February 20, 2012
by Herman Cain
Based on President Obama's latest State of the Union address and
speeches, he would probably grade his performance in the first three
years of his presidency as an A or no less than a B. Let's examine the
facts and see what the facts say about promised results versus actual
results.
STIMULUS BILL ($862 billion): The Congressional Budget Office reported
in November 2011 that 700,000 jobs may have been sustained as a result
of this massive spending measure. The administration projected 3.5
million jobs would be created. (That’s more than $1.2 million per job,
assuming it’s true.) The administration then concocted a definition for
"saved" jobs to boost the results. Only liberals bought the phony
definition and the result was still way short of projection.
The president also said the spending would keep the unemployment rate
below 8 percent. It has not been below 8 percent since he made the
prediction, which is a post-World War II record of 35 straight months
above 8 percent. The administration (specifically the Bureau of Labor
Statistics) has now changed who gets counted in the work force and who
gets counted as unemployed to make the rate appear to be lower than it
actually is.
Hush! The real number is over 15 percent, but don't tell anybody.
OBAMACARE: We were supposed to be able to keep our current insurance if
we liked it. Insurance premiums were supposed to come down and more
people would be covered. None of that happened. Even worse, a majority
of the public did not even want ObamaCare.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The world is not safer. Defense spending is on a
downward trajectory. Our military is being stretched. Terrorist attempts
continue. Our southern border is not secure. The START treaty was a
mistake because the president gave away too much, and now he wants to
voluntarily reduce our nuclear arsenal. I don't feel secure.
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: An extended moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf
of Mexico, refusal to approve the Keystone Pipeline, mandatory reporting
of "greenhouse gases" and a regulatory onslaught on the coal industry
are not the path to energy independence. Energy dependence, which is
what these policies produce, is a threat to our national security.
INVESTMENT IN SO-CALLED “GREEN JOBS”: More than a half a billion dollars
of taxpayer money has been wasted on companies like Solyndra and Fister
Automotive, which have filed for bankruptcy. Government should not be
in the business of trying to pick winners and losers, and this
administration has only picked losers. So-called “green jobs” will not
save this economy.
FANNIE and FREDDIE: These giant mortgage holding companies were the
catalyst for the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009. They are still at
the heart of the housing crisis and are still being heavily subsidized
by the taxpayers. The administration has just allowed business as usual
to continue at these entities at our expense, and received no new
oversight in the big-banks-biased Dodd-Frank financial deform
legislation. Speaking of which . . .
DODD-FRANK: This bill was supposed to help prevent another financial
meltdown, which we are very close to again because this legislation did
not solve the problem. This bill has also had the consequence of forcing
a lot of perfectly healthy smaller community banks out of business due
to increased regulatory requirements. In a rush to pass the bill, many
of these requirements were not properly vetted by the entire banking
community.
I have listened to many small banks’ horror stories about how they were
unfairly shut down by the regulators due to the impact of Dodd-Frank.
Where’s that report?
NATIONAL DEBT: Insane! During the Obama Administration, the national
debt has increased more than 50 percent in three years to more than $16
trillion. For that spending, the federal government is bigger, the
economy is still stalled, the real unemployment rate is not decreasing,
gasoline prices are headed back to $4 a gallon and our national debt is
now bigger than our Gross Domestic Product. None of these are good
outcomes.
SPACE PROGRAM: The administration cancelled the development of our next
generation of space vehicles. We will now have to "thumb a ride" with
Russia or other countries. That's not leadership. That’s allowing an
American strength to become a weakness.
CASH for CLUNKERS: That failed program needs no further explanation.
President Obama did give the OK to complete the mission to take out our
enemy Osama bin Laden. Kudos! The administration also bailed out General
Motors and Chrysler, but the taxpayers will not recoup nearly $25
billion of the $85 billion bailout.
Based on the facts above, this presidency has been a failure. But
consistently, about 45 percent of the American people have the
perception that President Obama is doing a good job. That's the power of
carefully crafted rhetoric, selective statistics and a pro-Obama
mainstream media.
Let’s not reward President Obama’s failed report card with a second term.
