Ronald Reagan Showed What Honest Elections Bring - Democrats Knew They Were In Trouble

I would argue that aside from 1860, 1984 was the most important election in American history thus far. Ronald Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter’s vice president Walter Mondale.  America, at the end of the Carter administration was beleaguered, both emotionally and economically. The Iranian Hostage countdown had Americans glued to their television sets and the combination of double digit inflation and interest rates would knock them for a loop through the first couple of Reagan’s years.

But then Reagan’s policies began to kick in. Lower taxes, less regulation and increased energy output put the country on a path that would generate GDP growth of 7.2% in 1984, a number not seen since 1951 and one we’ve not seen since. At the same time, Reagan’s rebuilding of the American military and his unwavering support of freedom in the face of Communism made Americans feel confident on the world stage for the first time in two decades.

All of this translated into something unprecedented in American history.

In 1788 and 1792 George Washington won both elections by unanimous Electoral College votes.  Following that, in 1820 James Monroe won every state and every Elector except for one.

From that point forward no president ever won every state or the Electoral College by a unanimous vote.  A couple came close, including FDR winning all states but two in 1936 and Nixon winning 49 states in 1972, losing one state, Massachusetts, and DC. 

In 1984 Reagan equaled Nixon’s feat and won every single state other than one, Minnesota, Mondale’s home state, and DC. So, since 1968 the GOP had triumphed in 4 out of 5 elections and in only 12 years had twice won with 49 of 50 states. For Democrats, that could not stand…

They knew that if they didn’t do something, they’d find themselves in a wilderness like they’d never seen before.  And do something they did.  The first thing they did was to dupe Ronald Reagan into signing the 1986 Immigration and Border Control Act into law.  In “exchange” for making 2.7 million illegals citizens, the Democrats (assisted by worthless Republicans led by the feckless Alan Simpson) promised to build a wall on the southern border. 

The Democrats got their 3 million new voters, but Reagan and America didn’t get their wall.  As a result of that, today we have upwards of 30 million illegals in the country and Democrats who want to let them vote and or  make them citizens! And it worked. In 1992 California, Illinois, Massachusetts and other immigrant heavy states turned blue for the first time since 1964 and have never turned back.  

But lying to Reagan wasn’t the only thing Democrats did. Always keeping their eyes on the long game, they recognized that having millions of new illegals doesn’t help them a lot if they can’t vote. (Although they skew Congressional apportionment, typically towards Democrats.)  So they set in place a plan that would eventually allow them to register to vote.  That plan was the 1993 Motor Voter Act, signed by Bill Clinton and ostensibly sold as a law make it easier to register “underrepresented” voters. 

At the time illegals weren’t allowed to get licenses in the United States, but again, Democrats were playing the long game and today 19 states and the District of Columbia do provide them.  And to no one’s surprise, almost every one of those states is blue.  Together these states represent 230 of the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the White House and eventually the law morphed into a vehicle facilitating immigrants and illegals registering to vote.   

But like any good insurgency, the Democrats had multiple areas of attack. Beyond flooding the country with new Democrats, they were doing other things as well.

One of those was extending the voting window. This one would seem like it’s bipartisan as it applies equally to everyone.  But not so much. There’s a reason most negotiators will tell you to let the other person make the first offer in a negotiation.  Aside from the power dynamic, it gives you insight into what cards your opponent is holding.  The same holds true here.  It’s much easier to understand how many votes you need to manufacture if you know in advance what the numbers against you are.  That’s exactly what we saw in 2020 when as the 3^rd of November closed out Donald Trump was ahead in a handful of states that flipped to Joe Biden by just enough votes to win. Georgia with 4.9 million votes was decided by 11,800 votes or less than .2% of the total votes.  Arizona, with 3.3 million votes was decided by 10,400, or .3% of the total.  Similarly Wisconsin, with 3.2 million votes cast was decided by 20,000 votes, or .6%.  Together those three states represent 37 Electoral College votes, which are exactly the number necessary to flip the election from Trump to Biden. (A 269 tie would have sent the election to the House, where states vote by delegation and where the GOP had a majority.) To understand how they pulled this off, read Mollie Hemingway’s Rigged.

