Obama by the numbers

"If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition." - Barack Obama, 2009

There is an excellent Infographic at Flicker called The Obama Presidency, By the Numbers.  In each case below I'll list the before Obama # i and then the  current # under our President - each has a great quote by Obama which I'll paraphrase here:

War on Poverty - "led him to a life of service" 
Povert Rate: 13.2% (2008),  14.3% (2010)

"We have to have a president who understands that the essence of the american dream is a good job" - Obama 2008
U-6 Unemployment 14% (Jan 2009), 16.2% (Aug 2011)
Avg Weeks Unemployed  19.9 (Jan '09), 40.3 (Aug '11)
Jobs 142,201,000 (Jan '09), 139, 627,000 (Aug '11)
Families on Food Stamps:  31.9 million (Jan '09), 45.2 million (May '11)

"America families, since George Bush has been in office, have seen average family incomes go down $2000." - Obama 2008
Ditto for Obama: $52,029 (2008),  $49,445 (2010)

After the great ObamaCare,
Average Family Health Plan:  $12,680 (2008), $15,073 (2011)

There's more at the link above. It's interesting to contrast Obama's words with his accomplishments.

Bottom Line

The President's defense is, it would have been worse without me. That is not a provable statement and also highly unlikely. In a typical recession, the economy rebounds after 18 months and employment picks up. No so now. A trillion dollars was spent and after three years the economy has not recovered. The excuse given, we did not spend enough, again an unprovable statement.

What if we spent too much already? Or spent it on the wrong things? That's the Tea Party position.

Solyndra makes a good example. Over $500,000,000 spent on a company with a bad business plan (Their current cost of manufacturing solar panels was greater than the current market price. They had hoped by ramping up production with a new plant they could lower their cost and make a profit. The plan failed when China lowered the global cost for solar panels by building even cheaper than Solyndra could ever hope to achieve.) In the government there is no downside for supporting losers or making bad bets with the public's money. No one in government is losing their job over this and the tax payer picks up the bill.