How To Tell Things Are Going Badly In Washington

April 4, 2013 9 Comments

New jobless claims are up to 385,000, an increase of 28,000 over last week. No doubt the administration has some sort of excuse for the increase. Instead of discussing the economy, Obama is busy campaigning for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. She’s apparently the sort of Speaker we should desire as she never puts ideology above doing what’s right. Yes, Obama was serious when he suggested that. Please stop laughing. If that doesn’t distract the public, perhaps Obama should send senior advisors out to complain about the Drudge Report and how it “hurts what we’re trying to do.” No, wait, they’ve done that.

The economy isn’t really gaining any strength, which is cause for ignoring the economy if you’re a Democrat. There are other things to ignore as well, such as the administration’s  inability to get the Obamacare exchanges up and running next year. We’ll have to “suffer” without the exchanges until 2015. Obamacare is collapsing in on itself as the regulators are unable to write coherent regulations and get the system up and running. It behooves the administration to ignore this problem, just like the economy.

The administration reaction to bad news is to ignore it and campaign. Obama has made it his goal to win the House back for the Democrats. He and the Democrats have a number of problems heading into 2014 beginning with Obama himself. Historically President’s who campaign for their party in midterm elections tend to lose. The last midterm, 2010, is a good example. Obama campaigned more than any other sitting President has before during the 2010 midterm and he lost big. The Democrats second problem is that Obama’s personal fundraising arm, Organizing for Action, is competing for Democrat money with the DNC and other party affiliated campaign funds. Lack of a single strategy and single source of funds will dilute the Democrats message and limit their slim chances of victory.

Of course when news isn’t good it’s best to focus on other things. As such Obama is talking about the next election rather than the daily dose of bad news coming from Washington. Add to that a dose of media blaming, always a sign of desperation from the White House. It’s one thing for surrogates to blame the media, it’s another thing when White House advisers point the finger at the media. It’s no surprise they’re going after Drudge. despite his conservative leanings, the left-wing media flocks to the Drudge Report. Obama is trying to get them to knock it off but the fact is reporters desire to have their stories linked on Drudge because a link from his website equals tens of thousands of additional hits for an article and increased notoriety for the writer.

Of course it’s Drudge’s fault that the Obama administration, with its adoring media, cannot get his message out properly. It’s almost comical that anyone in the administration would make such a statement. It had it’s intended effect though, we forgot all about the jump in new unemployment numbers and the Obamacare regulation problems. When this administration starts focusing on nonsense issues (for the administration anyway) and campaigning we know things aren’t going well. As things get worse over the next few weeks and months it ought to be fascinating to see how far they take this.

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Sequester Starving “Poor” Congressional Staffers

March 23, 2013 Leave a comment

According to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, sequester is starving Congressional staffers. It appears that one of the budget cuts affects taxpayer subsidies for staffers meals. Thus the Congressional building restaurants are being forced to raise prices. Schultz apparently thinks this is a winning issue that will get the American people all worked up. She’s right, the American people are worked up but not for the reasons she was expecting. The fact is, most of us don’t care if Congressional staffers can afford to eat lunch at the Congressional cafe or not. In fact, most of us find this whole argument Schultz is making offensive.

The staffers in Schultz office make between $60,000-160,000 a year. Yet we’re to believe they can’t afford a $2 bowl of soup for lunch or a $5 sandwich. Does anyone believe that staffers making that kind of money can’t afford a $7 stuffed chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus? Those are the prices in the Congressional office buildings. Compare that with the average McDonald’s combo meal which costs over $6 in most locations. Schultz and the Democrats haven’t been particularly concerned about food costs for the average American, which have increased quite a bit in the last four years. Only when their staffers start whining do the Democrats suddenly care about the cost of food.

This is where Schultz loses the public and opens herself up for mockery. Staple food items have seen substantial price increases in the past few years. Corn is up dramatically, which means meat is up dramatically. Vegetables and other grains have also seen healthy price increases. Any housewife can tell you that they’ve either needed an increase in their grocery budget or they’ve needed to cut back or change products in order to stay in budget. None of the Democrats seem concerned with this problem at all. If anything they celebrate price increases because they think we’re fat.