Then of course there’s machine voting. Although the two parties have gone back and forth over this for years, the reality is, and always has been that they are simply computers which are easily hackable.  Despite years of Democrats claiming machine voting was unsafe, immediately after Trump “lost” we were told 2020 was the most secure election ever, this despite overwhelming proof that Dominion and other machines are not, in fact, even remotely secure.

The Holy Grail of Democrat cheating is mail in voting.  Like computer voting, mail in voting provides endless opportunities for cheating, such as retirement home and homeless vote harvesting, as well as eliminating signature verification. Indeed, in 2020 Democrats used the COVID hysteria to change voting laws and balloon mail in voting across the country so that by election day over 65 million people or 1/3 of the electorate had already voted via mail.

And even for those who actually turn up to vote in person, Democrats make it easy to cheat.  Democrats have fought voter ID laws for decades. If a picture is worth a thousand words a picture of a Voter ID map is worth countless elections. As one can see, almost every Democrat state has no Voter ID while almost every solidly GOP state requires photo ID. This, despite the fact that 80% of Americans support Voter ID laws. (In Europe, which Democrats aspire to emulate, 46 out of 47 countries require photo ID to vote.)

There’s more of course, from fighting efforts to clean up voter rolls to using lawfare to harm opponents, to using government agencies to quash free speech, but the bottom line is, Democrats cheat every opportunity they get, because they simply can’t win otherwise.

As America careens towards the most consequential election in our history, one that presents a stark choice between an imperfect but competent patriot and a Communist imbecile in Democrat clothing, Republicans need to understand what they are up against. A Democrat party that will sacrifice everything, from children to communities to the lives of citizens in their quest for power will eliminate the Constitution and the Republic without hesitation. They’ve told us as much.  We should believe them and act accordingly. Now is not the time for timidity.  As IKE said:  "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."

Ronald Reagan said: “If you want more of something, subsidize it" That Apparently Includes Unemployment!

 Eight years ago I wrote a post titled:  Can A Nation Built By Giants Survive Nanny State Paternalism? The Numbers Don't Look Good...  In it I wrote:

“ Were the Americans who carved a nation out of a continent, who crisscrossed that continent with railroads, telephone lines and highways and who won two world wars so different than Americans today… Not based on DNA they weren’t. But that doesn’t mean they were the same. While the DNA of the American people today is no different than that of the people who invented the elevator or the light bulb, the American people writ large certainly appear to be”.

The piece goes on to talk about the staggering changes in the makeup of the American workforce in terms of numbers of people actually working vs the number living off of government largesse.  I observed:  “If the record of the last 40 years were to be repeated over the next 40, in 2050 the country would have 260 million workers supporting 43 million people on disability and 450 million people on food stamps.”

It turns out that I was off by a few decades…

The last year saw what may turn out to be the most cataclysmic mutation of American society in our history.  Not only did the Democrats take Rahm Emanuel’s “Never let a crisis go to waste” maxim to heart, they put it on steroids.  They took a virus and turned into a catastrophe of epic proportions.

At the state level, from New York to Michigan to California, mini tyrants used the virus to strangle small business as the governors put their boots on the necks of their citizens.   At the national level Joe Biden has shifted government spending into overdrive. 

To put that spending into perspective, in March and April of 2020 when the pandemic was taking off and the United States lost 22 million jobs, president Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill to keep the country on track.  He signed another $2 trillion over the next eight months as the economy found its footing and recovered 12 million of those jobs.  In his three months in office, when the nation added more than 1.5 million jobs, with demand spiking and prices surging, Joe Biden has signed into law or proposed $8 Trillion in new spending. 

