After five years of Obama’s ideologically-driven policy and incompetence:
The deficit for fiscal year 2013 was “only” $973 billion. The total U.S. national debt is $17.3 trillion as of January 30, 2014.
Some other Obama numbers (from Mark Alexander, Patriot Post):
10.4 million: Americans unemployed – not counting three million more Americans who have given up looking for work.
7.8 million: Americans working part-time who would like to work full-time.
46%: 18- to 34-year-old Americans unemployed under Obama (many of whom voted for him).
63%: Labor force participation rate as of January 2014 under Obama.
1978: The last time the labor force participation rate was this low.
46.5 million: Americans now living in poverty by U.S. standards.
6.7 million: Americans who have fallen into poverty under Obama.
47.6 million: Americans receiving food stamps.
19.4 million: Americans added to food stamp rolls under Obama.
$3,827: Decline in median household income under Obama.
721,000: Construction jobs lost under Obama.
528,000: Manufacturing jobs lost under Obama.
44%: Recent college graduates in jobs that do not require a college degree.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has just released it annual report on government regulation and spending.
Highlights of the report:
• Total costs for Americans to comply with federal regulations reached $1.806 trillion in 2012. For the first time, this amounts to more than half of total federal spending. It is more than the GDPs of Canada or Mexico.
• This is the 20th anniversary of Ten Thousand Commandments. In the 20 years of publication, 81,883 final rules have been issued. That’s more than 3,500 per year or about nine per day.
• The Anti-Democracy Index – the ratio of regulations issued to laws passed by Congress and signed by the president – stood at 29 for 2012. That’s 127 new laws and 3,708 new rules – or a new rule every 2 ½ hours.
• Regulatory costs amount to $14,678 per family – 23 percent of the average household income of $63,685 and 30 percent of the expenditure budget of $49,705 and more than receipts from corporate and personal income taxes combined.
• Combined with $3.53 trillion in federal spending, Washington’s share of the economy now reaches 34.4 percent. Read full report here.
The roll-out of Obamacare caused and will continue to cause great disruption. Officially called the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” we are finding that it does neither. People are finding it unaffordable and are losing their doctors. The Act itself contains more than 2,500 pages and 500,000 words (the U.S. Constitution contains about 4,500 words). Since Obamacare passed, various agencies of government have issued more than 70,000 pages of regulations and guidance to implement it. See a CATO report “Obamacare What We Know Now.”
CATO: “Health care reform was designed to accomplish three goals: provide health insurance coverage for all Americans, reduce insurance costs for individuals, businesses, and government, and increase the quality of health care and the value received for each dollar of health care spending. With nearly four years of experience since the law passed, and with the most significant provisions finally kicking in, we can say that, judged by these goals, the new law should be considered a colossal failure.”
Last year Obama said, “It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government…” But Obama’s government was not smart enough to produce an operating website. He also said last year, “Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep – but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.” And if you like your doctor….
And speaking of a smarter government, the Obama administration managed to blow $100 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks to alternative energy schemes that went bankrupt or are about to. Of the approximately $100 billion that Obama gave to green tech companies, 80 percent went to donors to Obama’s campaign and to other Democrats. For every dollar those fund-raisers gave, they made back $25,000.(See story here).
This year Obama claimed, “America is closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades. … The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.”
Climate change has been a fact for about 4 billion years, but the debate is not settled as shown by the abject failure of climate models to jive with observations.
As for energy independence, it is true that America produces more oil and gas than ever before, but that new production came from private and state land. Production from federal land decreased due to Obama’s obstructionist policies. (Read more)
Obama’s official, but futile policy to do something about climate change will adversely affect scientific research. Steven Goddard, proprietor of the blog “Real Science” opines that by declaring an official and unassailable scientific position on “climate change”- it is now career threatening for any government scientist to produce evidence to the contrary. Undoubtedly the most disgusting anti-science event in US history. Climate change is a completely vague, nebulous, undefinable concept, so Obama can use his decree as an excuse to purge anyone who doesn’t fall in line.
Meanwhile, the EPA is conducting a war against natural resource production, electrical generation, the economy, and jobs.
“A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must, in practice, be a bad government.” –Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
That’s the real state of the union.
wryheat 