Americans are experiencing buyer's remorse. Last summer CNN found that 53% of those polled would choose Mitt Romney to be president today, over the 44% who chose Barack Obama. And with Obama’s approval ratings fixed these days below 50%, I suppose it’s only human to get a bit testy with those you're compared to:
President Obama poked fun at former rival Mitt Romney and leading Republicans on Thursday, saying the GOP’s rhetoric on the economy was “starting to sound pretty Democratic.”At the House Democratic Caucus retreat in Philadelphia, Obama noted that a "former Republican presidential candidate" was “suddenly, deeply concerned about poverty.”
“That's great! Let's go do something about it!” Obama added in a not-so-veiled jab at Romney.
What’s not particularly smart, however, is to frivolously attack someone’s track record on poverty when your own record looks abysmal:
A few ugly facts about the Obama Presidency:
- Median household income has slumped from $53,285 in 2009 to $51,017 in 2012 just up to $51,939 in 2013.
- In comparison to his three previous successors, this fall in median income looks even worse:
- Real median household income was 8.0% lower in 2013 than in 2007.
- Nearly 5.5 million more Americans have fallen into poverty since Obama took office.
- Obama oversaw the first time the poverty rate remained at or above 15% three years running since 1965.
- Home ownership fell from 67.3% in Q1 2009 to 64.8% in Q1 2014; black home ownership dropped from 46.1% to 43.3%.
- Labour force participation rate fell from 65.7% in January 2009 to 62.7% in December 2014.
- The federal debt owed to the public has more than doubled under Obama, rising by 103 percent.
- 13 million Americans have been added to the food stamp roll since Obama took office.
Obama has been very successful in painting a picture of himself and the Democrats as the 'Party of the Poor', and did an even more sensational job convincing 2012 voters that Romney's riches and successes put him out of touch with the middle-class America. But in reality, the president's policies have pushed millions more people into financial stress and poverty.
And he's still causing damage; even his latest State of the Union address called to raise taxes on university savings accounts and still cited fake unemployment numbers, as if this somehow helps the double-digit workers who have given up looking for jobs.
Perhaps the president really thinks his increased federal spending will pay off for the poor. Maybe he really believes that multi-millions more on food stamps is a saving grace instead of a tragedy. But regardless of intention, the facts speak for themselves.
Obama's talk on poverty is cheap. And his mockery of Romney cheaper.