Spending $4 trillion of dollars that the government doesn’t have when the economy is in freefall with more than 20 million Americans losing their jobs may be defensible, but spending $8 trillion when the economy is starting to overheat is simply ludicrous.

The proof of the folly is all around.  Across the country businesses are finding it almost impossible to hire staff, and those who can are doing so at much higher costs than they would normally pay.  Why?  Government, of course.  Businesses have to compete with supplemental unemployment payments that in Mississippi, the state with the lowest unemployment benefits in the union, equals $535 per week ($235 + $300 supplemental) which works out to the equivalent of $13.37 an hour in a state where the minimum wage is $7.25.(Within the last few days a dozen states – including Mississippi - have decided to leave the federal unemployment benefits program.)   In Massachusetts, where the minimum wage is $13.50 the total unemployment benefit works out to the equivalent of $28.20.  This spike in labor costs is even worse than it sounds because as businesses struggle to find workers, the higher wages necessary to attract them drive an increase in prices, which in turn tamps down demand for their offerings in the first place.

This tragedy is particularly difficult for small businesses who have taken the brunt of the damage in this economic meltdown with in excess of 2 million closing up shop and almost 10 million not sure they will survive.  Large companies like Amazon, Home Depot, Wal Mart and others have not only survived the pandemic, they’ve thrived from it.  Sadly, small businesses, who have traditionally been the life’s blood of the American economy, have not been so fortunate.  While large businesses often have the finances or flexibility to deal with surging labor costs, small businesses rarely do.  And labor typically makes up a much bigger cost of operations for small companies than it does for large firms who often can harness technology, scale and outsourcing to minimize labor costs.  For restaurants, karate classess, beauty shops and most small businesses, labor is often the biggest expense and the primary vehicle through which they deliver their services.

What we have in 2021 is a continuation of the Emanuel maxim. Last year Democrats used it to lay the groundwork for stealing the election and now they’re using it to drive their fundamental socialist goal:  The destruction of American small business. 

Small businesses represent solutions, opportunity and most of all, individual freedom, all things Democrats despise because they don’t look to government for direction.  Big business on the other hand, as Coke, Delta, Disney and myriad others have recently demonstrated, can be counted on to pick up the Democrat standard and run with it, much like Wal Mart and McDonalds did when they supported the passage of Obamacare.

Beyond the businesses themselves, small businessmen and women are a problem for Democrats.  By definition they are entrepreneurs, people who want to build something, want to be in control of their destinies and as such lean towards smaller government and the GOP.  Given that the Democrat Party is the party of government largesse, of government regulation and ultimately, government control, a crisis that disproportionately harms small businesses while growing the power and influence of the state is seen by them as a win-win proposition.  Look no further than their collusion with the teacher’s unions on the opening of schools to understand that it’s not what’s good for citizens that’s important, but rather, what’s good for the party and their donors. 

All of this came into stark view last week when the news that the economy added a mere 266,000 jobs in April when the expectation was for over 1 million.  That number, when combined with the tidal wave of help wanted signs across the country clearly demonstrates that Americans are indeed motivated not to work. Joe Biden scoffed at such notions:  “Americans want to work” he said.  Maybe not:  Bank of America estimates that anyone who earned $32,000 before the pandemic can now get more from a combination of state and federal unemployment benefits. They are also allowed to claim benefits for up to 39 weeks - nearly a full year - whereas before, it was capped at 26 weeks. The average US salary in 2019 was $31,133.

Which brings us back to the notion of a nation built by giants.  For most of our history, Americans very much had a “can do” spirit.  They carved a nation out of forest, rock and through deserts while fighting the elements, Indians, the English, Spanish, Mexicans and even one another.  Americans built the Transcontinental Railroad in six years, the Golden Gate Bridge in four and the Empire State Building in 410 days. Today however, Democrats have Americans cowering in their homes, requiring masks on the chance they’re given permission to emerge and looking to the government for their incomes. The virus provided Democrats with a perfect storm of opportunity to finish what they started half a century ago, turning a nation of giants into a nation of vassals where life, liberty and dollars are doled out in exchange for supplication to the Democrat Party. Never let a crisis go to waste, indeed.

