“I have a scheme”

By Tom Quiner

A half a century has passed since the greatest speech of my lifetime was delivered.

Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech still moves me to tears.

Read it. It is magnificent, so superior to the drivel delivered by our current president.

Barack Obama had such potential. His election PROVED that America had moved into a post-racial era. After all, a majority of white Americans voted for an African-American candidate.

Mr. Obama didn’t want to let go of America’s racial angst. He needed it for political reasons to browbeat tepid politicians cowered by political correctness into embracing his radical, leftward lurch into European-style social democracy.

Martin Luther King said:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

Barack Obama said in January of 2009:

“My economic agenda … begins with jobs.”

Martin Luther King said:

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Barack Obama said in January 2010:

“We are going to have a sustained and relentless focus over the next several months on accelerating the pace of job creation, because that’s priority No. 1.”

Martin Luther King said:

“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

Barack Obama said in September of 2010:

“Our No. 1 focus has to be jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Martin Luther King said:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Barack Obama said in December 2010:

“My singular focus over the next two years is … jump-starting the economy so that we actually start making a dent in the unemployment rate.”

And he said it again in January 2011:

“My principal focus, my No. 1 focus, is going be making sure that we are … creating jobs not just now but well into the future.”

And again in November 2012:

“Our top priority has to be jobs and growth.”

Martin Luther King’s dream was realized. Within a decade, laws were passed to end discrimination in employment, in housing, and in public accommodations. Even more, laws were passed to end purposefully oppressive income inequality. Even more, affirmative action policies were implemented which condoned reverse discrimination as a means of redressing past racial inequities.

Just a few weeks before he was murdered, Dr. King spoke in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. of his concerns about the nation’s poverty:

“This is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty.”

America unleashed these new techniques with a trillion dollar Big Government effort which implemented welfare and antipoverty programs funded by borrowing and increased taxes on the rich.

It has failed. The bottom fifth of Americans still only earn about 4% of the national income. Today’s poverty rate at 16.1 is slightly higher than it was in 1965 with the launch of President Johnson’s “Great Society” programs.

President Obama blames this failure on the productive. He has railed against higher earners as being under taxed, even though they pay a disproportionate share of our nation’s taxes. Obama set out on a specific course of action to create jobs and live up to his droning rhetoric:

He raised taxes on the rich.

He increased government regulations.

He signed Obamacare into law.

He pushed and won extravagant increases in government spending for the purpose of creating new jobs.

He increased the deficit.

He increased the national debt.

He took money and handed it off to “green energy” companies, so many of whom then went broke.

How has President Obama’s job creation scheme panned out? It is a disaster.

• When Obama became president, 60.6 of working age Americans had a job.  That number has dropped to 58.7% under his watch.

• Of the new jobs created during the Obama years, 7 out of 8 have been part time jobs.

• 4 out of 10 workers make less than what full-time minimum wage workers made in 1968.

• Before Obama, the average duration of unemployment in the U.S. was 19.8 weeks. Under Obama it has soared to 36.6 weeks.

• Median household income has fallen four straight years during the Obama economic “recovery.” That’s a $4000 a year hit under his policies.

• 32 million Americans were on food stamps when Obama came into office. Under his policies, that number has soared to 47 million.

I know, I know, Obama apologists to this day STILL want to blame these failures on his predecessor and gridlock-loving Republicans. But that is intellectually dishonest. Obama HAS passed broad, significant legislation intended to create jobs. He has had his shot. He has failed.

The depressing statistics above are a pathetic drop in the bucket when discussing the failure of his European-styled solutions to creating jobs, jobs, jobs.

Martin Luther had a dream. His dream was realized because his dream was just and moral.

Barack Obama had a scheme. He scheme has crashed and burned because it has been unjust and immoral from day one.

Barack Obama has squandered his presidency.