Yet when price increases affect those immediately around them, suddenly Congressional Democrats are very concerned about price increases. So much so that they’re willing to blame Republicans for it. In this case, Republicans should gladly take responsibility for increasing prices on Congressional staffers. Taxpayers don’t need to subsidize staffer meals. In doing this, the GOP should turn the issue right around on the Democrats. The left wants to be the champion of the poor by handing them money. The GOP should attempt to champion the poor by calling the Democrats out for food price inflation.

We’re burning our corn crop in our gas tank, this is one of the biggest reasons for food inflation. The President’s fiscal policies have also caused price increases. Obamacare, regulation and Federal Reserve money printing have all contributed to food prices soaring in the last four years. The Democrats are completely uninterested in this issue, which directly affects the pocketbook of lower and middle class Americans. They’re too busy calling us fat and bemoaning price increases for Congressional staffers. For those of us in the middle class, wouldn’t we love to be able to buy a bowl of soup for $2? We just aren’t politically connected enough to have anyone care about our soup prices.

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Minimum Wage Proposal Distracts From Obama’s Tax Increases On Poor

February 14, 2013 4 Comments

On Tuesday we were all supposed to walk away from Obama’s State of the Union speech believing the President truly cared about the middle class. He’s going to tax those rich robber barons to death and spread the wealth around to all of us. He’s going to raise the minimum wage, which doesn’t exactly help the middle class but it sure shows he cares about the masses. In other to believe all of this we would have to ignore his actions of less than two months ago. Remember, it is this President who proudly signed into law a tax increase for 80% of Americans. How soon we forget.

Tax increases lead to less consumer spending. Less consumer spending leads to fewer jobs, less pay and general stagnation in the economy. The economy shrunk during the 4th quarter last year. Unemployment continues to hover around 8%, it would be even higher if the government didn’t indiscriminately remove tens of thousands of the unemployed from the workforce for no discernible reason. We aren’t creating jobs in the numbers necessary to keep up with population growth. Increasing taxes have done nothing to  make the economy stronger. It barely makes a dent in Washington’s $1 trillion budget deficit.

Yet Obama cares about the little guy because he wants a minimum wage increase. How disingenuous can this President get? This is a President who just raised taxes on the lower and middle class by 2%. We’re not even talking about a 2% income tax hike which would be subjected to deductions, we’re talking about a social security tax hike. This 2% is on all of your employment income, you get no deductions or personal exemptions. Obama acted like letting the Bush tax cuts expire was some sort of big hit on the rich. In fact, the bill Obama lobbied for and signed was a big hit on working Americans. Now he wants to turn around and increase the minimum wage? Why doesn’t he cut our taxes first?

There is nothing that would be worse for our economy than a minimum wage increase. Not with over 12 million counted as unemployed in this country. At this point $7.25/hour is already a barrier to enter the workforce. Increasing the minimum wage by nearly $2/hour does nothing for the 12 million unemployed and it likely hurts those currently earning minimum wage. It’s not like we have low unemployment and a booming economy. In the labor market, it’s a buyers market and that means lower wages. If government indiscriminately raises the minimum wage, it’s once again going to be unskilled workers who bare the brunt of Obama’s intrusive government. Already suffering a draconian tax increase, they will now suffer a loss of their job or loss of hours.

Obama couldn’t care less about any of these problems he’s creating. If anything, more unemployed unskilled workers is a good thing. They’ll get on welfare and be ever more dependant on the government. His goal is to create a permanent underclass of Democrat voters. The President exposes how little he cares for the lower class by proudly increasing their taxes by 2%. We won’t even pretend he cares about moving these people up into the middle class, he doesn’t care much for the middle class either as evidenced by his middle class tax increases and failed promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000. A minimum wage increase, which has no chance of passing through Congress, is nothing but a shiny object meant to distract us from the fact that Obama raised our taxes.

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Election Day Prediction

November 6, 2012 2 Comments

It’s finally election day. It seems like this election has gone on forever. In some ways it has, the first Republican debate was 18 months ago. Since then we’ve the GOP love everyone in our primary but Romney, our unloved candidate win the nomination and a terrific first debate performance. We’ve discussed polls, wars on women, the economy and a convenience store chain called Wawa. Now we get to go vote and put this madness behind us once and for all. That we’ll be entering a new madness beginning tomorrow, regardless of who wins, matters not today.

