Recall the euphoria that surrounded Barack
Obama during the 2008 election season and after he was inaugurated as
the 44
th President of the United States. Life was
going to be blue skies and rainbows, or at least we were told, with
hope and change on the way. The American people would be better
off and so would our nation with Obama in control. After a little
more than two years as the President, those blue skies have turned gray
with not the slightest hint of a rainbow.
Some professed that with Barack Obama as President, the staples of
life would become affordable if not altogether free. Surely you
remember Peggy
Joseph who said, at a Barack Obama campaign event in August 2008,
that she would not have to worry about paying for her gas and
mortgage. Consider what has happened to those staples of life
during the Obama presidency.
As of March 14, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline was
$3.57/gallon. When Obama took office in January 2009, the price
was $1.81/gallon. That represents more than a 90% increase in
just over two years.
To put that in perspective, assume you have a 40 mile round trip
commute to work, your car gets 20 miles per gallon and that prices
remain the same going forward. Relative to January 2009, you are
paying about $18 more per week and about $72 more per month at the pump.
The pertinent question we might ask is, "What has President Obama
done in the past two years to limit the rise of oil and gasoline
prices, if anything?" The answer is...nothing. If anything,
his policies have contributed towards rising prices. Recall the
moratorium he enacted on oil drilling following the BP oil spill that
further limited the supply of the commodity from our own waters.
His failure to support drilling in ANWR and his overt allegiance to the
anti-drilling environmental fringe has also directly contributed to
less supply of oil and therefore higher oil prices.
Ms. Joseph also looked forward to Obama paying her mortgage.
Well, many Americans don't have to worry about a mortgage anymore, as
they've had their houses foreclosed. In
2009, a record 2,824,674 foreclosures took place, while 2,872,892
foreclosures occurred in
2010. In other words, 5.7 million families have lost
their homes, but at least they're not up all night wondering how they
will pay their mortgage.
It just wasn't supposed to be this way, at least in the eyes of
the 53% of voters who cast their ballot for Barack Obama. After
all, President Obama's
policies were going to reignite the economy and keep the
unemployment rate below 8% at least that is what we were told, thereby
making those aforementioned mortgages affordable. The opposite
has occurred.
In December 2008, President Bush's final full month in office, the
nation's unemployment rate stood at 7.3%. From that point until
December 2010, a period in which Obama benefited from accommodative
Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, the unemployment rate
rose to 10.1% at one time and remained at or above 9.5% from July 2009
until November 2010.
This resulted despite unprecedented government spending labeled as
"economic stimulus."
What happened? Instead of a surge in America's economic
growth, we've seen a surge in America's deficit. Under the
direction of President Obama, the United States has seen its deficit
increase by more than $3 trillion or by nearly $10,000 for every
man, woman, and child in America.
Then there was the promise of
"When there's a bill that ends up on my desk, as President, you, the
public, will have five days to look online to find out what's in it
before I sign it...." Again, the reality has been the complete
opposite.
Rewind to March 2010, when then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in
reference to the ObamaCare bill, said,
"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in
it." Really? I thought that 2,700 page bill would be posted
on the Internet for all to view for five days. Instead, it was
rushed through and pushed down our throats, despite most Americans not
in favor of it. Again, Obama failed to deliver, as he has time
after time.
We are now just after the halfway point of the Obama
presidency. Based on the facts, we are no better off as a nation
than we were when Obama took office. The average American citizen
has failed to see an improvement in his or her lifestyle versus two
years ago. This is a presidency, up to this point, that has been
an absolute disaster for our nation and our people.
Chad Stafko is a writer and political consultant
living in the Midwest. He can be reached at stafko@msn.com
