Friday, February 5, 2010

What a Difference a Year Makes!

On 20 January 2009, Barack Hussein Obama assumed the Presidency of the United States of America amid a frenzy of adulation unexcelled by Elvis, the Beatles, returning astronauts or Miley Cyrus. His millions of hypnotized followers accepted every word he uttered with an unquestioning, nearly religious enthusiasm (which prompted my dubbing him Priest-King) and those words were transmitted just as enthusiastically by the legacy Left-wing media, especially his blistering attacks on George W. Bush for his handling of the economy, and the facts seemed to support him. When he took office, Barack Obama inherited an economy in recession. Unemployment stood at 7.6% with 2.6 million jobs lost in the previous twelve months. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was growing at an anemic rate of 0.4% for 2008 and worst of all, Mr. Bush's spendthrift policies (embraced by his Republican colleagues in Congress) had nearly doubled the national debt to $10.7 trillion, a nearly incomprehensible figure that refuted the Republicans' traditional claim that they are responsible stewards of the people's money. He would do better, Priest-King promised; he would do whatever it took to put people back to work, reverse the recession and ignite a new wave of prosperity that would lift every American's standard of living, what he called "sustainable growth." This was his promise and his adorers believed him, with a passion.


So, one year later, how high has Priest-King lifted us? To the very stars themselves and beyond? To the clouds? Surely to the snowy summit of Mount Olympus, at the very least? Please let there be proof, let there be boatloads of evidence, facts, figures and data to more than substantiate Priest-King's promises because surely he would not lie:


20 January 2009 unemployment rate: 7.6%

20 January 2010 unemployment rate: 10.0%

20 January 2009 - 20 January 2010 total jobs lost: 3.4 million



20 January 2009 inflation rate: 3.85%

20 January 2010 inflation rate: -0.4%



20 January 2009 GDP rate of growth: 0.4%

20 January 2010 GDP rate of growth: -2.4%



20 January 2009 national debt: $10.7 trillion

20 January 2010 national debt: $12.2 trillion


This...this can't be right. After a solid year of Priest-King's unmatched leadership, unemployment has actually increased? Over three million Americans who were employed on his Inauguration are now looking for work? Inflation and GDP growth are both negative, indicating a contracting economy, not a rocket ship? This is insane! We've passed a $789 billion stimulus package and a $1 trillion bank bailout package (added to the $160 billion stimulus of Spring 2008 and the $700 billion TARP package under President Bush), and Priest-King has requested a 2011 Federal budget of $3.75 trillion. Are we saying that massive spending, massive tax increases and massive deficits hurt the economy? That Priest-King not only failed to stop the recession but actually accelerated it? That would mean that Priest-King is either absurdly incompetent or...or... lying.


...or absurdly incompetent and a liar with an ulterior motive. Barack Hussein Obama couldn't care less about the economy or jobs or recovery or even helping people but he cares intensely about restructuring America into a true socialist state. He cares about transferring huge amounts of wealth from people who earned it to people who didn't, about dismantling the free enterprise system and installing a giant government-run construct that would regulate every facet of human life, about ensuring that his constituents - Big Labor, radical environmentalists, Leftist one-worlders - are sumptuously and permanently supported by the top ten percent of Americans who already pay 65% of all Federal income taxes. To him, the reason why his spending programs haven't yet triggered a recovery is because he hasn't yet spent enough, and so he seeks to spend even more, even faster. Why would he devote so much time and effort to his ridiculous health care reform bill when the economy was bleeding so badly? Because health care reform would get him where he wanted to go: The conversion of the world's oldest and greatest democracy into a feeble soup kitchen, Finland writ large.


But here's the thing: We have all the proof we need. Failure can register just as well as success, and after a year of overwhelming power in the White House, Congress and state legislatures, Barack Obama has failed to deliver. THERE IS NO RECOVERY. Deficit spending, huge taxes, more regulation, government takeovers and printing money have increased unemployment, throttled the economy, intimidated businesses and built a mountain of debt that will crush our great-grandchildren. (The economy grew at a rate of 5.7% during the last quarter of 2009 while the unemployment rate reached 10.2% at its worst, indicating that businesses were shedding jobs and more productive with the workers they still had. If Priest-King wants to claim credit for improving GDP by scaring the hell out of people, let him try.) And I'm not alone in seeing the truth. The American people reacted to Priest-King's imperial takeover through the TEA parties, the angry town hall meetings and the Republican victories in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, and by driving his approval rating from 65% to 50% in a single year. They see what's he's done, they see what he wants to do and they want no part of it. They love their liberty and they're willing to fight for it, hard. What a difference a year makes.










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