 Most of the national polls are near ties, even the ones with ridiculous D+11 samples such as the CNN poll released yesterday. But of course we don’t elect a President based on the popular vote, we elect him based on elections in 50 individual states. In those polls Obama is up in nearly all of the swing states. He’s up in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota. He’s even up in Virginia. The only swing states Romney has a lead in are Florida and North Carolina.

There are two ways to look at the polls. The pollsters believe that the electorate is more likely to look like 2008 than Republicans would like. Nationally the 2008 campaign was 38% Democrat and 31% Republican or D+7. The 2010 election was even at 35% for each party. Each state had its own split between Democrats and Republicans in each election. For example in 2008 Ohio was D+8 while in 2010 it was R+1. Most of the swing state polls have been closer to the 2008 electorate than the 2010 electorate. Admittedly some of the media polls have been wildly more pro-Democrat this year than the wave election of 2008. So there is some reason to question the accuracy of some of the polls.

The Republicans allegedly have their own set of polling which shows them ahead in nearly all the swing states. Presumably that polling either has a sample that is even or perhaps R+1 or R+2. In order to get there the GOP pollsters are assuming that enthusiasm will drive more Republicans to the election and that the electorate is more likely to look like 2010. There are others who think the GOP could win a tsunami election, where our voters simply aren’t getting polled and the result tonight will be surprisingly Republican.

Michael Barrone believes Romney will win 323 electoral votes. Glenn Beck agrees and thinks the nation is entering the Third Great Awakening, which would be odd considering Romney is a Mormon cultist. In order to get to 323 electoral votes for Romney you have to assume that not as many Democrats will show up to vote and more Republicans will show. The latter is likely true. Republicans hated John McCain and many didn’t vote for him including yours truly. This time around Romney may not be loved but most Republicans who refused to vote for McCain will begrudgingly vote for Romney.

But we also have to assume the Democrats don’t show up in force like they did in 2008. While there is some anecdotal evidence that they aren’t as enthused with Obama anymore, to ever question the Democrats get out the vote efforts is fatal in a campaign. Obama will get his people to the polls, there’s no question about it. The question is whether Republicans can get more of their people out and whether independents can make up the difference in the final tally.

Unfortunately for Romney and the Republicans there aren’t enough of us to beat Obama. It will be closer than 2008. Romney will win Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, all Obama states in 2008. He will pull out a win in Colorado. That brings his electoral vote count to 257. Unfortunately Romney isn’t going to win Ohio, Obama’s ground game is to strong there. Pennsylvania is a pipe dream for the Republicans, it’s a sign of desperation that Romney is campaigning there. Wisconsin will be won by Obama, though it will be much closer than 2008. Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada will all go Obama.

Obama is going to win today 281-257. The GOP rank and file will have to ask ourselves whether we should ever trust an establishment moderate with our nomination. In fact, we should ask ourselves if the GOP should even remain as a party if it can’t beat a President as bad and ineffective as Obama. I hope I’m wrong in my prediction, for the sake of the country I hope I’m wrong. But all of the polls will have to be wrong to the point of being wrong to a fault. They’re so consistent, even when we discount the wildly inaccurate D+11 polls in Ohio there’s a D+4 (which is reasonable there) showing Obama winning. We’ll now have to deal with a second Obama administration.

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We Enter The Final Days Of The Campaign

November 2, 2012 Leave a comment

Romney is headed to Pennsylvania on Sunday. The Romney camp must think he has a shot in there, otherwise they wouldn’t be sending the big guy out to Philadelphia. Paul Ryan is going to be campaigning in Minnesota as well. They must think Romney has a shot at Minnesota, just not as big a shot as Pennsylvania. Frankly, all of it is hard to believe. Pennsylvania hasn’t gone Republican since 1988 and Minnesota hasn’t since 1972. We’re supposed to believe that Romney is the guy who can break through the great blue barrier. With Ohio increasingly moving towards Obama, perhaps team Romney really has no other choice.

President Obama failed to convene the counterterrorism task force during the Benghazi attack. We have a siege of a consulate that went on for nine hours, two hours in the White House had information that al Qaeda associated groups were involved and the counterterrorism task force isn’t convened. We could have had air support from Italy in Benghazi within an hour, it was never ordered. We had drones overhead taking pictures that could have fired on the terrorists and it was never ordered. We had a CIA house up the street that could have attacked, they were told to stand down.

