Obama Losing Support Of Johnny And Jane Lunchbucket. Does This Explain Trump's Acceptance?

Families are no longer fooled by ‘hope and change’ happy talk

By Stephen Moore

The Washington Times

January 11, 2016

The stock market closed down for 2015 reversing one of the few positive accomplishments under the Barack Obama presidency. This has been a pretty prosperous time for the top two percent. For most Americans though — not so much.

A new report from Sentier Research based on Census data finds that median household income of $56,700 at the end of 2015 stood exactly where it was adjusted for inflation at the end of 2007.

That’s eight years of virtually zero income gain. And President Obama and his Washington political pundits wonder why voters are in such a cranky mood.

Last week the Joint Economic Committee of Congress (JEC)  issued a report on the Obama recovery loaded with even more dismal news. On almost every measure examined, the 2009-15 recovery since the recovery ended in June of 2009 has been the meekest in more than 50 years.

Start with the broadest measure of economic progress: growth in output. The chart below compares the Obama growth pace with that of the average recovery coming out of the last eight recessions and with the Reagan recovery and over the same number of months (77). Democrats used to disparage the Reagan expansion as nothing special, yet the growth rate over the first 25 quarters under Reagan was 34 percent versus 14.3 percent under Obama.

How much does this matter? If we had grown at an average pace, GDP in 2015 would have been about $1.8 trillion higher. Under the Reagan recovery growth would have been $2.7 trillion higher.

It is certainly true that every recession is different in cause and consequences, so the JEC dug deeper into the numbers. It examined GDP growth on a per-capita basis. The Reagan recovery was abnormally strong in part because it happened when millions of baby boomers swept into the work force adding to growth. But even on a per-capita basis, real GDP has grown only 9.0 percent versus 18.8 percent for the average recovery. That is the lowest of any post-1960 recovery.

Next the JEC (Joint Economic Committee of Congress) measured job market trends. Again we see a failing record. Yes, official unemployment of just over 5 percent today is very low. But that’s the biggest lie in America — right up there with “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

The distortion is due to the fact that 94 million people in America over the age of 16 aren’t in the labor force. If job growth had been the same as the average recovery we would have at least 5 million more Americans working — which is nearly the size of the workforce in Pennsylvania.

Amazingly, if we had had a Reagan-paced job recovery we would today have at least 12 million more Americans working. Job creators are still on strike and it’s a result of EPA rules, Obamacare, tax hikes, and other assaults against business.

When fewer people are working and wages are stagnant, incomes don’t grow. That’s the real sorry story of the Obama era. If the Obama recovery had been just average, in other words a C grade, JEC calculates that “after-tax per person income would be $3,339 (2009$) per year higher,” families can no longer be fooled with happy talk about “hope and change.” They feel the tough times.

The JEC’s dreary conclusion tells the whole story of the era of Obamanomics: “On economic growth the Obama recovery ranks dead last.”

One other statistic that stands out on the Obama record as we begin his last year in office. The debt is up to $16.5 trillion and by the he leaves office our indebtedness will be almost double where it was when he entered the Oval Office. Just the interest payments alone cost half a trillion dollars a year. This is the Obama legacy and if liberals want to take ownership of this bleak record — it’s all theirs.

• Stephen Moore is an economic consultant with Freedom Works and a Fox News contributor.

- See more at: http://israel-commentary.org/?p=12592#sthash.G2IRS95w.dpuf

Democrats Are So Anti-Gun That They Will Propose Any Legislation Against Guns Regardless Of Who It Hurts

Carolyn Maloney’s racist gun grab

By Eddie Zipperer

91241

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I don’t live in a fancy Upper East Side skyscraper protected by a doorman.  I live in a small house in a town Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has probably never heard of.  The closest thing I have to a doorman is part Lab part German-Shepherd, and she’s integral in my two-stage redneck security system:

Stage one:  My dog barks.  She can barely tolerate strangers walking down our road in the middle of the day, so if someone steps in my yard at night—forget about it.  By the time you’re close enough to my house to hear her barking, stage two has already been activated. 

Stage Two: I wake up, open the safe next to my bed, and pull out my Ruger .45.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that every American has the constitutional right to draw Muhammad, and I sprinkled in some disparaging remarks about ISIS.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that if I didn’t own a gun.  There’s a reason the framers of the Constitution came up with the second amendment right after the first one.  I imagine the conversation went something like this:

Framer One: Let’s put an amendment in there that people can say whatever crazy crap they want.

Framer Two: Even hate speech?

Framer One: Especially hate speech!

Framer Two: Even speech disparaging the attractiveness of another man’s wife?

Framer One: Yep.

Framer Two: Okay, but they’ll need guns.

Framer One: Spoiler alert!  That’s my idea for the next amendment.

There are three amendments in the Bill of Rights that use the phrase “right of the people,” and it’s no coincidence that those are the three most commonly under attack by government—the first, fourth, and—of course—the second.

Maloney has introduced a bill in the house-- The Firearms Risk Protection Act-- that would require legal gun owners to purchase liability insurance or face a $10,000 fine.  This is particularly despicable legislation because it not only attempts to circumvent second amendment rights; it ensures that only rich folks can own guns.

With the constant liberal parrot-gripe being that the deck is stacked against the poor in the U.S., it’s surprising that any liberal would support legislation which so directly infringes upon the civil liberties of the poor.  Maloney herself has said, “extreme inequality is corrosive. It hurts families; it weakens our economy; and it weakens our democracy.”  If that’s true, then how come only wealthy people should be able to have guns?  That's not equal. 

If there’s anything anyone has heard from a liberal in the last six years, it’s that insurance costs disproportionately harm the poor.  That’s what the never-ending Obamacare debate has been about. Maybe Maloney hasn’t noticed the disparity since she represents the richest congressional district in the entire U.S. where per capita income is $75,479.  But most liberals understand the truth that having to purchase gun liability insurance won’t mean a thing to rich people.  For the poor, however, it will effectively end their second amendment right.

But Maloney’s legislation is even more sinister than that. 

According to Sentier Research, the median household income of white Americans is over $24,000 a year higher than that of black Americans which means that her bill will disproportionately target legal black gun owners.  So, not only is the legislation elitist but racist as well.

A majority of congressional Democrats are in favor of weakening the second amendment.  Banning certain types of guns and magazines has been a favorite method.  They like to play semantics as if we really have no clear idea exactly what the words in the second amendment mean even though we can turn to the other writings of the framers as context.  George Mason, who co-authored the second amendment, said at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” 

“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed,” Alexander Hamilton said.

And so on.   

The point is, liberal politicians will never stop coming up with ways to circumvent this particular “right of the people,” but even the staunchest, most liberal gun control advocates should not support legislation that uses racist, elitist methods to do it.

Zipperer is a published, award-winning playwright and an adjunct English professor at Georgia College.