“If you’re voting for the other team, it’s not because of the economy.” Says who?

By Tom Quiner

It’s the economy, stupid.

Bill Clinton got it. Barack Obama doesn’t.

In his teleprompter-free ramblings above, the president suggests you’d be a fool to vote Republican if your issue is the economy.

He bases his bluster on two key data points: the stock market and the unemployment rate.

The S & P 500 has doubled since he was sworn in. And the unemployment rate has been cut in half since the peak of the recession in October of 2009.

Both are good news.

The stock market has been very much influenced by low interest Federal Reserve policies, which is beyond the president’s influence. But let us give the president credit.

Right or wrong, presidents get more blame and more credit than they deserve.

So in fairness, former president, George W. Bush, cannot be blamed (which won’t stop Obama or Hillary from trying) for the bad economic picture that follows after 7 years of Obama economic policies:

The rich have gotten richer, the poor and middle class haven’t.

Liberalism is focused on gaps and disparity, while conservatism cares about prosperity for everyone. Using Obama/Hillary standards, his policies are a disaster. Those awful top producers, you know, the “one percenters”, saw their income increase an average of 27% under Obama (2009 – 2014) while the bottom 99% couldn’t even keep up with inflation with their tepid 4.3% income growth.

Obama has helped the Fat Cats, but not the Little Guy.

By the same token, wage growth is stagnant, increasing just 7% from 2009 through 2014, as the cost of mountainous new Obama-imposed regulations cut into employers’ ability to offer raises.

Every new government regulation adds a cost to businesses. A percentage of every dollar of cost comes out of the pocket of employees, which is apparent by listless wage growth during the highly regulated Obama years.

And perhaps because of stagnant wages, total non-housing household debt has increased during the Obama years. The Little Guy is making less and going more in debt.

There’s more: home ownership has declined.

There’s more: labor participation rates have fallen to their lowest level since the “malaise” years of Jimmy Carter.

The unemployment rate doesn’t tell a complete story, since it excludes people who have given up trying to find a job.

The Labor Participation rate shines a light on the sad state of U.S. labor. Only 62.7% of available workers have jobs. The rate has fallen steadily under Obama policies, whereas the number relying on food stamps has doubled.

Let us give President Obama credit for the good data, scant as it is, in the economy.

But let us also make him responsible for the mountain of negative data which attests to the failure of Obamanomics.

To again quote former President Clinton, “it’s the economy, stupid.” And one would have to be mighty stupid to vote for a Democrat in light of the effect liberal economic policy has had on the U.S.

2 Comments

  1. lburleso on July 6, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    He’s again doing his impression of a cross between a baptist pastor and Lenin.



    • quinersdiner on July 6, 2016 at 2:11 pm

      You actually made me laugh out loud! Outstanding description.