We’re told there was confusion between the State Department and CIA during the attack. The Obama administration has had four years to work out dealings between various departments. Surely someone would have planned for a potential attack on an embassy or consulate. Such attacks aren’t out of the realm of possibility. Yet it’s clear that neither the State Department or the CIA knew who was in control of the situation. You can through the military in there as well, they had no idea what they were supposed to do. All three departments are waiting for orders from the President and they never came. This man is going to be re-elected next week, it should make people very nervous.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9% in October. Around 171,000 jobs were added though the BLS had to remove around 250,000 part time jobs from September which weren’t actually in existence in the first place. The number of people unemployed stayed largely the same, as did the U-6 figure which includes unemployed and underemployed workers. The jobs report isn’t exactly terrific. It barely makes up for population growth during the month. We need many months of 300,000-500,000 jobs added just to make up for population growth and the number of jobs lost during the recession. We’re looking at 1.3% economic growth, a real recovery would have 5% or higher growth.

Obama’s economic policies have failed. They haven’t led us out of the recession and they haven’t resulted in substantial job creation. When we have 12 million who are counted as unemployed, who want jobs and we only create 171,000 in a month, that barely makes a dent in the unemployment figures. We have 23 million who are either unemployed, underemployed or simply not counted because they’ve given up looking for a job because they can’t find one. Suddenly creating only 171,000 jobs doesn’t really look so great.

Despite the dire economic situation our nation faces and the disgraceful handling of Benghazi, Obama is a near lock for re-election. We Republicans can sit around grousing about poll bias, yours truly may even dabble in it now and then. But the fact is that Romney is down in every poll but one in Ohio and he’s never had a lead in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Minnesota. At best he’s tied in Wisconsin where Romney doesn’t have a tenth of the enthusiasm as Scott Walker had. We need to come to grips with the fact that the only thing standing between us and an out of control lame duck Obama is a GOP House. We can only pray they stand firm.

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Mannish Woman: Lose Your Voting Virginity To Obama

October 26, 2012 2 Comments

Have you seen Obama’s latest ad aimed at female college students? It features what on first glance looks like a 12 year old boy but her tattoo gives her away as an ugly adult woman. This mannish creature discusses losing her voting virginity to Barack Obama. Why is she voting for Obama? Apparently she’s concerned about keeping government freebies, homosexual marriage and of course abortion because you know all women believe in baby killing. Won’t you be excited as you discuss the titillating details with all your girlfriends, acting like a creepy 16 year old boy who may be embellishing the details of a romantic encounter had in the back seat of his mother’s Prius.

You want to talk about a war on women, let’s talk about the Democrats war on women’s intelligence? To listen to the Democrats you would think that women don’t care about anything other than abortion and birth control. The latter is a made up issue as no one in the GOP has proposed banning or restricting birth control. As for abortion, a majority of women are pro-life. These aren’t even winning issues for Democrats, but since they’re stuck in the 50′s and 60′s they think women will rally around them. The vanishing gender gap suggests however that the Democrat’s war on women has failed.

But their war on women’s intelligence continues forward. This ad is offensive on any number of levels. That voting for women is reduced to little more than a quickie sex act must be at the highest level. In this ad we see everything that is wrong with left-wing society. Sex is the focus, women have turned into the cliché version of men in liberal society. This particular woman even looks masculine, there is no beauty to be seen on this tattooed Justin Bieber look alike. Denying women beauty, turning their focus to sex and reducing their vote to little more than a crude sex act sums up what the left thinks of women.

This ad isn’t going to work of course. There isn’t a man in college who is going to run out and vote for Obama because this beast convinced him to lose his voting virginity to Obama. It might excite some of the Democrats college base: lesbians and ugly feminists. But those people were going to vote for Obama anyway. What it isn’t going to do is convince the legions of women in college who don’t spend their day taking political stands to run to the polls and vote for Obama. Most of these women will take one look at the ad and assume it’s intended for lesbians, thus it isn’t intended for them.