Secession Is A Radical Solution That Sadly Doesn’t Seem So Radical Any More

Some things in life are constant. My entire life America has been one of those things.  Despite Vietnam, Watergate, Iran Contra, the Dot Com bubble, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession and more, the United States has been constant.  America, rife with internal conflicts, differing opinions and more than a few lying politicians was always the land of freedom, the land of opportunity, and the land of endless possibilities.  America and freedom were like the earth below us and the sun and the stars above… constants.    

But constant is relative…  Wait long enough and the earth will be gone. Wait long enough and the sun and the stars will be gone. So too with nations. Ronald Reagan knew this.  He said:  Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  That generation is upon us and we are most certainly watching in real time as American freedom is extinguished, and with it America.

America was fundamentally built on freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.  Freedom of speech, religion, the right to peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government.  But it’s not just the Constitution itself that makes America.  It’s ideas that flow from it and our history.  Free markets, private property, entrepreneurship, 4^th of July, baseball, high school debate team, cars, suburbs, bake sales, Thanksgiving dinner, spelling bees, Pledge of Allegiance, Christmas antlers,  the National Anthem and more.    

All of that, both the actual rights and the ideas beyond them all are under attack in America of 2021.  Whether petty tyrants using the Covid hysteria to eviscerate our freedoms of religion and assembly and to crush our businesses or social media oligarchs shutting down debate in the 21^st century town square or education departments causing Martin Luther King to spin in his grave as they abandon his dream, the America of Norman Rockwell paintings is being torn apart idea by idea by idea.

This past summer Americans were helpless as cities from coast to coast burned in response to the killing of George Floyd and they were told the violence was understandable and “mostly peaceful protests”.  This past year many Americans saw their lives upended as their jobs or businesses were destroyed, their families turned into strangers and churches and schools turned into ghost towns as a result of a disease with a 99.99% survival rate, but we were told that America was facing the gravest public health threat in history.  Now we’re watching as children are taught that math is racist, that hard work is racist, and there is no difference between boys and girls and we’re told that all of this is healthy and reasonable.

At the same time, we’ve watched our history upended as we see monuments to our heroes, from Columbus to Washington to Grant and Lincoln to Booker T. Washington to Reagan toppled in the name of racism!  We’ve watched the indoctrination of grievance as the defining characteristic of American life.  We’ve witnessed the politicization of every single aspect of American society, where everything from sitcoms to sports to sex no longer have intrinsic value on their own, but rather have become mere Rorschach tests for measuring one’s degree of submission to the new normal. 

America has become a nation where objective reality no longer matters, where the free exchange of ideas is no longer allowed and where the exercise of an individual’s rights are tolerated only to the degree that they do not hurt the feelings of some aggrieved victim class.  America has become a bizzarro world where everything from science to math and history to law are no longer constants upon which society rests but rather malleable frameworks for the destruction of everything that does not comport with todays’ woke mores. 

And so it is thorough this looking glass one wonders what is the solution?  In 2016 Americans went to the ballot box and said they’d had enough of the perversion of everything ostensibly American into a cancer on the history of the world and elected a leader who was unabashedly patriotic.  After four years of constant, relentless lies about said leader they returned to the ballot box and reelected the man who was seeking to upend the demonization of America, only to have the election stolen under the cover of the night.  That theft was enabled by the fiction of an existential threat to life on earth posed by a novel virus. Americans went to the ballot box and their will was thwarted.

Rather than set the nation afire, jilted voters looked to the courts for a Constitutional remedy.  A split Supreme Court had demurred from solving the problem before the election but after the election had the opportunity to revisit the question before the votes were certified.  Again they demurred. Once the fraudulent administration was in place the Court had one last opportunity to address the fraud once and for all, and again chose not to act.

