The following a list that I saw on Facebook last night in support of President Obama:
OUR PRESIDENT:
1. Got Osama bin laden…check
2. unemployment rate down to 8.5%…check
3. 1.6 million jobs created with no GOP help…check
4. 22 months of job and economic growth…check
… 5. Ended war in Iraq …check
6. DADT repeal…check
7. Not one tax hike in 3 years….check
8. Same wife for 15 years with no extra marital affairs…check
9. Saved the auto industry which got GM back to the #1 automaker in the world and created 1.5 million jobs…check
10. Assisted in ousting Ghaddafi…check
11. Only active President to receive Nobel Peace prize while in office…check
12. Mortgage modification to prevent home owners from losing their home…check
13. STILL fighting for middle class families…check
14. 1st president since Roosevelt to reform healthcare….check
15. Reformed financial system, first time since FDR…check
To the everyday person who casually checks his or her Facebook page and pays minimal attention to national affairs, this list may appear to contain salient points and, taken together, a good argument in favor of the president’s reelection.
That’s why we need to dissect these points one by one…
“1. Got Osama bin laden…check”
It is valid to state that the President gave the order to kill Osama bin Laden, and for this we are all grateful. This was not due to the President himself, but the intelligence community and the work of our military which spans his and the previous administration. Clearly, the credit must be shared.
“5-6 Ended war in Iraq” & “DADT repeal”
As for the other two points, Americans are always pleased anytime our men and women in uniform return home from a far off place after completing a mission. Obama’s involvement is a little more complicated. Regardless of what you think of the initial decision to go to Iraq, the President rejected the recommendations of commanders on the ground and carried out his own agenda. This also rings true with the DADT policy; you can make a case for dumping the policy or maintaining it as is, but he carried it out as he saw fit and not always in our soldiers’ best interest.
2-4, 7. “unemployment rate down and jobs created AND no tax hikes”
While the unemployment rate has fallen ever so slightly during the course of his term, the President has much to answer for on this so-called “accomplishment.” While we are at 8.5% right now, we are supposed to be down to just over 6% by now according to a chart released by his own administration; remember when he promised that the U.S. unemployment rate would not even surpass 8%? Even Barney Frank had the presencee of mind to call that hogwash.
Now Obama is advocating for a 30% tax on those making above $1 million, known as the “Buffett Rule.” What is needed is not more Keynesian economics executed by both sides of the aisle which give a short term gain with a long term shortfall. Rather, recovery will come on the heels of stable rules and regulations in conjunction with stable tax rates encouraging our best and brightest to exceed here in America and not in places like China. Had the red tape been eliminated, there would be more to speak for than just an anemic 1.6 million jobs with millions of people out of work
9. Saved the auto industry which got GM back to the #1 automaker in the world and created 1.5 million jobs…check
There’s so many things wrong with this claim, not the least of which is the fact that most of the “new” jobs at the three big automakers are really being filled by workers who had been let go during the economic downturn. These were not “new” jobs, Save Jerseyans. It’s more Obama “create or save” fuzzy math.
10. Assisted in ousting Ghaddafi…check
So he was morally opposed to war in Iraq (before he co-opted his successor’s strategy. But going to war in Libya is OK? The hypocrisy is transparent; worse still, it’s put us in a precarious position in the region. Charles Krauthammer provided the proper perspective in his column from March of 2011:
A strange moral inversion, considering that Saddam’s evil was an order of magnitude beyond Gaddafi’s. Gaddafi is a capricious killer; Saddam was systematic. Gaddafi was too unstable and crazy to begin to match the Baathist apparatus: a comprehensive national system of terror, torture and mass murder, gassing entire villages to create what author Kanan Makiya called a “Republic of Fear.”
11. Only active President to receive Nobel Peace prize while in office…check
Yes, he was named the recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 2009. President Obama did nothing at that point to deserve the award and, having since started a war in Libya, still has done nothing to render recognition for such a distinction by the liberal committee’s promulgated standards.
12-15. Mortgage modification, financial reform, healthcare and the middle class
Sad to say, but the values of homes have dipped again and are continuing to do so as foreclosures rise. I don’t know where this claim is even coming from?
The problems with the Obamacare legislation have been covered at length and can be revisited via a previous post here and from various other sources.
The financial reform, Dodd-Frank, is notoriously despised by business. The Heritage Foundation outlines the case against it:
As part of Dodd-Frank, the Wall Street Journal recently noted, the Federal Reserve has proposed limiting what banks can charge for debit-card purchases, from an average rate of 44 cents a transaction to seven to 12 cents – a drop of as much as 84 percent.
Great, you may be saying; I’d like to pay less. But banks can’t – and won’t – kiss this revenue goodbye. The amount being reduced goes to the financial institution that issues the card, and the loss of that income may cause certain card issuers to drop their cards or limit the cards’ availability.
Moreover, the passage of this law created the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” which not only exercises great oversight on the the financial sector but also gets to decide which financial products a company can and cannot sell.
How any of this is good for the middle class is beyond me, Save Jerseyans.
Soooo other than everything correct above, he does have wonderful children and a beautiful wife.
If only his wife loved the flag of our country as much as she loved herself!
Matt Rooney
Brian McGovern
Ed Sheppard
Matt DeLuca
Irwin M. Fletcher
James Beattie
Joshua Einstein
Michael Ward
