THE BIG FAIL: Look Out The Window

As Obama Travels Across The Country In A Last-Minute Bid For Votes, America’s Middle Class Deserves An Explanation For His Failed Policies

 

“Sometimes All President Barack Obama Has To Do Is Look Out The Window To Get A Firsthand Look At The Country’s Economic Woes.” (Julie Pace, “Rough Economy In Clear View For Obama On The Road,” The Associated Press, 10/2/12)

OVER THREE YEARS OF OBAMA’S FAILED POLICIES HAVE LEFT THE MIDDLE CLASS IN A SQUEEZE OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS

“Obama, Who Came Into Office Promising To Bolster The Middle Class And Reduce Inequality, Has Presided Over A Turbulent Economy That So Far Has Done Neither.”“Analysts call continuing high levels of joblessness a prime factor in the income and wealth declines that have continued for most Americans even after the recession ended. Obama, who came into office promising to bolster the middle class and reduce inequality, has presided over a turbulent economy that so far has done neither.” (Michael A. Fletcher, “Obama’s Record: Struggling To Bring Back Jobs,” The Washington Post , 10/18/12)

• “The Tepid Pace Of Job Creation Looms As Perhaps The President’s Biggest Political Vulnerability As His Re-Election Campaign Enters Its Final Weeks.” “The tepid pace of job creation looms as perhaps the president’s biggest political vulnerability as his re-election campaign enters its final weeks. The unemployment rate had been stuck above 8 percent for 43 consecutive months before falling to 7.8 percent in September. Still, nearly 5 million Americans have been out of work for six months or more.” (Michael A. Fletcher, “Obama’s Record: Struggling To Bring Back Jobs,” The Washington Post , 10/18/12)

• “[T]he President’s Policies Have Failed To Ignite Anything Close To The Robust Jobs Growth Needed To Overcome The Horrific Losses Caused By The Downturn.” “The aggressive series of actions helped construct a floor under the most severe economic collapse since the Great Depression, many economists agree. Yet, the president’s policies have failed to ignite anything close to the robust jobs growth needed to overcome the horrific losses caused by the downturn.” (Michael A. Fletcher, “Obama’s Record: Struggling To Bring Back Jobs,” The Washington Post , 10/18/12)

The Washington Post Headline: “Census: Middle Class Shrinks To An All-Time Low”(Carol Morello, “Census: Middle Class Shrinks To An All-Time Low,” The Washington Post , 9/12/12)

“Far From A New Dawn Of Broad-Based Growth, America’s Middle Class Decline Is Getting Worse.” “Second, the hollowing out of America’s middle class – still politely described as median income stagnation rather than ‘decline’ – is accelerating rather than slowing. According to the US Census last week, the US median household is 4.8 per cent poorer now than at the start of the recovery in 2009. Median incomes have now fallen to the pre-internet level of 1993. All of the gains of the Clinton years have been lost. The decline in the past three years follows a 3.2 per cent drop during the recession, which itself followed a shrinkage during the 2000-2007 cycle. Far from a new dawn of broad-based growth, America’s middle class decline is getting worse.” (Edward Luce, “The US Economy Is Still In A Sorry State,” Financial Times, 9/23/12)

Via: GOP.com

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JUST MORE WORDS: Still Not Clear On Second Term Agenda

Team Obama Spends Sunday Morning Being Asked Where And What Is Obama’s Vision For A Second Term?