So we have a circumstance where citizens go to the polls only to watch those votes stolen.  They then petition the nation’s highest court for redress and are rebuffed.  As they watch the cabal who perpetrated the theft work to institutionalize the very tools with which they purloined the election in the first place, what are citizens who revere the Constitution and love liberty supposed to do?

Do they stand by and watch as what’s left of their country is taken over by those for whom freedom and rule of law are simply obstacles to the permanent domination over the nation?  Become slaves on a modern day plantation where Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington are the masters and the woke anarchists are the overseers who keep everyone in line?  Riot in the streets like BLM and Antifa have done so often?

Or they could pursue secession, where the woke are welcome to the coasts while the heartland and the south choose freedom and the Constitution…  It is indeed a radical notion, but the constant of the free America most of us knew is gone so perhaps the time has come...  When all conventional Constitutional avenues have been impeded, when opponents seek to eliminate citizens’ Constitutional rights and thwart the language of the document itself, what other choice is left?  We can accept the slow death of the Republic as the gangrene of wokness starves the body politic of the blood of freedom, or amputate the cancerous limbs and allow freedom to flow once again through the veins of a nation defined by liberty.  The left has made the radical normal.  Secession is a radical solution that sadly doesn’t seem so radical any more.

Barack Obama And Iran - A Love Story: How Far Will One Man Go To Validate His Nobel Peace Prize? And What Price Will The World Pay?

Thirty two years ago Ronald Reagan introduced his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to the world with this quote: “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.” Derided by the left as being scientifically impossible and having the potential of reigniting the arms race with the Soviets, “Star Wars” as they called it, became a sufficient worry for the Soviets that it actually hastened their demise.

Later that year in one of my Political Science classes we discussed peace treaties in general and those with the Soviets in particular. Given the history of failed treaties from Munich to Moscow, the professor asked a simple question: “If it’s someone’s goal to kill you, to destroy you, is it unreasonable to expect them to lie about it in the first place?” The obvious answer was no, it’s not unreasonable at all.

That apparently is not a concept Barack Obama has ever picked up on. Today when it seems that we are but days or weeks away from an agreement with the Iranians – not to be confused with a treaty –the obviousness of that reality is crystal clear. In seeking to garner support for his “agreement” with Tehran, President Obama said this: "Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has said that Iran would never develop a nuclear weapon,"

As these words came off of the President’s lips, he had never sounded more like Neville Chamberlain, who on September 30, 1938 told the world: “This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: ' ... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.” Less than one year later Hitler invaded Poland… not surprisingly, in concert with the Soviets.

Apparently, in Barack Obama’s world, we’re supposed to believe what the leaders of a terrorist state say… but only sometimes. When they endorse an EMP attack against the United States that would leave half the country in a blackout for months… not so much. When they suggest Israel, our strongest ally and the only liberal democracy in the region should be annihilated…nah.  When they boast about cheating on the last nuclear agreement they entered into with the West… obviously not.

Of course we all know that Iran has a checkered past… the taking of American hostages in 1979, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, their longtime financial support for Hezbollah and Hamas, the US embassy attacks in 1998 and of course their active support for those fighting the US in Iraq for much of the last decade. But maybe they’ve changed over the last few years. (Or maybe in the last few hours as apparently just yesterday Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America".) Maybe they’ve seen the error of their ways, washed their hands of their terrorist proxies and turned over a new leaf… No, not really. At least not according to the governments of Israel in 2012, Peru in 2013 and Uruguay just last month.

