Are you better off right now than 4 years ago?

Yet another partisan hack, biased thread from the king of said traits.
No, we are not better off because freedom has shrunk even more under this President, we have intervened in yet another country (Libya), are still in one we shouldn't be (Afghan), and will probably end up on the ground in a new one (Syria). In addition, the economy has been stagnant for his entire presidency, the majority of the jobs "he has added" are low paying food service and retail jobs, and the debt is now the top national security risk of our nation. The bad part is, if the Dems had controlled Congress his entire administration it wouldn't be far fetched to assume that we could be approaching 18-20 trillion in debt right now.

MarineTpartier said:

The bad part is, if the Dems had controlled Congress his entire administration it wouldn't be far fetched to assume that we could be approaching 18-20 trillion in debt right now.

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Actually, it would.

Hare said:

Actually, it would.

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Its simply math really. In the first 5 months of the Obama administration, we added 1 trillion to the debt. So, if we keep with that initial spending rate, what do we get? We get 8 trillion. He walked into 10 trillion in debt. So that would put us at approximately 18 trillion in debt. That's assuming that he would have maintained the spending rate he did. Who knows what he would have done had he seen the inevitable economic boost that pumping that much money into the economy would have produced. President Obama has stated numerous times he wants to spend more, would support another stimulus, and his budgets are an annual joke.

99percenter said:

Are you better off now than when obama took office during the peak of the bushian great recession when our economy was in freefall?

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Biased Poll, is Biased.


No, I am not better off than 4 years ago.

Four years ago gas cost less than $2 a gallon and I was getting at least 5 hours of overtime a week.

Today gas costs over $3.50 a gallon... costing me around $45 a week to drive... and overtime is scarce as hen's teeth, and I've had ONE raise for a whopping .15c/hr. The cost of almost everything else is up too.

My BIL got laid off and was out of work for 1.5 years, then had to take a job making 75% of his previous salary. My neice was laid off and is still out of work. I end up helping both even though I'm not making the money I was making 4 years ago either.

The housing market is still pretty flat. I'm trying to sell some land I inherited and the only offer I got so far was laughably low. Good luck buying a house though, loans are really hard to obtain.

Businesses and investors are scared to invest in growth industries, and are staring down the barrel of the remaining Obamacare provisions that take effect in the next few years and wondering how hard it is going to hit business and the economy.


No, I'm not better off, or even as well off, as 4 yrs ago.

MarineTpartier said:

Its simply math really. In the first 5 months of the Obama administration, we added 1 trillion to the debt. So, if we keep with that initial spending rate, what do we get? We get 8 trillion. He walked into 10 trillion in debt. So that would put us at approximately 18 trillion in debt. That's assuming that he would have maintained the spending rate he did. Who knows what he would have done had he seen the inevitable economic boost that pumping that much money into the economy would have produced. President Obama has stated numerous times he wants to spend more, would support another stimulus, and his budgets are an annual joke.

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Skewed numbers for several reasons, you're counting the ARRA as a one time, singular expenditure, when in fact it was riddled with tax credits, subsidies, and outright cuts not to be realized until businesses saw the need to expand, not to mention the gradual pace of the infrastructure projects contained within the bill. All in all the total deficit for the year 2009 was 1.4 trillion in total. That, in addition to the plunging revenues that accompanied the housing collapse, renders 2009 a inapproriate measure.

I'm better off but I'm poor. I don't have much to lose. In fact, by most measures I don't even qualify as middle class. And I work a full time job.

yeah, i'm better off...no credit goes to any president though.. or any politician.

now if Obama can put stop to this whole aging thing, I'll be much better off and he might get my vote.

I think you could make the case that the country seems better off today simply because we are not in recession. But we have a debt that was $10,000,000,000,000 four years ago and is $16,000,000,000,000 today. We have trillion dollar annual deficits that have to be addressed and the FED still running emergency accomodations. So without all the deficits and money printing, where would we be? In recession. So many people still have the feeling that while things appear better, there are still massive problems and uncertainty surrounding the US economy and our future. For all his talk and claims of improving things, Obama has simply masked the problem by heaping on debt--alleviating the symptoms but causing a new and potentially greater ailment. Austerity in the form of higher interest rates, higher taxes and drastically reduced government spending are coming. They will either be phased in voluntarily or imposed upon us by reality. Hope for the former.

The reason polls show so many people dont feel better off now is because the equity in their homes has been wiped out and has not recovered under Obama, incomes have not grown much and the cost of everything else has. Low interest rates have hurt savers, retirees and pensions and has done little to benefit the consumer. So while the panic of the recession has passed, optimism for the future is not there.

Perhaps we should target specific groups with the whole "are you better off 4 years later" question. The answers, if we analyze each targeted group honestly, may tell us quite a bit about the "effectiveness" of the Obama administration. For example.......

are those who were at/below the poverty line 4 yrs ago doing better?

are those who were small business owners 4 yrs ago doing better?

is Corporate America doing better?

are those who were considered Middle-class 4yrs ago doing better?

is public education doing better?

is the housing market doing better?

are prices any more stable today than 4 yrs ago?

is the Middle East any more stable than it was 4 yrs ago?

are the Uber Wealthy doing better?

and here comes the big one....

