Facts Are Stubborn Things

    A recent letter to the editor of our local newspaper by a lady named Nancy Theodore urged all to “stick to the facts.” I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, Ms. Theodore does not practice what she preaches. Her letter was full of unfounded assumptions and selective statistics that distort the truth. Let's just take the numbers she uses to prove that President Obama's economy has been a success.

   First, the drop from 18% to 11.4% in the rate of Americans without health insurance is completely misleading. Most of that drop comes from placing millions more people on Medicaid. Even more relevant is the fact that ObamaCare has failed miserably to meet its enrollment targets for young people, even under the threat of fines for not doing so. The result: enormous increases in deductibles and premiums for ObamaCare enrollees. Ms. Theodore's wishful thinking will not alter the fact that a majority of Americans think ObamaCare is a disaster.

    Second, the drop in the unemployment rate that Ms. Theodore cites is no measure of a economic health, not when we consider that the U.S. now has the lowest job participation rate since Jimmy Carter's administration. That's not because fewer people are on unemployment, but because so many have stopped looking for jobs that don't exist. The jobs created under the Obama administration are far fewer than needed to replace the jobs lost due to Obama's destructive economic policies.

    Third, it's true that budget deficits have come down, but only compared to the trillion dollar deficits in the early Obama years. The fact is that the country's debt is now over $19 trillion and still growing by hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

    Fourth, the 2% growth in the GDP under President Obama has been anemic. Worse, it was 0.7% in the last quarter of 2015. A comparison to the negative GDP growth that occurred when the housing crisis (not Bush) caused the latest recession is frankly dishonest. A much more valid comparison is to the 4% recession recovery rate under President Reagan or the 3.5% average rate since WW II.

    Ms. Theodore would like us to believe that President Obama's liberal agenda has been a success. The facts show just the opposite.