The Obama campaign must be getting desperate if this is the sort of ad their peddling. They badly need college students to come vote for them, especially in Ohio. If Obama’s vote goes down among those in college, he may very well lose the election. But this crudely put together, offensive ad isn’t going to convince many college kids to go vote. Men won’t even pay attention and most women will be turned off by the brutish looking lesbian. The left still doesn’t understand that women think beyond the issues of abortion and birth control. The election is about jobs and the economy. College students care about those issues, after all most would like a job after they graduate. They aren’t going to be sexually titillated into losing their voting virginity to Obama. He has the social disease of a 50% unemployment rate for new college grads after all.

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Firing Obama Isn’t Racism, It’s Equality

October 23, 2012 2 Comments

Today’s Rasmussen poll shows Romney up 50-46., in swing states Rasmussen reports Romney is up 50-45. Those polls were conducted prior to the debate last night. Focus groups from last nights debate seemed to indicate that undecided voters are breaking towards Romney. While slim majorities believe Obama won the debate last night, insta-polls indicate Romney leads overwhelmingly on the most important issue: The economy. Those polls also indicate that he’s tied with Obama in appearing capable of being Commander in Chief. We’re hitting the last two weeks before the election, we’ve had the debates and it appears that on some level undecided voters are breaking towards Romney.

So what is the Democrats response to this? Chris Matthews suggests its racism. To believe that a nation that elected a black President would suddenly become racist and fire him is a little bit hard to believe. In 2008 the people who voted for John McCain were more or less entrenched Republicans who were never going to vote for a Democrat no matter who he or she was. Obama won independents and this year at least for the moment it appears that independents are breaking towards Romney. Does that mean that these 2008 Obama voters now voting for Romney are suddenly racists? It’s just a touch hard to believe. In fact, by voting to fire the President independents are holding Obama to the same standard they held Carter and Bush 41 to. That’s not racism, it’s equality.

We’re two weeks out from the election and it seems clear the Democrats are getting desperate. These people really believed that Obama would put away Romney at the first debate. He obviously didn’t and they’ve been in a panic ever since. Obama wasn’t able to win decisively in the other two debates and thus he hasn’t been able to stop Romney’s momentum. Shocked by these developments, the left is now going to resort to name calling and baseless accusations. Racism is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Next up they’ll want to talk about the racist history of the Mormon Church.

Playing the race card during the last two weeks would be the height of desperation for the Democrats. It would also likely cost Obama the election if he hasn’t cost the election for himself already. We fired Carter in 1980 because the economy stunk and the country looked like fools abroad. We fired Bush 41 in 1992 because he raised taxes and the economy stunk. It would hardly be shocking if in 2012 we fired Obama because unemployment is at 7.8% or higher, we have added $5 trillion in new debt over the last four years and middle class families have lost $4,000 in real income. Couple all of that with Obamacare, which raises taxes and remains unpopular and it should come as no surprise that the country would consider firing Obama. Why would voters treat Obama any differently than Carter or Bush 41?

The left is going to spend the next two weeks crying racism, trying to scare undecided voters into voting for Obama lest they be called racists. It won’t work. If Obama wins, it’s because he’s able to get his base out to vote. If he loses it will have nothing to do with the color of his skin. An Obama defeat will have everything to do with his poor performance as President and the failure of his policies to spur economic growth. Race plays no role here. Our nation is willing to elect a black man as President, 2008 proved that for all of eternity. In 2012 the country has the opportunity to fire a black President because he just didn’t do a good job. It’s called equality. It works both ways.

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Reasons To Fire Obama

October 19, 2012 2 Comments

According to President Obama when four Americans get killed it’s “not optimal.” This our President said on Comedy Central. Words cannot even begin to express how callous this statement is. Not to be outdone, Joe Biden decided to get on the callous bandwagon. He told a group of Democrats that House Republicans “have their bullets aimed at you.” Because of course Republicans want to kill everyone who disagrees with them. It’s obvious isn’t it? Desperation seems to be setting in for Obama and his campaign. Obviously during a long campaign odd things are going to be said by both candidates. But calling the killing of four Americans “not optimal” is pretty dreadful.

Bill Clinton clearly isn’t happy that President Obama threw Hillary under the bus for the “not optimal” deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. As such, he threw Obama under the bus at a campaign event wherein he basically agreed with the premise of the Romney campaign. Clinton agrees that things aren’t better off under Obama, he so much as acknowledges that Mitt Romney is right. Clinton has pulled this stunt before, saying positive things about Romney before walking them back. My guess is that he doesn’t walk these comments back. Why should he? Obama has already thrown Hillary under the bus and it doesn’t serve the Clinton’s anything politically to save Obama.