IS THE US GOVERNMENT DOING ANY BETTER? (meaning have its revenues and expenditure increased, has it grown in size and in employment, has its regulatory power increased, and has its influence over the everyday lives of citizens grown)? I think we can all figure out the answer to this last one without doing a great deal of research. :shrug:


And let us not forget........didn't the Dems have a super-majority (filibuster-proof) in Congress during Obama's first year in office? The Dems essentially had a "blank check" to push any new reform through. And what did they push through......1. Did away with DontAskDontTell, 2. Cash for Clunkers, 3. The Failed "Stimulus" Bill..........Wow! That's what we got?............. Go back and look at what FDR was able to accomplish in just his First Hundred Days.

Obama is an Empty Suit and the establishment Democrats in Congress are beholden to Special Interest Groups and nothing more.

Hare said:

Skewed numbers for several reasons, you're counting the ARRA as a one time, singular expenditure, when in fact it was riddled with tax credits, subsidies, and outright cuts not to be realized until businesses saw the need to expand, not to mention the gradual pace of the infrastructure projects contained within the bill. All in all the total deficit for the year 2009 was 1.4 trillion in total. That, in addition to the plunging revenues that accompanied the housing collapse, renders 2009 a inapproriate measure.

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How so? When the POTUS is advocating for MORE spending, his budgets propose LESS fiscal discipline, and he honestly believes his stimulus did a good job, how can you honestly think that he would have suddenly changed course and gained fiscal restraint? Personally, I believe that is naive. As soon as the stimulus hit he immediately started his "invest in roads and bridges" rhetoric that he's been spitting since he took office.
On a side note, but in the same ballpark, I also got a brochure from Dish Network today saying that I could get internet in my home (if I don't have it already) for $39.95 a month for 5 years. That's a locked in price, no inflation, no price increases, no installation fees, no contract, no activation fee, and no monthly equipment fee. Guess who's paying for that? If you guessed taxpayers, you are correct. It even says in bold letters "Paid for by the American Recovery Act" on the cover. That's the crap President Obama spends money on. I don't see how you can honestly sit back and believe that someone who thinks that is a good idea would not have run up the debt that I estimated.

MarineTpartier said:

How so?

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Edited for brevity, simply put, flawed math. The deficits for the years 2009 and 2010 totaled around 3 trillion dollars, which would demand that the remaining two years incur deficits totaling around 2.5 trillion per calendar year just to meet your minimum assertions, which belies just about any factual conclusions regarding revenue streams, proposed spending bills, and logic in general.

Hare said:

Edited for brevity, simply put, flawed math. The deficits for the years 2009 and 2010 totaled around 3 trillion dollars, which would demand that the remaining two years incur deficits totaling around 2.5 trillion per calendar year just to meet your minimum assertions, which belies just about any factual conclusions regarding revenue streams, proposed spending bills, and logic in general.

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So, you would have guessed that he spend in 3 years what the previous POTUS spent in 8 even considering that the previous POTUS had his own bailout, embarked upon a two front war, and expanded the size of gov't at roughly the same rate? I sure would not have guessed that and I didn't vote for him. To me, there is no limit as to what President Obama would spend. Both us, admittedly, are basing our conclusions upon assumptions. However, there is much more evidence to back my assumption than yours. You claim that he would not have spent up to $18 trillion where I believe he would have spent to that, at minimum, with a Democrat controlled Congress. Seeing as how we have hit roughly $16 trillion, from roughly $10 trillion, in a 4 year period I believe the basic math of it favors my assumption. You have no basis to conclude that the guy would have stopped spending money based upon the sample time in which Dems controlled the Congress. His nor President Bush's stimulus did much to help the economy. President Obama has stated that he would pass another stimulus. If the last one didn't work, the new one would have to be much more money. Perhaps double.

A little bias but gets the point across to those 13%

MarineTpartier said:

I believe the basic math of it favors my assumption

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Nah, man sorry, it just doesn't add up. The first two years were a Democratically controlled congress, and the deficits incurred don't even begin to sniff your projections, even when taking into account the heaviest job losses taking place, the majority of the TARP and ARRA funds being realized and placed into circulation, and an conflict in Iraq that was still going strong. The only notable spending bill in the same zip code as the ARRA proposed in the past year and a half was the JOBS act (The second stimulus of which you speak of ), which was proposed alongside offsetting revenues which would dampen it's cost significantly. Your projections don't even look feasible at a mere glance.

Hare said:

Your projections don't even look feasible at a mere glance.

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Neither did a $16 trillion debt back in 2008 when then Senator Obama said he'd cut the deficit by half, but here we sit. Sorry bro, but you can try to argue math with me all you want. I don't believe President Obama has a fiscally conservative bone in his body. I think he would have spent us into oblivion had he been given the opportunity. $18 trillion would not have been hard to get to considering we're already at $16 trillion now with a couple of months to go before November.

The government has done absolutely nothing to improve America's course. We are on the path to mediocrity, and I think certain politicians are giddy over that prospect.