President Barack Obama has been increasing the national debt during his presidency by an average of $4.24 billion per day ($4,240,506,004.34) putting him on a pace to increase the national debt by $6.2 trillion ($6,195,379,272,340.74) by the end of his term on Jan. 20, 2013, according to the debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.

That $6.2 trillion is more debt than was accumulated by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined.

In fact, the U.S. national debt did not eclipse the $6.195 trillion level—the amount Obama is on pace to increase it in one term—until August 19, 2002, during President George W. Bush’s second year of office.

The national debt was $10.6 trillion ($10,626,877,048,913.08) on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated. As of the close of business on Jan. 11, 2012, it was $15.2 trillion ($15,236,307,075,631.58.) In Obama’s first 1,087 days in office, the debt increased $4.6 trillion ($4,609,430,026,718.50)—or an increase of $4.24 billion ($4,240,506,004.34) per day.

The recession started in December, 2007. Go to the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (http://www.nber.org) to see the complete history of America’s recessions. What that history reveals is that before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months.

When President Obama entered office in January, 2009, the recession was already in its 13th month. His responsibility was to manage a timely, robust recovery to get America back on track again. Based on the historical record, that recovery was imminent, within a couple of months or so. Despite widespread fear, nothing fundamental had changed to deprive America of the long term, world-leading prosperity it had enjoyed going back 300 years.

Supposedly a forward looking progressive, Obama proved to be America’s first backward looking regressive. His first act was to increase federal borrowing, the national debt and the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars to finance a supposed “stimulus” package, based on the discredited Keynesian theory left for dead 30 years ago holding that increased government spending, deficits and debt are what promote economic growth and recovery. That theory arose in the 1930s as the answer to the Great Depression, which, of course, never worked.

That was the beginning of President Obama’s Rip Van Winkle act, pretending not to know anything that happened over the previous 30 years proving the dramatic, historic success of the new, more modern, supply side economics, which holds that incentives for increased production are what promote economic growth and recovery. Indeed, that Rip Van Winklism pretended not to remember the 1970s either, when double digit inflation and double digit unemployment proved Keynesian economics grievously wrong.

As should have been long expected, Obama’s trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus did nothing to promote recovery and growth, and almost surely delayed it. That is because borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion back into it does nothing to promote the economy on net. Indeed, it is probably a net drag on the economy, because the private sector spends the money more productively and efficiently than the public sector.

The National Bureau of Economic Research scored the recession as ending in June, 2009. Yet, today, in the 49th month since the recession started, there has still been no real recovery, like recoveries from previous recessions in America.

Unemployment actually rose after June, 2009, and did not fall back down below that level until 18 months later in December, 2010. Instead of a recovery, America has suffered the longest period of unemployment near 9% or above since the Great Depression, under President Obama’s public policy malpractice. Even today, 49 months after the recession started, the U6 unemployment rate counting the unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers is still 15.2%. And that doesn’t include all the workers who have fled the workforce under Obama’s economic oppression. The unemployment rate with the full measure of discouraged workers is reported at about 23%, which is depression level unemployment.

Most people do not know that already enacted in current law for 2013 are increases in the top tax rates of virtually every major federal tax. That is because the tax increases of Obamacare become effective that year, and the Bush tax cuts expire, which Obama has refused to renew for singles reporting income over $200,000 per year, or couples reporting over $250,000 per year (in other words, the nation’s small businesses, job creators and investors, in plain English).

As a result, if the Bush tax cuts just expire for these upper income taxpayers, along with the Obamacare taxes, in 2013 the top two income tax rates will jump nearly 20%, the capital gains tax rate will soar by nearly 60%, the tax on corporate dividends will nearly triple, and the Medicare payroll tax will leap by 62% for those disfavored taxpayers.

This is on top of the U.S. corporate income tax rate, which is virtually the highest in the industrialized world. The federal rate is 35%, with state corporate rates taking it close to 40% on average. But even Communist China has a 25% rate. The average rate in the social welfare states of the European Union is less than that. Formerly socialist Canada has a 16.5% rate going down to 15% next year.

These U.S. corporate tax rates leave American companies uncompetitive in the global economy. Yet under President Obama there is no relief in sight. Instead, he has spent the past year barnstorming the country calling for still further tax increases on American business, large and small, investors, and job creators.

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
gas

During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.

When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009.

geojanes wrote:Do you remember the summer of 2008 and 4 dollar a gallon gas? After the financial crisis oil priced plummeted from $4+ to $1 and change in the period July - December. Obama took office when they were still very low.

The financial crisis and the expectation of a depression caused oil prices to fall and gas prices to fall with it. Using these very simple data you can say that Obama policies have caused gas prices to decline by 25% since the summer of 2008. In reality, though, his policies have had very little to do with the price of a gallon of gas. As the economy recovered so did oil prices and gas prices.

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx

freeman2 wrote:Obama got us through a financial crisis that almost brought the world economy down without our economy going into a depression. Most of the deficit came from policies initiated by Bush (the Bush Tax Cuts and wars in Afghanistran and Iraq). At least two-thirds of the yearly deficit comes from ridiculous tax cuts and unnecessary wars.

