, far less than President Reagan (8.7%) or George W. Bush (8.1%). in fact, Obama has increased spending less than any president since Eisenhower. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

7. For 95% of American taxpayers, income taxes are lower now than just about any time in the previous 50 years. After President Obama took office, thousands of Tea Party members all over the country held rallies protesting Obama’s tax increases. At that time, President Obama had actually passed several tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Most of the Tea Partiers who were protesting had only seen their taxes decrease under Obama. Yet polls indicated that most Tea Party members wrongly believed their taxes had gone up. in fact, the only people whose income taxes have gone up during Obama’s presidency are those making $400,000 per year or more. That's less than 2% of the population. Today, for the vast majority of people, tax rates are exactly where they were when Obama first took office or lower. The article below from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains this in greater detail. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3151

8. Our dependence on foreign oil has shrunk due to record domestic oil production and improved fuel efficiency standards. While some people claim that oil production has declined under President Obama, the truth is just the opposite. Oil production has reached record highs. The United States now produces so much oil that we export more oil and gasoline than we import. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=88

9. At least 7 million more Americans now have health insurance than before. Depending on whose numbers you use, between 7 and 10 million Americans acquired health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act. Now that those 7 to 10 million Americans have insurance, the rest of us are no longer on the hook to pay for their health care when they get sick. This saves the American people billions of dollars in the long run. http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/obamacare-helped-10-million-get-insurance-gallup-finds-n78446

10. The Affordable Care Act has added years to the life of Medicare. The Medicare trust fund had been on course to run out of money by the end of 2016. But due to cost savings from the Affordable Care Act and lower healthcare expenses, Medicare’s trust fund is now stable until the year 2030 without cutting benefits. http://online.wsj.com/articles/medicare-social-security-headed-in-different-directions-1406564712

11. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act, we are seeing the slowest rate of increase in healthcare costs since 1960. Contrary to the predictions from Republicans, health care costs have increased at a much slower pace since the passage of the ACA. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/healthcostreport_final_noembargo_v2.pdf

12. We currently have fewer soldiers, sailors and airmen in war zones than any time in over 10 years. With the end of the iraq war and the steady withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, we have fewer people in war zones now than any time since 2002.

13. There have been zero successful attacks by al Qaeda on US soil since Obama became president. Despite Dick Cheney’s claim that if voters elect a Democrat as president, we’ll be “hit again and hit hard” by al Qaeda, we have actually been far safer from terrorist attacks on US soil in recent years than we were under the previous president. There have been several unsuccessful attacks against the US under both presidents, but under Obama, al Qaeda has been largely unsuccessful in striking the US on our home soil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks

14. We now successfully catch and deport more illegal immigrants than ever before. Despite the publicity from busloads of children who illegally entered the country, the numbers prove that President Obama has deported more illegal immigrants than any other president. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/10/american-principles-action/has-barack-obama-deported-more-people-any-other-pr/

All of the facts stated above can be confirmed through multiple sources, yet most Americans are not aware of all of this positive news. i invite you to do your own research and check these facts for yourself. The truth is, most other presidents would envy President Obama’s record despite the fact that he inherited the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Here's a bonus. if you feel particularly ambitious, feel free to research these additional facts. Since Obama became president, our economy has gone from losing 800,000 jobs per month to adding 200,000 jobs per month. That’s a net improvement under Obama of about 1 million jobs per month! Before Obama became president, our financial system was in ruins and millions of people were at risk of losing their life savings. Now, the financial loopholes have been fixed and we are no longer at risk of another financial collapse. in 5 years under Obama the economy has created twice as many jobs as were created in 8 years under George W. Bush. President Obama passed credit card reforms that protects consumers from excessive fees, rate hikes, deceptive marketing and unreasonable due dates. Thanks to “Obamacare”, senior citizens have saved billions of dollars on prescription drugs. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of your premiums on health care. As a result millions of Americans have received refunds from their health insurance companies. Sent from my iPad

Name:	wix -	Reply
Subject:	Liberal's View of Obama
Date:	10/11/2014 10:42:53 AM

This may be a complete compilation of the best spun positive articles on the liberal idiot's presidency. Unfortunately, many, many, of these "facts" are extracted data points finely tuned to hide the miserable record of o-BAMA. Liberalism is a terrible disease.

