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Forums - Politics Discussion - Does Obama deserve to be re-elected?

 

Does Obama deserve to be re-elected?

Yes 77 42.78%
 
No 78 43.33%
 
Undecided 25 13.89%
 
Total:180

No he does not. Here is some reasons Why:

Employment:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the Civilian Labor Participation rate is at 63.7% of the Civilian Non-institutional population (working age). The last time that the percentage of people participating in the labor force was that low was all the way back in 1979 when the participation rate was 63.7% for the yearly average. That means there hasn't been a percentage of people participating in the labor force this low since 33 years ago. When Obama took office in January 2009 the Labor Participation rate was 65.5% so the participation rate has gone down during his presidency.

In 2008 the number of Civilians employed was 145.3 million. Last month the number is at 142.22 million people employed. In 2008 the Civilian Non-institutional population (working age)was 233.78 million. Last month it was 243.35 million. So the number of people of working age has increased by almost 10 million people since 2008, but the number of people actually working since 2008 has gone down by about 3 million people. These are pitiful statistics for an economy. This likely means many people have given up trying to find work. Currently out of 243.35 million working age Civilian non-institutional population there are 101.13 million people not working.

What is even more troubling is when one looks at the "U6" Unemployment numbers. This measures not only the unemployed but also; those who are only marginally attached to the labor force, or employed part time for economic reasons but are available for full time work. That group of people are at a very high number as last month it was at 15%. As you can see in the chart below as far as the BLS is able to date back to 1994 the amount of people unemployed or wanting full time work has NEVER been higher than within the last few years of Obama's presidency:

YearJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecAnnual
1994 12.8 12.2 11.9 10.9 10.6 11.3 11.1 10.4 10.0 9.7 9.7 9.7 10.9
1995 11.1 10.5 10.3 9.8 9.8 10.4 10.4 10.0 9.7 9.3 9.6 9.7 10.1
1996 10.8 10.7 10.3 9.7 9.5 10.0 10.0 9.3 9.0 8.8 8.9 9.2 9.7
1997 10.4 10.0 9.6 9.0 8.5 9.2 9.0 8.6 8.3 7.9 8.0 8.2 8.9
1998 9.3 8.9 8.9 7.7 7.6 8.4 8.5 7.8 7.6 7.3 7.2 7.3 8.0
1999 8.5 8.2 7.9 7.4 7.1 7.9 7.7 7.2 7.0 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.4
2000 7.8 7.6 7.4 6.6 6.8 7.2 7.2 7.0 6.6 6.3 6.8 6.7 7.0
2001 8.1 7.9 7.6 7.1 7.2 8.2 8.1 8.1 8.2 8.7 9.0 9.3 8.1
2002 10.5 10.1 9.9 9.4 9.2 9.8 9.9 9.5 9.0 9.0 9.4 9.6 9.6
2003 11.0 10.8 10.4 9.8 9.7 10.6 10.5 10.0 9.8 9.5 9.7 9.6 10.1
2004 10.9 10.3 10.4 9.3 9.3 9.8 9.8 9.3 8.9 9.1 9.1 9.1 9.6
2005 10.2 9.9 9.4 8.7 8.6 9.3 9.1 8.8 8.5 8.1 8.4 8.4 8.9
2006 9.2 9.0 8.5 7.9 7.9 8.7 8.8 8.3 7.6 7.6 7.8 7.8 8.2
2007 9.1 8.7 8.3 7.9 7.9 8.5 8.6 8.4 8.0 7.9 8.1 8.7 8.3
2008 9.9 9.5 9.3 8.9 9.4 10.3 10.8 10.7 10.6 11.1 12.2 13.5 10.5
2009 15.4 16.0 16.2 15.4 15.9 16.8 16.8 16.5 16.1 16.3 16.4 17.1 16.2
2010 18.0 17.9 17.5 16.6 16.1 16.7 16.8 16.4 16.2 15.9 16.3 16.6 16.7
2011 17.3 16.7 16.2 15.5 15.4 16.4 16.3 16.1 15.7 15.3 15.0 15.2 15.9
2012 16.2 15.6 14.8 14.1 14.3 15.1 15.2            

So when looking at the official Unemployment rate being at 8.3% we also must remember that number is derived from people currently looking for work, but does not factor in the people who are of working age who are not looking. It also does not factor the amount of people marginally employed that want full time work, which is higher than any time since at least 1994 and more than likely we have not seen these numbers since either the economic turmoil of the late 70s/early 80s, or around the Great Depression era, but I do not have those numbers in front of me at this time.

Lastly here as you should remember Obama's two top economic advisors said if they passed their $787 Billion stimulus plan that Unemployment would not go above 8%. I guess they were wrong.

