Obama's Stunning Achievement

The United States’ economic troubles are mounting and already prodigious. While it’s true that Obama inherited a mess – created by government – he has made our economic problems progressively (pun intended) worse. Amidst that failure, however, Obama has accomplished something that is simply hard to believe.

Before I get to that stunning achievement, it worthy to consider just how bad the employment picture really is. Since the Great Depression, unemployment has reached this neighborhood of 10%, i.e. nearly double the historic average, only one other time. That was during the early 1980’s. That unemployment was brought on by the combined bad economic (read: “political”) decisions of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. All combined, they produced high unemployment and high inflation in addition to new terminology – stagflation. In order to wring inflation out of the system, President Reagan’s economic remedy eventually produced a record 92 months of growth but started with unemployment above 10%. In fact, unemployment was above 9% for 18 months before steadily dropping to 5.3% at the end of Reagan’s two terms.

When Obama got his so-called stimulus package (read: record pork-barrel bill) passed, he promised that unemployment would not rise above 8%. It has now been above 8% for 15 months – it has been above 9% for 12 months. Obama openly admits that unemployment will be a problem for a long time to come. He could not be more right considering that he is proposing a series of huge tax hikes, i.e. the expiration of the Bush tax cuts along with his cap and trade energy plan which is more rightly named “cap and tax.” Beyond that, Obama’s health care legislation has imposed huge regulatory costs on American business – costs which come at the expense of American jobs. Those are some of the reasons there is so much talk of the possibility of a double-dip recession. Quite frankly, an unemployment rate above 8%, if not 9%, for another 24 months is a real possibility.

Unemployment that is nearly double the national average, and at a 30 year high with no end in sight, is incredibly bad and of deep concern to many Americans.

As bad as that is, however, Obama has accomplished something literally stunning.

According to Gallup polling released the first week of June – unemployment ranks only 4^th among Americans biggest concerns. Indeed, Americans top 4 concerns are:

4) Unemployment

3) Healthcare costs (according to Rasmussen 60% want the healthcare bill repealed).

And a tie at the top between:

1) Federal Debt (Obama has added $6.5 trillion beyond what he can possibly claim her inherited – that’s $163,000 for every taxpaying family), and

1) Terrorism (attacks on American soil are way up courtesy of his weak foreign policy).

It is simply unbelievable that Obama has made Americans so worried about healthcare, terrorism and the federal debt that they would rank historically high unemployment 4^th. That tells a very sorry tale about the State of the Union, and just think, only 2 years left for him to “achieve” even more.