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	To Be Fair and Balanced for Wixxie Pooh
Date:	10/11/2014 2:28:20 PM (updated 10/11/2014 2:29:05 PM)

7 keys items from the Bush(43) presidency:

7." Bush politicized parts of the government that should be nonpartisan. From NASA to the Justice Department, professionals were forced out or silenced if they departed from the true Republican way. What was good for the Republican Party trumped what was good policy for the nation. Every administration is political to some extent, but the Bush administration took it too far. When Paul O'Neill was forced out at Treasury, it was clear that every major decision would be determined by Karl Rove's calculus.

6. Bush squandered the budget surplus. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bush had a near-religious faith in the ability of tax cuts to deliver prosperity. Tax cuts were the panacea that would cure all ills. Economy too strong? Cut taxes. Economy too weak? Cut taxes. Stock market falling? Cut dividend taxes. Investment weak? Cut capital gains taxes. But tax cuts didn't make the economy stronger; they merely blew a big hole in the budget. Now, when we could really use that surplus to pay for the bailouts and the stimulus, it's gone.

5. Bush comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted. The Bush years were the ultimate test of trickle-down economics, the theory that says the government should favor the rich because the benefits will flow down to the rest of us. The results of that experiment are clear: We've had the weakest job growth since the 1930s. We've had the biggest increase in debt ever. We've had the highest share of national income going to profits since the 1920s. Income inequality has soared while our public and private investment has slowed to a trickle. Instead of building a fundamentally sound economy, Bush nurtured a Ponzi economy based on get-rich-quick schemes.

4. Bush rewarded incompetence. Because politics and personal loyalty were all that counted, Bush appointed incompetent people to vital jobs. He hired interns to run Iraq. He hired a horse expert to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He wanted to hire Harriett Miers to be a Supreme Court justice. Top jobs were reserved for sycophants, toadies and failures.

3. Bush lied us into war. Every argument for war against Iraq was a delusion, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost as a result.Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11 in any way. He was not a danger to the United States. The Bush administration ignored or dismissed mountains of evidence that showed that Saddam was not building an arsenal of chemical or nuclear weapons. Bush rushed to war without giving diplomacy or weapons inspectors a chance. Later, administration officials blew the cover of a CIA employee whose husband told the truth, and then lied about their involvement.

2. Bush has exposed himself to war crime charges. By his own admission, Bush authorized interrogation practices that are illegal under U.S. and international law. His administration at best looked the other way and at worst ordered prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to be tortured. Not only is torture an immoral and heinous crime against humanity, it is ineffective in the fight against terrorism. Nothing has given Osama bin Laden more support than Bush's immorality. And our nation's reputation has been tarnished, possibly forever.

1. Bush weakened our democracy. Bush has embraced a theory of dictatorship. Bush, under Vice President Dick Cheney's guidance, encouraged an imperial presidency answerable to no one. Working with a complacent Congress, Bush gutted the constitutional checks and balances that are supposed to keep any part of the government from growing too powerful or too corrupt. In the name of an endless war against an amorphous enemy, he canceled our most fundamental rights of habeas corpus and the right to be free from unreasonable government spying.

One final note: Bush had the opportunity to be a great president. After 9/11, the nation was as united as it had been since Pearl Harbor, and Bush rode a wave of popularity that he could have used to turn around the nation's politics, security and economy.

Instead of uniting us as he promised, he divided us instead."

Name:	h_hob -	Reply
Subject:	To Be Fair and Balanced for Wixxie Pooh
Date:	10/11/2014 4:46:06 PM

You say Bush divided us as a nation but, omama has gone two steps further and made the divide into the Grand Canyon.

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Hey Low Grade aka Bettle Bailey
Date:	10/11/2014 4:58:02 PM

Just be careful and don't fall into the canyon.

Name:	wix -	Reply
Subject:	Goof Head
Date:	10/11/2014 10:33:39 PM

When are you gonna join us in the current decade? No one said a word about any previous presidents. Get a life.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	More BDS
Date:	10/13/2014 6:27:27 PM

GF, Bush isn't president any more and hasn't been ofr over six years. Stop hijacking threads with your BDS and get help. You depsarately need it.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	And that's why you are a liberal
Date:	10/13/2014 7:03:45 PM (updated 10/13/2014 7:13:29 PM)

The reason most people don't know or care about these points you have made is that they realize based on their own experience and the experience of those around them that this has been to worst recovery since FDR. Rather than going through this point by point I will cherry pick a couple of the easier ones so you understand why economic illiteracy has done so much damage to the ability of the average voter to understand what is actually happening.