Federal Debt, Deficits:

President Obama may have talked about shrinking our federal debt and deficits in the beginning when he talked about "Hope and Change", but he has only exacerbated the problem when looking at federal budget and deficit figures. No matter what rehetoric you hear from his mouth about "fiscal responsibility" all you have to do is look at the figures from his record. The fact remains that our budget deficit only continues to expand, and Debt to GDP continues to go up. Take a look first at his administration's 2011 fiscal reciepts and expenditures:

When one thinks of their own budgeting its scary to think of you adopting this type of budgeting where each year you spend more than you earn. If you were to shrink this down into a family budget of $23,030 is what you earn a year, but you spend $35,980 during that year... can you imagine the imense stress you would experience? not only the stress but the fact that collection agencies and debtors would be calling you non stop wanting their money. This type of budgeting has been going on in our government for a while now. We thought it was bad in 2008 when then President George Bush submitted his 2009 budget estimate of $2.7 Trillion in reciepts, $3.1 Trillion in expenditures. A $400 billion shortfall. But Obama has only continued those budgeting practices and has allowed it to get much worse in 2011 which saw a nearly $1.3 Trillion Deficit as seen in the images above. This is in all senses absurd for a fiscal budget. Here is another graph showing the deficit increases over the past 10 years. Its absurd to think how much the federal deficits continue at these levels each year:

As you can see in this next graph the projection of our budgets will only get worse as mandatory spending will outway federal receipts, and net interest payments become a unsustainable burden:

 

This only shows that Obama has really done nothing to address the serious problem of federal budgets. If it was serious to him we would be hearing him all the time talking about reforming programs, and cutting spending. All we seem to hear from him on it is class warfare and "the rich don't pay their fair share". On the topic of taxes and fair share take a look at this graph:

 Summary of Federal Income Tax Data, 2009

  

Number of Returns with Positive AGI

AGI ($ millions)

Income Taxes Paid ($ millions)

Group's Share of Total AGI

Group's Share of Income Taxes

Income Split Point

Average Tax Rate

All Taxpayers

137,982,203

$7,825,389

$865,863

100.0%

100.0%

-

11.06%

Top 1%

1,379,822

$1,324,572

$318,043

16.9%

36.7%

 $343,927.00

24.01%

1-5%

5,519,288

$1,157,918

$189,864

14.8%

22.0%

 

16.40%

Top 5%

6,899,110

$2,482,490

$507,907

31.7%

58.7%

 $154,643.00

20.46%

5-10%

6,899,110

$897,241

$102,249

11.5%

11.8%

 

11.40%

Top 10%

13,798,220

$3,379,731

$610,156

43.2%

70.5%

 $112,124.00

18.05%

10-25%

20,697,331

$1,770,140

$145,747

22.6%

17.0%

 

8.23%

Top 25%

34,495,551

$5,149,871

$755,903

65.8%

87.3%

 $ 66,193.00

14.68%

25-50%

34,495,551

$1,620,303

$90,449

20.7%

11.0%

 

5.58%

Top 50%

68,991,102

$6,770,174

$846,352

86.5%

97.7%

 > $32,396

12.50%

Bottom 50%

68,991,102

$1,055,215

$19,511

13.5%

2.3%

 < $32,396

1.85%

Source: Internal Revenue Service

So we can effectively see that the top 10% of income earners are earning 43.2% of the income, however they are paying for 70.5% of all the taxes collected. The bottom 50% are paying just 2.3% of the taxes. The rhetoric from Obama about the rich not paying their fair share is quite a stretch as we can see from this graph unless people are expecting them to take even more of the tax liability. I would say the top 10% earning roughly 43% of all income and paying 70.5% of all taxes is at least good enough.

Also troubling is our Federal Debt to GDP:

 

"Hope and Change" politics = Class Warfare, Divisive Rhetoric:

There are other reasons I can give, but I have gone long already, but this is the last reason I will touch on as to why Obama should not recieve a second term as president. In 2008 we all remember his slogan of "Hope and Change". During his campaign and presidency he has continually talked about having civility in politics. Well it appears that his campaign and supporting Super PAC has had other plans. If you really listen to things that he says he is very divisive in his rhetoric. He somehow got many Americans to believe that things are still bad beause its the House of Representatives fault. And that he can't push forward his plans, because of their opposition. Well, many people seem to forget that he had complete control of both House and Senate for his first two years in office. They were able to pass just about anything they wanted. They even managed to pass the Healthcare reform Act even though if you remember the majority of Americans were against it at the time and still are according to the polls. Yet they still found a way to force the legislation through.

Obama continues to use Chicago style politics in his campaigns. if you do the research you will find its nothing new. There were opponents of his in the past while running for various positions in public office that had damaging personal information come out. its evident that team Obama is pulling out some pretty desperate tactics. Take this recent political add by the Obama super PAC presumably blaming Romney for the death of a layed off employee's wife from cancer:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMkmxJ3P9Tw

Recently the Obama campaign tired to distance itself from this ad implying that they did not know about this story, but there is evidence pointing to the fact that the Obama campaign is being misleading and in fact did know before the ad came out.

 

There are other things I could go through but I have already made some main points as to why he should not be re-elected. I'm not saying Mitt Romney is an ideal candidate either, and in fact I agree with Johnson on many fiscal, and foreign policy issues. I do however think he really dosn't have a shot at this point. I really have not seen in depth details on Romney's plans for the country and only know small parts of it, but currently it is evident that Obama should not have another term as president.

 

Sources:

http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea01.htm

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02062009.htm

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm/http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-individual-income-tax-data-0




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I don't think he deserves to be reelected, but I'm not sure if Romney deserves to be elected either



Well, even thought I don't agree with some of what he's doing, and partly because I'm an uninformed voter, I guess it wouldn't hurt.


But there's no point in electing someone who will just undo what Obama has set to do. That's just a waste of time.



 Been away for a bit, but sneaking back in.

Gaming on: PS4, PC, 3DS. Got a Switch! Mainly to play Smash

mysticwolf said:
Well, even thought I don't agree with some of what he's doing, and partly because I'm an uninformed voter, I guess it wouldn't hurt.


But there's no point in electing someone who will just undo what Obama has set to do. That's just a waste of time.


Sometimes undoing something is necessary.  Believe it or not, but sometimes politicians dont do the right thing.