At Tuesday’s debate Obama was set up with a softball question about equal pay for women. I tire of these “women’s” issues as though women are only interested in babies and faux equality issues. There isn’t a frilly pink politics just for women. In any event, Obama brags about the largely meaningless Lilly Ledbetter equal pay law. What Obama didn’t tell us and what Romney foolishly didn’t point out is that Obama pays women in his White House 18% less then men. More than one woman coming out of the Obama White House has complained about discrimination. So while Obama is pointlessly demanding equal pay in the private sector, when he has the opportunity to lead the way with equal pay he chooses not to.

Welfare has soared 32% over the last four years. The total cost of welfare is now over $1 trillion annually. For every $7 the Federal government has taken in under Obama the government has spent $11. The problem here is that for the last four years the economy hasn’t gotten any better. If the economy had picked up the Feds would have taken in more in tax revenue and spent less on welfare. It’s not like Obama has added welfare programs, with the exception of Obamacare. Certainly over the last two years he hasn’t been able to pass anything. The problem is the economy, which Obama has failed to turn around. His policies just haven’t worked. As a result, welfare rates have soared, we spent $1 trillion annually on welfare and we spend $11 for every $7 of tax revenue. Obama has failed.

One final thought. We’re going to hear a lot over the last couple weeks how it would be racist to fire the first black President. Let me offer a different perspective. Considering what a failure this President has been, it would be racist not to fire him. A sure sign of equality is when we’re willing to hire someone on their merits and then fire them if they don’t do a good job. Obama was, for all intents and purposes, hired on his merits. He’s failed to turn the economy around, he should be fired. If we don’t fire him because we fear being called racists, that itself is racist. If we would fire any other President for doing a poor job, Obama should be treated no different. We fired Carter, we fired Bush 41. Why should we be afraid to fire Obama?

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2nd Presidential Debate Review

October 17, 2012 Leave a comment

Last night we got to witness yet another in a long like of fake townhall debates, this one hosted by Carnie Wilson look alike Candy Crowley. The questions ranged from acceptable to absolutely ridiculous. We’ve gotten to the point where “please tell us you’re not a Republican” is considered a good question for Mitt Romney.  Both sides did what needed to be done last night. Obama appeared more aggressive and engaged which boosted his performance. Meanwhile Romney delivered an equal performance and hit Obama hard on the eeconomy.  In other words, we have a tie.

We have to start with Candy Crowley, whose performance was nothing short of outrageous. She let Obama speak 4 more minutes than Romney. She cut Romney off consistantly, especially when he was obviously about to make a major point. She didn’t do the same to Obaam, thus the time difference. She decided to interject her viewpoint into the Benghazi discussion, siding with Obama when he claimed that the attack was a terrorist attack 0n day 1 in the Rose Garden. That simply isn’t true and the moderator had no business declaring that one candidate was right and the other was wrong. It isn’t the duty of the moderator to play fact checker, especially when her own facts are flat out wrong. None of this is surprising, it’s what happens when Republicans agree to debates moderated by people who call their ticket a train wreck.

As for Romney, he had a pretty decent night. He hammered the President on the economy, which according to CBS’ instant poll 64% believe he won the issue. He made several tactical mistakes though. On Benghazi he failed to mention how the President sent his UN ambassador on 5 talk shows to claim the attack was due to riots over a stupid You Tube video, thus politicizing the issue. He also failed to point out that if the President called it a terrorist attack on day 1, why did he tell the UN that the attack happened due to riots over the video? Romney could have won the issue, instead he lost it after becoming flustered by Crowley’s ridiculous Obama defense. That’s no excuse though, Romney should have been on the ball.

Romney also asked a series of questions of Obama, which he must think set the President up. It seems to me a huge mistake for Romney to ask questions of Obama on a regular basis because he’s just setting the President up to shine. Never ask a question for which you are not absolutely sure of the answer. Romney should have stuck to broad points and themes like he did in the first debate. Focusing on minutia loses the audience. That’s not to say he didn’t do a fine job, he was nearly as good as the first debate. Just a few tactical errors last night which cost him an outright victory.

