There are many, many reasons to reelect President Obama, on a variety of fronts (economic, foreign policy, women’s rights, GLBT rights, etc, etc.), but for now, here are 10 top economic statistics which should get you to the voting booth and pushing the button for Democrats all the way!
1. According to Gallup, the U.S. Economic Confidence Index at this time in October 2008 was a horrendous minus 63, close to the lowest level ever recorded. Today, that number is up 46 points, close to the highest it’s ever been.
2. Again according to Gallup, the U.S. unemployment rate is now 7.7% (it was 7.8% in September according to the BLS), far lower than during the first few months after Barack Obama inherited a free-falling economy from George W. Bush (e.g., hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost every month, on the way to a 10%+ unemployment rate). Most importantly, the trend is very much in the right direction under President Obama. Let’s keep it going!
3. Yet again according to Gallup, the U.S. Job Creation Index was at minus 10 when Barack Obama took over. Today, it is up 30 points, to a healthy +20. Again, we’re headed in the right direction under President Obama.
4. The U.S. housing market is rebounding strongly, with home prices in August jumping the most in 6 years.
5. Want to buy a house? You’re in luck, as mortgage rates are now “the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.”
6. Auto sales were up 11% in September compared to the previous year, and are expected “to total about 14.3 million this year, up from 12.8 million last year…[and up from] 10.4 million during the recession in 2009.” Remember, Willard “Mitt” Romney said we should just let Detroit go bankrupt. Imagine if President Obama had listened to THAT horrendous advice?!?
7. The stock market is way up, with the Dow near “its highest level in nearly 5 years,” as is the S&P 500, which “has appreciated nearly 17 percent so far this year, and is on track for its best yearly gain since 2009.”
8 .The deficit, while still high (due mostly to the Bush tax cuts, which cost about $400 billion per year, combined with the Bush Recession and unpaid-for Bush era wars and entitlements), fell $207 billion in FY 2012, with the deficit as a share of the economy falling to 7%, down sharply from 10.1% in 2009. (Also note, there was actually a budget surplus in September — “just the second month in the black for the U.S. government since September 2008”).
9. According to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics, if we continue on our current trajectory and avoid the “fiscal cliff” with the balanced approach Democrats are advocating, the economy will “grow at a 4 percent clip or more in 2014, compared to less than 2 percent so far this year, and unemployment to fall to 5.6 percent in 2016.”
10. We’re rocking and rolling on the energy front, with net oil imports at their lowest level since the early 1990s; with natural gas production at its highest level in over 40 years; with wind and solar power generation at their highest levels ever (and rising rapidly); and with the U.S. more energy efficient than ever (today, it takes less than half the energy to produce an inflation-adjusted dollar of economic output than it did in 1973) and falling.
Bottom line: under President Obama’s leadership, we’re moving in the right direction on practically every indicator you can think of. That’s a stark contrast to where we were at 4 years ago at this time, which was in economic free-fall/collapse. It’s also nothing short of miraculous that Obama and the Democrats have managed to turn around the catastrophic mess they inherited from Bush, Cheney et al, especially given that Republicans made a decision shortly after Obama was elected that they would not cooperate with him on anything, even if meant the economy would fail (which they figured would be their ticket back to power, as they’d lie and blame it all on Obama). In 30 days, let’s reward Obama and the Democrats for working hard to drag our economy out of the ditch they found it in, and punish Republicans for working to keep it there. That’s not a tough choice, now is it?
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