Day403 Thursday 10/06/11

ran 2.8 miles
Here’s something from June of 2011 I had completely forgotten about, but stands out as one of many reasons why Barack Obama is not the right man for the job. And, as an aside, I’m tired of people saying Republicans are blocking Obama from getting anything done---then twisting that into the notion that Republicans are blocking American progress. Barack Obama has been blocking American progress since day one and the reason Republicans are such a barrier to his agenda is because American voters elected so many men and women who are committed to conservative principles in the mid-term elections to do exactly what they are doing. They are performing their jobs, and their task is to control his damage by minimizing it until 2012. Moving forward, do you remember the ATM machines story? Our president dug pretty deep into his bag of unused excuses for this one. Allow me to stir your memory:

"There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate."

Lame. That's like blaming Edison for inventing the light bulb while your still dipping wicks in wax to make candles.

And here are just a few other glances back at Barack Obama’s presidency (www.commentarymagazine.com):

• Under Obama’s stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.

• The unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent v. 7.8 percent the month Obama took office.

• July marked the 30th consecutive month in which the unemployment rate was above the 8 percent level, the highest since the Great Depression.

• Since May 2009 — roughly 14 weeks into the Obama administration — the unemployment rate has been above 10 percent during three months, above 9 percent during 22 months, and above 8 percent during two months.

• Chronic unemployment is worse than during the Great Depression.

• The youth employment rate is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948.

• The share of the eligible population holding a job has declined to the lowest level since the early 1980s.

• The housing crisis is worse than in the Great Depression. (Home values are worth roughly one-third less than they were five years ago.)

• The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, we experienced five consecutive quarters of slowing growth. America’s GDP for the second quarter of this year was a sickly 1.0 percent; in the first quarter, it was 0.4 percent.

• Fiscal year 2011 will mark the third straight year with deficits in excess of $1 trillion. Prior to the Obama presidency, we had never experienced a deficit in excess of $1 trillion.

• During the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion.

• That is to say, Obama has achieved in two-and-a-half years what it took George W. Bush two full terms in office to achieve — and Obama, when he was running for president, slammed Bush’s record as being “unpatriotic.”

• America saw its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history under the Obama presidency.

• Consumer confidence has plunged to the lowest level since the Carter presidency.

• The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

• A record number of Americans now rely on the federal government’s food stamps program. More than 44.5 million Americans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, a 12 percent increase from one year ago.

All you people protesting in the streets need to quit occupying America and to start embracing America. No government will ever do this for you.

876.4 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day38.