OBAMA SURROGATES SPENT THEIR SUNDAY MORNING FACING QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT OBAMA WILL DO IN A SECOND TERM

NBC’s David Gregory: “ Has The President Spent More Time Trying To Disqualify Romney As An Alternative Than Affirmatively Saying What A Second Term Would Actually Look Like?” NBC’s DAVID GREGORY: “Generally, the attack that has come on this president from his opposition, from Governor Romney and from Paul Ryan, and you heard it from Senator Rubio, a lack of a second term agenda. Is it fair, that criticism? Has the president spent more time trying to disqualify Romney as an alternative than affirmatively saying what a second term would actually look like?” (NBC‘s “Meet The Press,” 10/21/12)

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “Can You Counter It And Lay Out Exactly What President Obama Would Do In A Second Term?” GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: “He seems to be getting some traction with that argument. Can you counter it and lay out exactly what President Obama would do in a second term?” (ABC’s “This Week,” 10/21/12)

• Stephanopoulos: “It Sounds Like What You’re Saying Is That What You Want Is More Of What We Had The Last Four Years.” (ABC’s “This Week,” 10/21/12)

OBAMA HAS HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO GIVE HIS SECOND TERM PLANS BUT VOTERS HAVE BEEN LEFT IN THE DARK

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz: Obama Has Been “Rightly Criticized For Not Being More Specific About His Second-Term Agenda.” “The president has rightly been criticized for not being more specific about his second-term agenda. What economic policies does he have that he hasn’t already tried? What is he truly prepared to do on the deficit?”(Dan Balz, “For Obama and Romney, Monday’s Debate Is Crucial,” The Washington Post, 10/20/12)

• “Having Gone This Far, It’s Not Likely He Will Start Filling In Those Blanks In The Final Two Weeks. He Prefers To Tell Voters Why They Should Fear Romney.” (Dan Balz, “For Obama and Romney, Monday’s Debate Is Crucial,” The Washington Post, 10/20/12)

• Obama Hasn’t Restored “A Sense Of Faith And Optimism About The Next Four Years.” “But what he also hasn’t done yet is restore a sense of faith and optimism about the next four years. That’s what Michael Jones was looking for last week, not merely a recitation of a litany of actions undertaken. It remains a missing piece in the president’s message.” (Dan Balz, “For Obama and Romney, Monday’s Debate Is Crucial,” The Washington Post, 10/20/12)

VIa: GOP.com

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Phantom Savings Obama’s debt-reduction plan is filled with gimmicks

President Barack Obama is repeating a debunked claim regarding his commitment to deficit reduction, one of the highest priority issues for voters this election cycle.

In a campaign video unveiled Wednesday, the president called for a “new economic patriotism” and touted his “balanced plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade.”

The claim that Obama has a plan—in the form of his most recent budget proposal—to reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years has been a constant refrain from the president on the campaign trail, and has been echoed by his Democratic allies.

Former President Bill Clinton, for example, praised Obama’s “reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade” during his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

However, as Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s in-house fact-checker,has made clear: “The repeated claim that Obama’s budget reduces the deficit by $4 trillion is simply not accurate.”

“Virtually no serious budget analyst agreed” with the Obama administration’s accounting with respect to the $4 trillion figure, Kessler found.

Independent experts panned the president’s budget for its “troubling” reliance on gimmicks and accounting tricks to inflate the magnitude of the savings being proposed.

Keith Hennessey, a former director of the National Economic Council, estimated the true value of Obama’s deficit reduction—minus these gimmicks—to be about $2.8 trillion, and called even that reduced figure a “generous” assessment.

The president’s budget, for instance, takes credit for about $1 trillion in spending cuts that were already signed into law in 2011, and should already be incorporated given that they fall outside the 10-year budget window.

The budget also includes another $800 billion in phantom savings related to the military drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan—money that would never have been spent to begin with—and another $800 billion in projected savings due to reduced interest payments on the debt, something not traditionally cited in federal budget documents as a form of government “spending” that can be “cut.”

Via: WFB

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Slacker-In-Chief

NEW YORK — Concerning the fun parts of his job, Barack Obama resembles the Energizer Bunny. If there are crowds to wow, entertainers to schmooze or donors to pitch, Obama is Johnny on the spot.

Too bad Obama's sparks stop flying when it comes time for the serious, heavy lifting of the presidency.

This phenomenon's most chilling example involves Obama's national security-related presidential daily brief. As the conservative Government Accountability Institute calculated, and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen first reported Sept. 10, Obama attended only 43.8 percent of his daily briefings between Jan. 23, 2009, (three days after his inauguration) and May 31, 2012.

