FACT The economy is gathering strength — 5 percent growth in the last quarter. When you look at the actual record you’ll discover that growth and job creation have been much faster during the Obama recovery than they were during the Bush recovery last decade (even ignoring the crisis at the end), business investment has been strong.
Obamacare
Race-Based Obama Hate Fox Fantasy-land “Obamacare, being the most ambitious social entitlement program ever conceived, much less attempted in the US, will only magnify and multiply the failures of prior interventions. The failures of Medicare, Medicaid and socialized health care systems around the world are not accidents, rounding errors or bad luck of unanticipated complications. Rather, they are the inevitable, predicable result of forceful interference in the voluntary cooperation of free citizens. Obamacare will fail for the same reason that the Soviet Union failed: command-and-control economies cannot function rationally.” (October 30, 2012 by
FACT As Krugman writes in his year end survey: “Year 1 [of Obamacare] surpassed expectations on every front. Remember claims that more people would lose insurance than gained it? Well, the number of Americans without insurance fell by around 10 million; members of the elite who have never been uninsured have no idea just how much positive difference that makes to people’s lives. Remember claims that reform would break the budget? In reality, premiums were far less than predicted, overall health spending is moderating, and specific cost-control measures are doing very well. And all indications suggest that year two will be marked by further success.”
The Stock Market
Race-Based Obama Hate Fox Fantasy-land: “‘President Obama and the Coming Stock Market Crash-‘ How destructive to the U.S. economy would a Barack Obama presidency be? An exclusive Newsmax analysis warns: There could be a very rough time ahead. Beneath Obama’s flowery rhetoric lies a dangerous economic plan that will wreak havoc on the American economy. Obama plans to return to the failed policies of high taxation coupled with an expansion of government spending. Worse, Obama says he is absolutely committed to almost doubling the capital gains rate — something he will easily accomplish with a Democrat Congress.” (January 9, 2009
FACT The stock market performance during President Obama’s first four years ranks in the top third of presidents who have served since 1900, according to analysis by S&P Capital IQ. The S&P 500 rose by 58 percent during the calendar years ranging from 2009 through 2012. stock prices, which hit a low point in March 2009, accompanied by declarations from prominent Republican economists that Mr. Obama was killing the market economy, have tripled since then.
Gas Prices
Race-Based Obama Hate Fox Fantasy-land “I guarantee you that if Obama GETS a second term, gas prices will be SKY HIGH. Why do I say that? Two reasons. One, Barack Obama is the “Under my plan, energy prices will necessarily skyrocket” president. Barack Obama is the president who has literally said he WANTED gas prices to go up as long as the increase was gradual so he wouldn’t get blamed. Barack Obama is the president who appointed an Energy Secretary who is literally on the record saying he wanted to see U.S. gas prices at $9-$10 a gallon. Which is to say that Obama is a radical environmentalist ideologue who believes gasoline is evil and wants to force Americans to use a more expensive “green” alternative.” (September 10, 2012 Michael Eden)
FACT 2014, Gas prices continue to drop on a daily basis. In fact, the price of gas has fallen for 89 consecutive days. The streak, the longest on record according to AAA, has shaved nearly $1 off the national average price of regular gas, taking it to $2.38 a gallon for the first time in five years. September 25 was the last day prices were higher for drivers. An increase in U.S. oil production, which during the Obama presidency, made the nation the world’s largest source of crude earlier this summer, has also pushed prices down, as has OPEC’s refusal to cut production. Finally a strong dollar is also pushing prices lower.
National Security
Race-Based Obama Hate Fox Fantasy-land “Obama hates the military and takes every opportunity to humiliate and endanger U.S. forces, especially our elite marines and Navy SEALs, and now is striking at the heart of our forces: The Army. Imagine you are an enemy of the United States, and you are observing the behavior of our president, taking close note of even the most subtle gestures of disdain and contempt for his military, such as a Marine holding an umbrella, the famous “crotch salute,” and calling an admitted Islamists massacre of U.S. personnel and soldiers at Fort Hood “workplace violence,” denying those killed and wounded and their families the benefits and recognition they deserve. You would begin to salivate and plan our ultimate destruction, gaining confidence with every marginalizing act.” (Feb. 27, 2014 Montgomery Granger)
FACT The Obama administration’s policy of not going to war in Syria, but trying to contain threats like Vladimir Putin’s Russia or the Islamic State rather than rushing into military confrontation, is looking good compared to Bush. If anything we continue to overspend on our national security state and military. As Aaron David Miller of CNN writes: “Obama’s base may have wanted (and expected) a kinder, gentler leader when it came to the policy of killing America’s enemies abroad. Instead, the President doubled down in Afghanistan in 2009, had Osama bin Laden killed, dismantled much of al Qaeda central and has used drone strikes with a frequency and lethality that makes him look like George W. Bush on steroids. The raw numbers speak for themselves: As of November 21, the United States had conducted 500 targeted killings (about 98% of them with drones), ‘which have killed an estimated 3,674 people, including 473 civilians,’ according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Micah Zenko, citing State Department numbers. About 50 of these were authorized by Bush, and some 450 and counting by Obama… But the reality is that Obama is determined not to be drawn into another trillion-dollar social science experiment to see whether he can put the Iraq, Afghan and Syrian Humpty Dumpties back together again.”
CONCLUSION
FACT As Krugman points out “[M]ajor government policies worked just fine — and the biggest successes involved the most derided policies. You’ll never hear this on Fox News, but 2014 was a year in which the federal government, in particular, showed that it can do some important things very well if it wants to…. and there’s the hidden-in-plain-sight triumph of Obamacare, which is just finishing up its first year of full implementation. It’s a tribute to the effectiveness of the propaganda campaign against health reform — which has played up every glitch, without ever mentioning that the problem has been solved, and invented failures that never happened — that I fairly often encounter people, some of them liberals, who ask me whether the administration will ever be able to get the program to work. Apparently nobody told them that it is working, and very well…”
FACT President Obama is going to go down in history as a great US president. Period.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace