The Worst President Since Before the Civil War

By Steve
McCann

Three years ago, the people of the United States
elected someone who has turned out to be the worst president since the pre-Civil
War era.  Barack Obama, whether in economic matters, domestic affairs or
international relations, has been an abject failure and has severely jeopardized
the future of the American people.

This must be the focus and message of those seeking
the Republican presidential nomination, who must not allow themselves to be
focused on demeaning each other and sidetracked by falling for the usual tactics
of the Democrat and media smear machines (epitomized by the latest specious
attack on Herman Cain).

A cursory examination of Obama’s overall record
compared with other presidents reveals someone driven purely by statist
ideology, whose narcissism renders him incapable of change regardless of the
long-term consequences.  He does not seem to care what happens to the American
people.

Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt faced far worse
economic conditions when they came into office than were in play when Barack
Obama was elected president.  Yet with one a fiscal conservative (Ronald Reagan)
and the other (Franklin Roosevelt) a liberal Democrat, even though they pursued
differing solutions to the dilemmas at hand, neither put the nation squarely and
inexorably on the road to bankruptcy and second-class status.

Barack Obama and his apologists continuously claim
that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression and that if it
were not for his policies presently in place, matters would be far worse.  The
reality is that he did not inherit the worst economy since the 1930s, and his
policies have diminished the standard of living for the majority of
Americans.

The actual factors in play for Barack Obama, Ronald
Reagan, and Franklin Roosevelt when they assumed office were as
follows:

	Annual GDP Growth	Unemployment Rate	Inflation
Barack Obama	1.1%	6.7%	1.0%
Ronald Reagan	.1	7.6	12.6
Franklin Roosevelt	-13.0	24.0	-10.0

For the average American, the employment numbers are
the most critical.  The following chart is a side by side comparison of the
employment situation for Barack Obama as of Election Day 2008 versus the present
day after three years of his failed policies:

	November 2008	October 2011	Difference
Unemployment Rate	6.7%	9.1%	+35.8%
Total Employment	144.25 million	140.07 million	-4.18 million
Employment-Goods Producing sector	20.9 million	18.1 million	-2.8 million
Part-time Workers (Only Jobs Available)	1.57 million	2.9 million	+84.7%
Unemployed 27 Weeks or more	2.2 million	6.3 million	+4.1 million
Avg. Weekly Wage (inflation adjusted)	$654.03	$655.87	+.2%

(http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm#current)

How does Barack Obama compare to some of his
predecessors, who inherited far more severe financial crises?  As a further
comparison, while he did not inherit a financial crisis, Jimmy Carter is
included, as he is considered by many the worst president in the post-World War
II era, and many of his policies triggered the massive recession and inflation
inherited by Ronald Reagan.

(Note: The Bureau of Labor Statistics changed its
method of calculating the unemployment rate in 1994.  Therefore, in order to
make this a more valid comparison, those workers the BLS considers discouraged
and marginally attached to the labor force and therefore not part of the
unemployment rate calculation have been added below.)

	Unemployment Rate as of Election Day	Unemployment Rate Three years later	Difference
Barack Obama	7.9%	10.75%	-36%
Ronald Reagan	7.6	8.3	–  9
Jimmy Carter	7.8	5.9	+24
Franklin Roosevelt	24.1	20.1	+17

Barack Obama has chosen uncontrolled and unbridled
government spending, much of it directed to his cronies and fellow ideologues,
as his solution to restarting the economy.  This has created an enormous amount
of new debt for the nation with nothing to show for it.  One of his
predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt, also chose that route as part of his plan to
rescue the American economy.  However, he never took it to the extreme that
Obama has done, with the aid of his allies in the Democratic Party.  During
Obama’s tenure, he has added over $4,000 billion ($4 trillion) to the national
debt.

Using the historical actual deficits as a percentage
of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) applied to today’s GDP, the comparison would
be as follows (Herbert Hoover has been added, as he faced the actual massive
collapse of the economy in 1929, the first year of his term.)

	Average Deficit as % of GDP First Three Years of Term	(2011 Dollars) Additional National Debt
Barack Obama	9.23%	$4,005 Billion
Ronald Reagan	4.08	1,800
Franklin Roosevelt	3.50	1,531
Jimmy Carter	2.27	986
Herbert Hoover	.01	15

(http://www.usgovernmentspending.com)

The ultimate measure of the success or failure of a
president’s economic policies is the growth of the nation’s Gross Domestic
Product while facing economic headwinds.  Here, too, Barack Obama cannot measure
up to those who faced enormous challenges, as his policies and regulatory
obsession have shown him to be an anti-capitalist ideologue with more in common
with the Occupy Wall Street Movement than with the American
people.

	Barack Obama	Ronald Reagan	Franklin Roosevelt
Actual inflation adjusted GDP Growth First Three Years	.3%	13.7%	23.4%

It should be noted that Franklin Roosevelt, after
re-election in 1936, began to pursue more statist policies including demonizing
the rich, higher taxes, passing union-friendly legislation, and additional
government spending, so that by the third year of his second term, the GDP had
contracted by 6.5% and unemployment rose to 19.0% from a low of 14.0% in 1937.
Yet the annual budget deficit as a percent of GDP averaged 3.85% for Roosevelt’s
first two terms as compared to Obama’s 9.23% to date.  (http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html)

By any measure, Barack Obama is not only a failure in
his economic policies, but he is, in the aggregate, the worst steward of the
American economy since economic measurements began to be
recorded.

It is little wonder that his re-election strategy is
centered on demonizing his potential opponents and deliberately appealing to the
base nature of the human race — greed and envy — as manifested in his class
warfare rhetoric.  This is a record that cannot be defended under any
circumstances, and one the Republicans must focus upon and unceasingly bring it
before the American people.