First let me admit that I am a conservative; pro-life, pro-guns, pro-intervention, and an admirer of Jack Kemp and Richard Nixon (the policies). Having said that I am becoming increasingly proud of our current President because I am also an economists. And, like historians, economists have a thing about facts and data. We are obsessed with both.
So when I opened up the Saturday paper and started reading about a 'sluggish economy' I wondered if they were aware of the facts on the ground. I started researching and comparing President Obama's record on jobs and terrorism just to propose an initial comparative analysis of his actual record and the results were surprising to say the least.
For a taste of the fun below the fold consider in the last twelve months we've had an average of 190,000 jobs created each month. How does that compare to Reagan, Clinton, or Jimmy Carter?
Have any idea whose winning the race of least Americans killed during their presidency? (Hint: it's not Reagan). Thank you to DK members diaries for this bit of info.
How about exports? Did Obama reach his goal of doubling exports in 5 years?
Did Obama reach his goal of reducing the deficit by 50% in four years?
Americans who believe in our country before our politics need to be more assertive in delivering facts when somebody wrongly describes Obamanomics as a failure. For a primer on how to deliver the goods reach below the fold.
Here is the actual letter. I will update with links to the source of data in the next day or two.
Dear friends and Editors of Los Angeles Times,
Why is President Obama held to a ridiculously high standard by the so-called “liberal” media? On issue after issue the President has outpaced most other modern presidents after inheriting the worst domestic and foreign policy environment in decades. Despite factual data the headlines refuse to acknowledge any of his success. For example, this month we discover that we have had an average monthly job gain of 190,000 jobs for the last 12 months. To put that into historical perspective Clinton averaged 229,000 per month, Reagan averaged 148,000 per month, and Carter averaged 208,000 per month. How long does this trend need to continue before we see headlines that reflect this simple reality: Obamanomics is working.
In his first term there were nearly 4.5M jobs lost in the first 13 months he was in office, but we gained every one of those jobs back and added another 1.5M or so. If we continue current trends we will have added nearly 2.3M jobs in 2013. In the meantime the President beat his goal of doubling exports in 5 years to a record $2.2T in 2012. He promised to reduce the deficit by 50% in 4 years. He missed the mark by about six months! And nobody is pretending that the stock market hitting record highs every couple of weeks is a bad thing. So why is the general narrative ‘economy still sluggish’…?
The irony of the media’s false narrative is that much of Obama’s economic policies were once cornerstones of conservative policy positions. He passed the largest middle class tax cut of all time (conservative idea), enacted Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, and Richard Nixon’s health care reform plan (conservative idea), left open unregulated derivatives markets (great conservative idea), passed three new free trade agreements (conservative idea), and is now working on the most comprehensive trade agreement between the US and our allies in Europe in over 30 years.
And it’s not just the economy that emboldens the media to write factually dishonest ‘reports’. How many retractions about phony scandals (IRS “targeting” and fake Benghazi “witnesses”) are required before we acknowledge that this administration has achieved a historically unprecedented ZERO criminal indictments in 5 years thus far? We can expect right wing media to ignore the simple facts such as this president’s strong record so far of protecting Americans from terrorist’s attacks. Compared to Bush II (thousands killed), and Clinton and Reagan (hundreds killed), Obama so far has between 7-19 depending on if you count the Ft. Hood attack; bested by Jimmy Carter who saw only 9 Americans killed in four years. More people were killed by dog bites (34) and lightning strikes (29) in 2010 alone then under this administration.
I hope I don’t have to wait until historians write history for the narrative to match reality. Because everybody knows that historians are preternaturally obsessed with those pesky little things called facts.
Sincerely,
A Proud Conservative, Proud of Our President.