One has to ask, how is it even remotely possible that President Obama would consider an agreement with a country with more than three decades of duplicity and active support for terrorism against the United States and its allies? Why would he want to make life easier for a serial terrorist regime by pushing to drop sanctions against them?  How is it even possible he would consider an agreement that would facilitate the world’s most dangerous regime maintaining its nuclear capabilities and beginning a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile neighborhood? How is it possible that a Harvard trained lawyer would think that a fig leaf of an international “agreement” would somehow keep a duplicitous regime – that boasts of cheating on just such agreements – from actually developing a nuclear weapon?

Is his need to validate his unwarranted Nobel Peace Prize so strong that he will put the world at risk? Does he so feel the need for a foreign policy “victory” of some sort that he will put the security of the United States in peril? Is his narcissism so great and his belief in his ability to bend the world to his will so absolute that he need not bother to actually pay attention to reality? Is he a Manchurian plant?  Or has the marijuana and cocaine he did in school finally caught up with him and started to impair his brain function?

Whatever the explanation, Barack Obama’s willingness to ignore reality that virtually everyone else on the planet can see and plunge the nation and the world into a universe where a messianic regime preparing for the “end of times” is on the road to nuclear weapons is the ultimate betrayal of his office. If he goes ahead with his agreement with Iran he will not only be seen as the anti-Ronald Reagan, he will rightly go down in history as the 21st century’s Neville Chamberlain.  Hopefully the cost of Obama's folly won't be nearly as high as that paid for Chamberlain's appeasement.  That might really tarnish his Nobel Prize.

UPDATE:  Of all the options I think the Nobel Prize option has risen to the top.  It seems clear now what is happening.  The Nobel Prize is only the first step.  Now that Barack Obama has ruled the United States for six years with impunity and little resistance, he has his sights set on bigger fish. Barack Obama now seeks to be King of the World.  And how does he do that?  By becoming the Secretary General of the United Nations.  And how does he accomplish that?  By first making himself worthy of his Nobel Prize on the world stage.  While the Middle East may be imploding, he can stand above it by making peace with the world's biggest troublemaker.  His leadership is demonstrated by his willingness to go where no one before him would go.  Even to the extent of suggesting "Death to America" doesn't really mean "Death to America".

 And of course he wants to make sure the position is as powerful as it can be once he gets there.  Given that the UN is the ultimate international organization, giving away power to lesser international organizations makes the leader of that ultimate organization that much more powerful.  Thus explains his attempt to give away control of the Internet to an international organization.  Thus explains his desire to lead from behind in... numerous places.  Thus explains the hidden push to make the fed and the Treasury Department subject to international regulation. Finally, given the fact that the UN is a democratic organization in the sense that majority rules, it makes perfect sense that an obsequious Barack Obama would bend over backwards to cater to the developed world nations in the Middle East, Africa and South America.  If he curries favor with them then he has his majority and will likely be able to implement just about anything he wants.  Sure there is an American veto on the Security Council, but with President Pocahontas in office, what are the chances that their goals will differ?

 And so it goes.  Barack Obama is a man who has conquered the single most powerful nation in the history of the world and now the Megalomaniac in Chief has his sights set on the only bigger target on this planet... an organization that runs the world.  While they are not likely to give him the title "King of the World" that won't really matter. He will be nonetheless.  Given his willingness to ignore the Constitution here in the United States, what makes anyone think that any sort of limitations might stand up to the King when he makes his desires known.  And as his administration in the UN won't have a Tea Party to try and keep it in line, the possibilities are endless.

What six years of Barack Obama's economic incompetence has wrought

Now that Barack Obama’s first six years are over it might be nice to see what he has wrought, and compare him to another iconic president, Ronald Reagan.

When Barack Obama took office in 2009 65.7% of Americans were participating in the laborforce. (This is called the Labor Force Participation Rate – LFPR – which includes those working and those looking for work.) Six years later that number was down to 62.8. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 63.9% of Americans were participating in the workforce and six years later that number had grown to 65.6%.

