No I am not joking. Have you done any research on this? Have you researched anything, or do you just present opinions and talking points?
Next question: How is the ACA or any of Obama's programs or policies responsible for the low workforce participation rate, what are the actual reasons for it and what does it mean?. I suggest that you provide some documentation if you want to gain some credibility here.
Thanks for confirming the ACA is partially responsible for Obama's economy, the worst economic recovery on record.
You have zero credibility. You are unable to argue this point or suggest why if Obama's policies were so great we have such a terrible recovery.
I did not confirm any such thing. You are the one alleging that Obama is responsible for the slow recovery and therefor the burden of proof is on you to show that is the case. It's apparent that you are too lazy and disorganized to provide any actual evidence to support your claim.
It is apparent you failed logic. Assuming you actually went to school.
Is Obama responsible for the economy's performance, yes or no?
That is a stupid question. It is not a "yes" or "no" question. You continue to dumb it down while providing not real argument or documentation to support your position.
Dodge!
Yes it is a yes or no question. Either Obama is responsible for the economy or he is not. You idiots had no trouble saying Bush caused the recession in 2008. Was there some change in the Constitution that made Bush responsible for the economy in 2008 but Obama not responsible in 2015?
OK, I'll play if you insist. He is-to a large degree- responsible for the economy and the economy is doing a hell of a lot better now than when he inherited the mess left by Bush and the Republicans before him. I wrote this a few years ago but it is still relevant today:
The Myth of THE “OBAMA ECONOMY” or Why Republicans Make Me Sick Part 1
by Redacted 11.15.12
The Problem
There are three words, when uttered together that turn me apoplectic: “The Obama Economy”. A recurring theme among conservatives has been that President Obama has had enough time to fix the economy, the recovery is anemic and that he cannot keep blaming Bush 43. That is if it is even acknowledged that the economy was in free fall when Obama took office. Also, I frequently hear statements like “He didn’t cause the recession, but he made it worse” Neither statement holds water.
The New York Times wrote on 9.1.2012: “NOT since 1933 had an American president taken the oath of office in an economic climate as grim as it was when Barack Obama put his left hand on the Bible in January 2009. The banking system was near collapse, two big car manufacturers were sliding towards bankruptcy; and employment, the housing market and output were spiraling down.
How did we get here?
At the start of the
Reagan Presidency, the national debt stood at less than $1T or 33% of the GDP. After 8 years of Reagan, the debt stood at almost $2.7T or 52.6% of the GDP a growth of 186.6%.
Bush 41 did his part too by adding another 55.6% in just 4 years, bringing the debt to $4.2T or 65.9% of GDP. Clinton also contributed with another 35.6% over his eight years. This despite the popular belief that Clinton left a surplus to
Bush 43 ( the debt actually grew from 4.4 Trillion in 1993 to 5.6T in 2000)
However, it is true that the annual deficit was trending downward during those same years as was the deficit in terms of the percentage of GDP.
In fact, at the end of the Clinton Administration, the US was on track to pay off it’s debt and accumulate $2.3T in savings by 2011 according to the non partisan Congressional Budget Office. Then, enter
Bush 43 who blew it up with whopping
89% increase bringing it to $10. 7T at his departure. This is the result of the fact that Bush 43 continued where Reagan and to a lesser extent Bush 41 left off with supply side policies that reversed the trend of the Clinton years and added enormously to the debt. 49% of the increase under Bush was due to his spending increases and 24% because of tax cuts. It should also be noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7,949 at the end of Bush 42’s term, down 24% during his second term alone. It was at 10,587 at the start of his first term and achieved an all time high of 14,164 as recently as October 9, 2007, just before the crash of 2008. It has now gained about 60% from it’s low point.
Yes it is true, in
Obama’s first term, another 5.7 T hit the books and the debt stood at 16.4 by the end of 2012 The important question is why the continuing rise of the debt on Obama’s watch.
When you subtract $1.6 trillion for George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $1.4 trillion in interest payments for outstanding debt dating from the Bush administration, and $1.6 trillion in lost revenue from Bush’s tax cuts, the number dwindles to $1.1T in debt authorized by congress, as well as the president. Furthermore, much of government spending was caused by Bush’s recession, during which more people were forced to apply for food stamps and other public assistance.
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities wrote in September of 2012: “If not for the Bush tax cuts, the deficit-financed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the effects of the worst recession. since the Great Depression (including the cost of policymakers’ actions to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term. Currently, unemployment continues to be unacceptably high and more or less unchanged, the debt is growing, and the expansion of the economy is painfully slow. But is it fair to call it the Obama economy, suggesting that if he didn’t cause it, he at least made it worse.
