I was a good loser four years ago.
“In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s
election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet
in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin
Luther King Jr. to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be
human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.”
Despite
having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged
his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool,
hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign
organization.
Yet
the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who
was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has
delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.
In
his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but
to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads
and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our
commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its
rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s
quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools
and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.”
Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those
bold pledges is pitiful.
COVER STORY: Obama has broken his promises, and it's clear that the GOP ticket's path to prosperity is our only hope bit.ly/QQLouG
In
an unguarded moment earlier this year, the president commented that the
private sector of the economy was “doing fine.” Certainly, the stock
market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration
Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3
million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering
3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability
insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being
concealed.
In
his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first he presented—the president
envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6
percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8
percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3
percent this year.
Unemployment
was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this
year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped
more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals
received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.
Welcome
to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a
taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a
household where at least one member receives some type of government
benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes,
the other half receiving the benefits.
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