Progress Report on the Obama Presidency

Here is a brief progress report on the economic aspects of the Obama administration. Some of the numbers in the following graphic had to be updated as they didn't seem quite right, but they are still bad.

Number 4. in the graphic is wrong due to perhaps being outdated. The federal debt of the United States is now 100% of GDP. This means that the debt of all the citizens of the U.S. due to government spending is equal to the production (in terms of dollars) of the economy over one year. And as you can see in the chart below, that debt is growing by more than a trillion dollars per year. Who thinks that's sustainable? It is crippling, actually. What can we do? Elect people to Congress and the Presidency who want to tackle the debt.

An updated figure from the labor department says that Number 5. in the graphic is now 63% of the population is employed, which is up, but 8 million of these workers are working part time when they want more hours according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These people are often referred to as under-employed.

Additionally, according to Gallop, the home ownership rate is 62% as of April 2012, so I don't know where the number in Number 8. in the graphic above comes from, but 62% is still a lower home ownership rate than all of the Bush years.

In a country where we spend 1.5 trillion dollars more per year than we take in in revenue, how can the following chart be justified? Surely millions of these people on food stamps don't actually need food assistance. How many are illegal aliens? How many are employed citizens gaming the system? This administration has marketed the food stamp program like no other administration before it, in fact markets all of its assistance "products" like Coca-Cola markets Coke. No wonder the numbers are up.

 

Why didn't President Barack Obama get voted out of office during the last election if his economic numbers are so bad? Because the phrase coined by James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid" doesn't hold sway with a large portion the voting public anymore. Mr. Obama was re-elected by people who think a generous, big government that gives more than it gets and over-regulates big business is a good idea.

The numbers show that the housing market is still weak, unemployment is still high, gas prices are still high, electricity prices are up, health insurance costs are up, and the cost of food is up. It has taken many years for the slight improvements to the economy that we have at this point, which is worse than any other recovery from a recession.

Unfortunately, the economic policies of this administration (of which these examples represent just the tip of the Titanic crushing iceberg), if continued, will sink this ship. In the short term, the only relief on the horizon are the 2014 congressional elections, where fiscally responsible senators and representatives must be placed into office.