Unemployment is the measure of those in the laborforce looking for work but can’t find it. At first blush Obama seems to be doing well using that measure. In February 2009 unemployment sat at 8.3% and by November 2014 it had dropped to 5.8%. In February 1981 Ronald Reagan took office with an unemployment rate of 7.4%, which by November 1986 had only dropped to 6.9%. Using the unemployment measure seems to suggest Obama’s policies trump those of Reagan.

Upon closer inspection however… not so much. The LFPR tells the story – or really its inverse does. That is the number of those not working who must be supported by workers, unless they were independently wealthy. A 65% LFPR indicates that 35% of the population would be supported by workers. In the case of both Obama and Reagan the US population grew by approximately 11 million people over their first six years in office. Under Reagan, because job growth was so strong – 11 million new jobs – the total number of people who needed to be supported by those working (unemployed + those not in the workforce) remained steady at 93 million throughout those six years. Under Obama however, because job growth was so anemic – 3 million total new jobs – the number of people who needed to be supported by those working actually jumped 8 million from 121 million to 129 million. That means that under Reagan the number of workers in the US grew by 11 million while the number of non workers remained steady. Under Obama the number of workers grew by 3 million while the number not working grew by 8 million.

But some might argue that Obama faced a tougher economic situation than did Reagan. Not really.

When Ronald Reagan took office inflation was 10.1% and six years later it was 1.9% while under Barack Obama inflation started out near zero and has remained there throughout his terms. What’s ironic about this tame inflation is that it has much to do with dropping prices for things like big screen TV’s, mobile phones and oil, – the latter despite Obama’s best efforts – while core items that the poor spend most heavily on such as meats, poultry, fish, eggs and electricity, are hitting all time record highs.

When Reagan took office interest rates were 19.5% and by his sixth year they were down to 7.5%. When Barack Obama took office interest rates were at 3.25% and have essentially stayed in that area since. That extraordinarily low rate is in large part due to the Fed’s pumping of $4.5 trillion into the American economy since 2008, allowing the federal government to borrow like a drunken sailor.

Of course that pumping also has the impact of juicing the GDP numbers as there is more borrowing and investment going on than the fundamentals would otherwise support. And it’s in this easy money environment that Barack Obama’s biggest failure can be seen. In the six years he’s been president GDP grew by a total of 22%. Compare that to the same period under Reagan, where GDP grew by a whopping 42%. Of course Reagan did add substantially to the national debt, growing it by 6% of GDP during each of his first six years. But Obama borrowed even more, growing the national debt by 8% of GDP each of his first six years. Add to that the 5% the Fed kicked in each year with its Quantative Easing and it’s almost impossible understand how GDP could grow as slowly as it has under Obama.

The key however is hiding right in plain sight. Q4 GDP numbers give it away. The administration crows that the economy grew at a 5% clip in the last quarter of 2014. Not bad. What they don’t tell you is that fully half that uptick came specifically as a result of coerced Obamacare spending. Obamacare is a microcosm of what’s wrong with Obama and his administration. On the one hand it kills jobs, increases prices, eliminates choices and puts private practice doctors out of business. On the other hand, those very same regulations force Americans and companies to spend more on its mandates, which has the result of juicing GDP. So by regulatory fiat the government can remake the economy and claim Americans are better off in the process by juicing GDP numbers. Now imagine the same thing with hundreds of thousands of regulations over the last six years and you understand just how it’s the case that GDP seems to keep growing but Americans seem poorer.

To put the cherry on top of this indictment of Barack Obama’s economic incompetence is a quote from Ronald Reagan: “Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence”. Barack Obama likely disagrees. When he took office there were 32 million Americans on food stamps. Today that number stands at 46 million. In six years Barack Obama’s economic policies have so damaged the country that 5% of Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls while fully one third of the country receives some form of welfare. All of this while the rich are paying more in taxes than ever and half the country pays no income taxes at all and the middle class try to keep their heads above water.  That's what happens when your policies bring about the slowest economic recovery in the last half century. 

Too bad no one saw this coming…