Joe Gruters wrote this letter in response to the State Of The Union on Tuesday night.
Republicans and Conservatives,
President Obama’s State of the Union address was as predictably empty and vacuous of new ideas as the Party he leads. It’s also probably forgotten already. It was just that memorable.
But Republicans should remember a few critical points. The president focused on jobs and the need for middle class jobs — apparently assuming that poor people will always be poor and reliant on him and government. Why help poor people get jobs? But somebody has to pay for all the new government spending he wants, and there are not enough rich people. So it falls to the middle class to get jobs so they can fund the ever-expanding black hole that is the federal government.
Unfortunately, Obama has already proved himself a complete and historic failure on the economy.
In Obama’s first term — four years worth of evidence — the annual growth in GDP was an incredibly paltry and embarrassing 0.8%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Democrats can blame the first 6-12 months of the economy on the previous president (if he’s a Republican.) But four years? No, this economy is the result of liberal, borrow-and-spend-and-tax-and-borrow-some-more policies.
Just how bad were the president’s four years economically? They tallied one-quarter of Jimmy Carter’s four years in office — which many will recall were not exactly boom years. In fact, we may be sliding backwards again as the fourth quarter of last year had negative GDP. It’s mind-boggling just how bad the economy is, but it also is completely the result of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Krugman policies.
In his first State of the Union address four years ago, the president said: “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” The GDP numbers make clear that he failed in that promise. His policies failed. And they will continue to fail.
Let’s look specifically at jobs. More, let’s look at jobs among core Democrat constituencies that helped re-elect him.
When Obama was sworn in to office in January 2009, the unemployment rate among African-Americans was 12.7 percent. Right now, after four years of Democrat policies and the “recovery” supposedly well under way, it has risen to 13.8 percent. And that is after 1.2 million African-Americans left the workforce entirely. They gave up job-hunting during Obama’s first term.
For Hispanics, the unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.7 percent. Four years of Democrat policies and their economic “recovery” has left it stagnant at 9.7 percent. For women, the unemployment rate was 6.9 percent in January 2009. The rate has also risen, now at 7.8 percent.
Total employment dropped 2.4 percentage points, from 61% when Obama took office to 58.6% now. Fewer people employed, fewer people working, unemployment higher and the GDP at a fraction of the Carter years.
Bad ideas have consequences and the Democrats’ ideas for the economy are bad, very bad. The proof is in the facts. It’s just reality.
Let’s face it, if not for states such as Florida, the U.S. economy would be a train wreck. Personal income in the 23 states that were leaning red before the election, after adjusting for inflation, rose 4.6% since the start of the recession in 2007. In the 15 blue states, income has increased only 0.5%.
Florida created 68,000 jobs in Gov. Rick Scott’s first year in office and 200,000 jobs last year, people are moving to the state again and eliminating regulations is making it better for businesses to grow and hire people. Scott and Republicans in the Legislature have even closed budget deficits and paid down the state debt Scott inherited from Charlie Crist.
Obama has proved again that liberal policies do not work for creating jobs and bettering futures. Scott has proved that conservative policies do.
Thanks for being informed and engaged.
Joe Gruters
American Renaissance Political Consulting Group 