Available nearly every day, the briefing allows the commander-in-chief to hear directly from top intelligence professionals about the latest threats to U.S. safety. These experts are on hand to answer questions, hear suggestions and otherwise help Obama foil America's enemies.

But Obama has had higher priorities.

According to the institute's data culled from the official White House calendar and Politico.com's news coverage of that schedule, Obama chose to skip his daily briefings and, instead, simply read his briefing book.

This is a bit like studying one's chest X-rays at home while spurning a radiologist's offer to interpret them and answer pertinent questions.

In this sense, Obama quietly reviewed his national security X-rays alone during 56.2 percent of the time the institute analyzed. Obama missed 61.6 percent of these briefings in 2011.

Obama skipped his briefings between last Sept. 4 and 11, the entire week before the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, suffered an Islamic terror attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, technical officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Who knows if a briefer's classified utterance, or a particularly astute question from Obama, might have triggered tighter security in Benghazi and perhaps prevented the murders of four Americans?

Even worse, as Thiessen reports, Obama postponed and eventually skipped his briefing on the day after these planned and deliberate assassinations. This liberated Obama for a truly indispensable responsibility that day. As American embassies burned brightly throughout the Islamic world, Obama jetted off on Air Force One for a campaign fundraiser in America's least solemn city — Las Vegas.

Via:San Angelo Standard Times

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Poll: Obama, Romney neck-and-neck ahead of party conventions

Despite the attention on these other issues, both campaigns recognize the dominance of the economy and have worked to gain an advantage. The Post-ABC News survey contains some good and bad news for both candidates.

Obama continues to get more negative reviews than positive ones for his handling of the economy, and there is tepid confidence that the economy would get back on track in a second Obama term. Majorities have disapproved of how Obama is dealing with issue No. 1 for more than two years, although his numbers have not further deteriorated, despite a string of weak jobs reports leading into the fall campaign season.

Romney now holds a slim, seven-point edge among registered voters when it comes to handling the economy, even as there is also limited faith that things would quickly get better if he was to win. Obama counters with an equivalent advantage over Romney when it comes to who is seen as having a better understanding the financial problems people are facing.

Obama’s campaign has spent freely to portray Romney as a businessman more interested in profits than creating jobs, and one who enriched himself even as his company, Bain Capital, was closing companies and shedding jobs. In the new poll, nearly six in 10 voters say Romney, as president, would do more to help the wealthy than the middle class. For Obama the numbers are basically reversed, with about six in 10 saying he does more to help the middle class.

Via: Washington Post

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Team Romney calls out Obama for misspelling 'Ohio' at campaign stop

Smartest President In The History Of The World Can’t Spell ‘Ohio’…

President Obama needed a do-over to spell “Ohio” correctly on the campus of Ohio State University this week. 

Although Obama and several students at a campaign stop Tuesday morning at Sloopy’s Diner on the campus of OSU tweeted out photos of the president correctly posing as the “I” in Ohio, another student supplied a photo of a spelling mishap to Mitt Romney’s campaign.

The photo, tweeted by Romney’s Ohio communications director, Christopher Maloney, shows Obama and three students all a little confused about how to spell the state’s name, with Obama holding his hands up in what seems to be an “H” and as the third letter. 

“A word of advice to @BarackObama: It's ‘O-H-I-O’ that has 18 electoral votes, not 'O-I-H-O,’ ” Maloney tweeted.

Christopher Maloney@CHRISMAL0NEY

A word of advice to @BarackObama: it's "O-H-I-O" that has 18 electoral votes, not "O-I-H-O" pic.twitter.com/babXzAtp

22 Aug 12

The Washington Post incorrectly reported the photo was doctored, but Maloney told The Hill it is authentic. He said the photo was passed along to him directly by a student. There were several photos being taken by students at the diner.

Via: The Hill

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