As for Obama, he certainly came out more aggressive and energetic. He has one problem facing him though and that’s his own record. He talks as though he isn’t the sitting President, as though the last four years haven’t happened or are someone else’s fault. It’s why he lost overwhelmingly on the economy, he just isn’t believable on taxes, spending and economic issues. He isn’t even believable on equal pay for equal work, his own White House pays women less than men. Obama talks big about gender equity but if he can’t even have gender equity over that which he directly controls it just isn’t believable.

The last question of the night about summed up the two candidates. Some guy asked the candidates to tell him something about themselves that has been distorted or otherwise isn’t known about them. Romney launched into a defense of himself and his character while Obama spent his time attacking Romney. It became clear at that point, if it wasn’t already, that Romney is seeking the White House because he has a vision for the country and wants the country to share in that vision. Meanwhile Obama wants to be re-elected by default because Romney is scary and evil. I wonder whether undecided voters caught that at the end, did they even stay up to watch?

Last night’s debate was just like the VP debate, it was a good example of why people hate politics. The questions were dumb, the candidates looked ready to exchange blows at one or two points and there was a lot of finger pointing. The reason why the first debate was so much better than the last two is because the candidates were able to engage in an exchange of ideas that wasn’t limited to two minute memorized answers. They actually had a discussion. Last night they just pointed at each other and yelled. Obama didn’t win many voters last night, he may have stopped the bleeding but he didn’t win anything. Romney probably didn’t win anything either. The debate was a tie, what that means in swing states is up for its own debate.

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8.2 Million Removed From Labor Force Under Obama

October 16, 2012 Leave a comment

The economic news in this country hasn’t been good throughout the Obama administration. Second quarter growth was just 1.3%, manufacturing orders and orders for durable goods are down substantially in recent months. QE1 and QE2 failed while QE3 is destined for failure. The Stimulus was a massive failure. Income is down $4,000 during the Obama years while prices are up. There are 48 million Americans on food stamps. If we blindly follow the government’s 7.8% unemployment claim, there are millions of unemployed Americans. If we subscribe to the U-6 unemployment model, the number of millions of unemployed Americans nearly doubles. The economic disaster has been sustained throughout Obama’s years.

The number of Americans in the workforce has barely increased during the last four years. We know that despite claims of 4 million jobs created, the fact is that the number of employed Americans is less than 300,000 more today than it was at the beginning of the recession. Couple this with recent claims from the government about the number of people in the workforce and the unemployment rate and the numbers don’t add up. The following chart was produced by Sen. Jeff Sessions, it demonstrates what the government has done with the unemployed during the last four years:

For every American added to the labor force over the last year, nearly 10 were added to the tally of people not in the labor force. That’s how the government came up with the 7.8% unemployment rate last month, they simply removed 350,000 people from the workforce. Unfortunately the numbers don’t mesh with reality. We need to create 150,000 jobs every month just to keep up with population growth. That is on average how many more people enter the workforce each month than leave it. In other words, we don’t have a sudden increase in retirements that explain these numbers. The government is simply removing people from the workforce to make the jobs market appear more stable and less of a problem than it really is.

One of the chief problems with the jobs report every month has been the small number of jobs created. We had a summer of less than 100,000 jobs created each month, September only saw 114,000 jobs created. Those numbers don’t keep up with population growth. Rather than count new people in the jobs market as unemployed, the government is shifting them into the ranks of people not in the job market. Then they don’t count as being unemployed, thus the unemployment rate drops. But it doesn’t actually drop, it actually increases because new members of the job market (usually young people) want jobs but cannot find employment.

One of the reasons Obama is having trouble whipping up enthusiasm among the young is because of the jobs market. The unemployment rate might not count young, new entrants into the job market as unemployed but the people they aren’t counting sure do feel unemployed. Believe it or not young people don’t want to live in their parents basement playing video games and wasting their lives away. They want to work, they want to be independent, they want their own home. Obama hasn’t worked out for them and they know it. It’s why fewer young people will go to the polls in three weeks and it’s why of those who do go to the polls a smaller percentage will vote for Obama. The government might fool people with a job into thinking unemployment is down to 7.8% but the government isn’t going to fool those who aren’t being counted and want jobs.

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