Let’s not forget that the annual deficit has been decreasing however slightly over each successive year under the Obama Administration. The average decrease in the deficit over 3 years with Obama in office was 114.5B while the first 7 years of Bush 43 saw an average increase of 56.7 B and for the final year it was 100.4B
Yes, things could be better and people, particularly the jobless are understandably impatient. So let’s look at what Obama has accomplished and tried to accomplish, keeping in mind that the list would be longer and the economy stronger in a less partisan political environment…….
The Myth of THE “OBAMA ECONOMY” or Why Republicans Make Me Sick Part 2
Initiatives and the outcomes
So what has Obama done, or attempted to do to stimulate the economy, create jobs, reduce the debt , and avert another financial meltdown and recession?
Passed the Stimulus: He signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Weeks after stimulus went into effect, unemployment claims began to subside. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing, and it has continued to do so for twenty-three straight months, creating a total of nearly 3.7 million new private-sector jobs.
Passed Wall Street Reform: He signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The new law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions, requires derivatives to be sold on clearinghouses and exchanges, mandates that large banks provide “living wills” to avoid chaotic bankruptcies, limits their ability to trade with customers’ money for their own profit, and creates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (now headed by Richard Cordray) to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.
Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry: In 2009, he injected $62 billion in federal money (on top of $13.4 billion in loans from the Bush administration) into ailing GM and Chrysler in return for equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring. Since bottoming out in 2009, the auto industry has added more than 100,000 jobs. In 2011, the Big Three automakers all gained market share for the first time in two decades, and have now fully reimbursed to government
Passed Health Care Reform:After five presidents over a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014 and mandates a suite of experimental measures to cut health care cost growth, the number one cause of America’s long-term fiscal problems. I include this not being unaware that “Obamacare” has been derided as job killing and too expensive .However, there is considerable information that contradicts the claims about it’s effect on jobs and may well create jobs by expansion of the health care industry. And, while there are expenses to consider, those opposed need to consider the benefits of having universal coverage such as avoiding expensive emergency room use as primary care for the indigent, a decrease the instances of lost productivity and thus tax revenues, savings in state and federal disability payments, and the unquantifiable human cost of major illnesses and death which are more frequent in those without coverage.
Cut Taxes on Small Businesses: Obama either implemented or renewed 14 tax cuts for small businesses five of which are still in effect.
Revived the Manufacturing sector of the economy Over ½ million since 2010. After nearly a decade of steep declines, American manufacturing jobs have begun to rebound since the beginning of the Obama administration, as the slide that occurred under President George W. Bush and during the Great Recession has largely been reversed.
And what have the republicans done? They engaged in systematic obstruction at every turn. A few cases in point:
The American Jobs Act The issue most often cited when the dreaded words “Obama Economy” are uttered is unemployment which is only now beginning to show signs of improvement. It too impacts significantly on revenues as well as the need for government services. Obama has tried to improve the jobs picture through a number of legislative initiatives including a more robust stimulus package but political opposition prevailed On September 8, 2011 President Obama laid out a series of policy proposals known collectively as the
American Jobs Act. The plan included stimulus spending in the form of immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers to encourage consumer spending and job growth, and efforts to shore up state and local budgets to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials.
The American Jobs Act never became law, however, because Republicans opposed it from the start, blasting it as another form of “failed stimulus” that wouldn’t help the economy. (They ignored the fact that the first “failed stimulus,” the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,wasn’t a failure at all.) One month later, the GOPblocked the billin the Senate, preventing the creation of more than a million jobs and the added growth that multiple economists predicted would occur if the bill passed.
The Veterans Jobs Corps: The Los Angelis Time reported: “President Obama’s proposal to create a Veterans Jobs Corps to stem high unemployment among recent military veterans was shelved Wednesday after Republicans in the Senate balked over the five-year $1-billion cost,……” The article went on to say “The measure had been on Obama’s to-do list for Congress, a modest set of initiatives aimed at boosting the nation’s sluggish economy that Republicans have largely rejected. The jobs bill would have hired veterans who served in the military since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to work on federal public lands projects and would have established a network of job training centers.”
Insourcing: In July 2012, Senate Republicans blocked the No.1 item on the president's congressional "to-do-list," refusing to allow a vote on a bill that would give tax breaks for companies that "insource" jobs to the U.S. from overseas while eliminating tax deductions for companies that move jobs abroad. The Bring Jobs Home Act would provide a 20% tax break for the costs of moving jobs back to the United States and would rescind business expense deductions available to companies that are associated with the cost of moving operations overseas. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had warned Democrats before the vote that his party would want to amend the bill -- possibly with hot-button issues like repealing the health care reform law or extending the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels.
