So here we are at year four of the age of Hope and Change. Looking back at President Obama’s first term, can we, as a nation, honestly assess exactly what he’s accomplished, and more importantly, what he hasn’t?
When President Obama entered office on January 20, 2009, he blew into town on that Springfield train ala Lincoln, with more goodwill and warm feelings of any newly minted President in recent memory. He enjoyed overwhelming majorities in both the House of Representative and the Senate. Hell, even quasi-conservative pundits and prognosticators relished in the new post-partisan, post-racial era for America.
We, nationally, chose to ignore Mr. Obama’s total lack of private-sector experience, his antipathy towards capitalism and free-markets (read his books), and his lack of any record as a state senator or a U.S. Senator.
When Mr. Obama took office, our national debt was $10.6 trillion. His predecessor, President Bush, for whom all blame for all things wrong are applied, added approximately $4.9 trillion during his two terms. We heard throughout the 2008 campaign that it was unpatriotic to burden the country with that much debt.
How has Mr. Obama done on the debt and deficits? President Obama has managed to add an astounding $5.4 trillion in just one term. That’s right, you’re reading this correctly, he managed to trump Bush in just four short years. And more importantly, what do we have to show for it? What did all that new debt buy us?
We’re out of Iraq with absolutely no presence at all. We’re heading for the exits in Afghanistan, and after we’re gone, it’ll be as though we were never there. We spent nearly a trillion dollars on a stimulus that only stimulated a few chosen friends of this White house, but not much else. We have a 2700 page healthcare law that a majority of American’s still don’t want. We have government, particularly the federal government, awash in funds and on a hiring spree (good for them). Our students are still the worst, on average, in the western world. Green energy spending went through the roof, and how’s that working out for us? I could go on, but you get the picture.
So here we have the biggest scam ever played in the history of the planet. The Obama administration has managed to spend $14.5 trillion in total federal spending, and more importantly, add $5.4 trillion in new debt, and we’re weaker, more divided, less respected, our students are doing poorer, welfare participation is at all time highs, crony capitalism runs amok and government just grows and grows.
We are, quite simply, the brokest nation in the history of this planet. Can we truly be a world superpower on such a weak fiscal footing? I believe you all know that answer to that question. Should we fall from that vaunted perch, I can assure you, it won’t be pretty.
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