Now after Bush took a surplus from Clinton and stripped the budget of 370 billions a year because of the tax cuts and increased military spending another 300 billion dollars a year, and Republican ideology regarding deregulation created the Financial Crisis they want Obama to balance the budget. Ridiculous. He had had nine straight quarters of growth and unemployment is well under 10%-did you expect a miracle? Did you expect Obama to seriously reduce the deficit when Republicans refuse to get rid of the Bush Tax Cuts and refuse to cut military spending? You Republicans created these budget problems and economic mess we are in and then you want to gut the social net to deal with it. Absurd.

As far as foreign policy goes, we're out of Iraq and we're winding down the war in Afghanistan--clearly popular measures. Obama's intervention in Libya was successful.

Gas prices have stabilized. Funny how under Bush gas went up from about $1.50 to $4.50 a gallon, but under Obama it stayed the same.

In California, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.666 on Thursday, up 8.1 cents from a week earlier and up 33.1 cents from a year earlier, which had been a record price for this time of year, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. Nationally, a gallon of regular was averaging $3.319, up 6.5 cents from a week earlier. That topped 2011's record-setting start by 24.2 cents a gallon.

It's the wrong way to kick off the new year, said Susan Sutter of Anaheim, who has seen the price of a gallon of gasoline at her local Arco station rise 18 cents, to $3.49, in the last week.

"I'm just appalled," said Sutter, 54, who drives a Honda Civic sedan. Sutter's ire wasn't cooled by the fact that she was paying quite a bit less than the state average.

"I just hate these prices," she said. "Someone is lining their pockets, and it sure isn't me."

Of course, current prices don't guarantee future prices, but analysts are predicting that motorists will be digging deep this year to fuel their vehicles.

"Average gasoline prices are moving up as we enter the new year, a trend that has held since 2008," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, a website that tracks fuel prices. "We're starting 2012 about 20 cents per gallon higher than 2011, setting up an ugly year for motorists."

Energy Department statistics suggest that U.S. drivers won't be getting any good news on prices soon.

In 2010, the year of the smallest recent gap between start-of-year prices and that year's peak, the rise was 14.5% nationally and 10% in California. That translated into a jump of 38.7 cents a gallon in the U.S.' average gasoline price and 30 cents in California's.

The biggest recent start-to-peak increase came in 2009. Nationally, the average gasoline price started the year at $1.684 a gallon and climbed 60% to $2.694, a jump of slightly more than a dollar. In California, the average price per gallon soared 75%, to $3.287 from $1.874.

And 2011 showed that when prices start out high, it doesn't take a huge percentage increase to add to consumer woes. Average prices rose 29% nationally in 2011, a jump of 89.5 cents a gallon to the year's peak of $3.965. California prices also rose 29% last year, for a 95-cent rise to the high of $4.257.

And you want to run a guy whose specialty was taking over companies, "shining" them up a bit by taking out the dings and problems with the "car" (you know, cutting the workers and/or their benefits to improve profitability) and then selling the companies.

He has consistently moved against oil. See the Gulf moratorium and blocking the Keystone XL.

freeman2 wrote:Here is a survey of average gas prices showing them shooting upward under Bush. http://www.davemanuel.com/2010/12/30/hi ... ed-states/ The high water mark was over $4 under Bush.

As for the so-called arguments against the Keystone XL pipeline, please, let's not forget there are pipelines in the area of the aquifer now. In fact, throughout that area of the country there are many pipelines.

Originally, 254 miles of the Keystone XL pipeline would have been situated directly over the aquifer in Nebraska. Farmers there count on 92,685 irrigation wells to provide water for more than 8.5 million acres of crops and pastures.
Rerouting the pipeline and undergoing the necessary environmental review will take a considerable amount of time, Haar said.

rickyp wrote:steve

As for the so-called arguments against the Keystone XL pipeline, please, let's not forget there are pipelines in the area of the aquifer now. In fact, throughout that area of the country there are many pipelines.

What have you got against Republicans in Nebraska?
Obama is aceding to requests from the Republican Governor of Nebraska, and the republican legislature. There was also a law passed in Nebraska to reroute the pipleine.

Opposition to the pipeline route only became energized after the Gulf Coast three month leak and after pipeline burst in the Kalamazoo river in Michigan, and then in the Yellowstone river in Montana. Seeing the disruption to otehr peoples businesses, caused by pipeline leaks the actual citizens impacted created the biggest noise. Their state legislature held special hearings and it was a unified legislature that demanded a change and requested that Obama delay things.
Why should the big federal govenrment ram something down the throats of a small state ?

By the way the fact that is most important about the route.

Originally, 254 miles of the Keystone XL pipeline would have been situated directly over the aquifer in Nebraska. Farmers there count on 92,685 irrigation wells to provide water for more than 8.5 million acres of crops and pastures.
Rerouting the pipeline and undergoing the necessary environmental review will take a considerable amount of time, Haar said.