The Real Obama Scorecard

The Real Obama Scorecard

The View from the Middle

Recently I saw a list of Barack Obama’s “accomplishments” on the Internet that reminded me that truth is not a requirement for publication there.  In an attempt to educate anyone who also read this list, I have repeated it below and then laid out the real facts so the readers can judge its validity and make an educated judgment on the President’s job performance.  Here is the list.  It is entitled “Obama’s Scorecard”:

         -Unemployment cut in half

         -Uninsured rate cut in half

         -Dow Jones nearly tripled

         -Deficits cut by two thirds

         -Historically low inflation

         -Automakers booming, and finally,

         -Clean energy doubled

Let’s first look at the claim that Barack Obama has cut unemployment in half.  We must first remember that he drove it up to over 10% in late 2009.  This was after he promised it would never get to 8% if we gave him a paltry $832 billion stimulus package to fling about the country like some sort of monetary sprinkling system.  Claiming that he cut unemployment in half is the equivalent of a retailer doubling its prices one day and having a half off sale the next.

Next, they claim that Obama is personally responsible for nearly tripling the Dow Jones Average.  In reality, Barack Obama has been the least business-friendly President in my lifetime.  His administration has increased regulations (the federal register is at an all time high of 80,000 pages), added the complexity of Obamacare to a struggling business environment and we still have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.  He hasn’t even tried to relieve taxes on money being repatriated to the US.  The stock market has rebounded because it was oversold and people had no other investment options.  Remember, interest rates are practically at zero.  Just because something happens while he was President, doesn’t mean he had anything to do with it.  The Dow rebounded in spite of the efforts of Barack Obama.

They also claim the Barack Obama cut the deficits by two thirds.  That is actually true, but it was from the artificially high deficit, which he created in his first year in office through his reckless spending and the failed stimulus.  In his first year, our deficit was $1.4 trillion.  That is three times the size of our worst deficit under George W. Bush.  In the next two years we added $1.3 trillion to our debt each year.  In his eight years in office he will have added eight trillion dollars to our national debt (do the math, that’s a TRILLION dollars a year), so to try to paint him as some sort of austerity President is ludicrous. 

He has governed during historically low inflation rates.  That is true, but that is also an area that Presidents have the least control.  Inflation often runs low during economic downturns (it was even negative during the great depression).  As wages have gone down under Obama, so has inflation, so maybe he should get some credit here after all. 

Next, clean energy has doubled during Obama’s reign.  My answer to that is “big deal, and at what cost?”  Wind and Solar combined only represent 2% of our national energy consumption, and the government has spent $150 billion over the last five years to get it there.  Without the subsidies and forced acquisition programs, none of the solar and wind power generated would be practical.  I’m all for developing wind and solar, but not at any cost.  There are other ways to get there, but lavishing money all over things like Solyndra isn’t the way.  Does the left ever look at the price tags?

The most flagrant lie in this list of half-truths is that the uninsured rate has been cut in half.  According to Gallup, who just started tracking this in 2008, 14.4% of Americans were uninsured just before Obama took office, and the latest number is 13.4% in mid 2014.  That is hardly cut in half.  Also, according to other national surveys done by sources like The Department of Health and Human Services, there were at least eight times since 1978 when our uninsured rate was lower.  In fact, in 1978 and 1980 that number was 12%.  The US uninsured rate did rise to 18% in 2013 under the Obama Administration in anticipation of the role out of Obamacare.  This rise was certainly driven by the millions of people who were forced off their plans because of Obamacare’s requirements.  Remember the lie of the year – “If you like your plan, you can keep it (caveat – if it still exists).  This is another example of the Obama Administration making the situation worse and then taking credit for bringing it back to normal.

And finally, this list claims that the auto industry is “booming”.  I guess that depends on how you define “booming”.  Industry experts will concede that revenues and profits have returned to pre-recession levels, but they will also admit that “considerable uncertainty about the future remains.”  Is that how you define “booming”?  The other question is, would we be in the same place if we had allowed market forces, like restructuring or bankruptcy, to run their courses. And lastly, who lost in the auto bailout?  First of all, you and I, the taxpayers, lost $9.26 billion according to the Treasury Department’s final tally.  And, if you asked the bondholders or the employees of Delphi (non-UAW workers) they would have suggested a different solution.  They lost big time!

The lesson we should all learn from this garbage list of fabrications, exaggerations and distortions is covered by two age-old adages – “don’t believe everything you read” and “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”.  Actually, this list validates my understanding of The Obama Doctrine, which I published a couple of years ago.  To the best of my ability to cut through the political BS, this is what I perceive the Obama Doctrine to be:

1.    First, do nothing.

2.    Second, Stuff happens, because there are other forces at work in the world.

3.    Third, take credit for the good stuff and blame the bad stuff on someone else.

(preferably George Bush)

Finally, remember the rules of cause and effect.  Just because the rooster crows in the morning and then the sun rises, that doesn’t mean that the rooster “caused” the sun to rise.  Just because something happened in the last six years, doesn’t mean that Barack Obama “caused” it to happen.  Read through the crap to get to the truth, and this list is an example of that crap.