3. Unemployment Drop: You do realize that despite adding approximately 150,000 new people to the job ranks each and every month that we now have a labor participation rate that is equal to 1978? You do realize that if we simply had a modest labor participation rate that real unemployment is closer to 11% and when you factor in underemployed it is closer to 17%? The vast majority of the improvement in the U2 rate is due to people simply giving up every finding a job. They don't count. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the quality of jobs being created. Amazing how left wing nuts were all concerned about the smattering of low paying jobs during the Bush adminstration but rejoice in the majority of new jobs being low paid under Obola? Why such low expectations?

4. Stock Market: You do understand the reason for the stock market doing well don't you and who benefits the most? The reason the stock market was so strong is the economy was doing so poorly forcing the Fed to keep interest rates almost at zero which makes equities the only place to put money and obtain a decent return. Remember, the market is driven by expectation of future returns and when banks are paying less than 1% it is the only reasonable alternative. I find it ironic that you posted this one in a week when the stock market went red for the year. But I suppose since you are giving TOTUS credit for the stock market peak you are also blaming him for the recent massive declines, right? Didn't think so. I also find it ironic that at a time when 100% of the growth in real income has gone to the top 5% of wage earners (quite possibly the only time in recent history that has happened) you are crowing about the stock market being up as a result of a lousy economic recovery.

6. Federal spending: You do realize that WOTUS has added more to the national debt in six years than all the previous presidents combined, right? Most Americans actually realize that is the critical issue and one has to wonder why that has happened. Federal tax receipts are at record levels right now as a result of tax increases and as we learned when Clinton did likewise it will eventually kill the economy....something he readily admitted and probably cost Algore the presidency.

I could deconstruct each and every one of these facts that were so conveniently cherry picked but here's the bottom line. The worst recovery since FDR is actually being felt by the American people. You may take comfort in the "factoids" but they are meaningless if what they actually experience is totally disconnected from the spin from the left. I have to admit the only positive aspect of the last six miderable years is to watch the govt media flail around and grind and gnash their teeth because their spin isn't working. But hey, you always have GF to remind us about Bush as he must lay awake at night getting all worked up over what the last president did while the current one flounders around.

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	And this is why I am a liberal
Date:	10/13/2014 8:47:29 PM

Here are some facts not opinions from a book titled “Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box”. You conveniently forget that Roosevelt had to dig us out from the deep economic hole created under a Republican president. And, Obama has had to do the same.

Personal disposable income has grown nearly 6 times more under Democratic presidents
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown 7 times more under Democratic presidents
Corporate profits have grown over 16% more per year under Democratic presidents (they actually declined under Republicans by an average of 4.53%/year)
Average annual compound return on the stock market has been 18 times greater under Democratic presidents (If you invested $100k for 40 years of Republican administrations you had $126k at the end, if you invested $100k for 40 years of Democrat administrations you had $3.9M at the end)
Republican presidents added 2.5 times more to the national debt than Democratic presidents
The two times the economy steered into the ditch (Great Depression and Great Recession) were during Republican, laissez faire administrations

The book is great at looking past today’s economic myths by using long forgotten facts to set the record straight. For example, in explaining President Reagan‘s great economic recovery of the 1980s it is often attributed to the stimulative impact of major tax cuts (ERTA.) But in reality the 1981 tax cuts backfired, leading to massive deficits and a weaker economy with a double dip recession as unemployment soared. So in 1982 Reagan signed (TEFRA) the largest peacetime tax increase in our nation’s history. In his tenure Reagan signed 9 tax bills – 7 of which raised taxes!

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Let me explain this to you
Date:	10/14/2014 8:29:51 AM (updated 10/14/2014 8:32:45 AM)

Oh never mind, I have already recommended the book The Forgotten Man to you and I am sure you have not read it otherwise you would not try to explain away FDR's abysmal economic record. Its always the same with you left wing nuts, when a Dem president is a failure you blame the previous president, assuming they are a Republican. It is rather tedious to explain the economic realities to y'all when you post dumb things like the above. Liberals......they believe so much that just isn't true. And the really sad part is you actually believe it.

But I will bite on one of the more absurd assertions. Explain to us how raising taxes improves the economy and how lowering taxes destroys the economy. And while you are at it, don't forget the spending side of the equation when talking deficits. And make sure you point out who controlled the purse strings (ie. Congress) when that spending happened. Economic and political illiteracy.

Name:	Lifer -	Reply
Subject:	And that's why you are a liberal
Date:	10/14/2014 8:39:13 AM

Good numbers are easy when you cook the books. Don't like the inflation numbers? Take food and fuel out of the equation. Want/Need higher deportation numbers? Count those turned away at the border as deported. Sure we are using less oil. About 25% less folks have to drive to work everyday. Nobody since Richard Scrushey had done a better job of cooking the books to acheive numbers they want.

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