Saturday, February 8, 2014


Barack Obama's Conservative Utopia

 in 7 Charts

While politicians on the far right scream socialism, President Obama has quietly created a conservative America. And the statistics prove it.

By : Michael Maiello on February 7, 2014


Rand Paul, a to-be candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, told a radio show Tuesday he believes President Barack Obama is trying to “transform America into a socialist nightmare.” This is a standard rallying cry from the far right, even if it’s rarely laid out in such plainspoken language by a mainstream politician. The United States of America, it goes, is becoming a socialist hellhole.

But here’s the problem: The numbers don't back that up. Instead, they reveal an America that is running away from a “socialist” anything.
As President Obama enters the final half of his last term, he has left us with an America that conservatives should love.

The trickle down dynamics of Reaganomics have been cemented into the tax code, abortion rates are down, and border enforcement has led to record deportations. The United States remains the military might of the world, augmented by an aggressive drone warfare program that allows for low risk interventions in hostile foreign lands. Union membership is down. International trade is on the rise.

Even on issues where conservatives might differ, like same sex marriage and marijuana legalization, the states have acted in lieu of the Feds, serving as the laboratories of democracy that conservatives have long claimed they always should have been.

If You Like the Rich, You Should Like Obama

The top marginal tax rate under Obama is 39.6% on earned income over $450,000. (If it’s investment income, you pay 15% no matter how much you make.) This is more, for the tippity top, than what George W. Bush asked people to pay, but it is less than what Bill Clinton asked of the very wealthy. Clinton's top tax bracket kicked in $60,000 sooner, when adjusted for inflation.
That means that really rich people are at least $23,700 better off than they were for the bulk of the 1990s. And that means that every rich person can buy a 2014 Chevy Camaro this year on Barack Obama's dime.

If You Like Corporations, You Should Like Obama

Public company corporate profits have nearly quadrupled under President Obama’s watch. That’s faster than at any time since World War II.
Obama doesn’t get much credit for this since these companies have been slow to hire and expand. The money has gone to corporate coffers and to shareholders as dividends and share buybacks. But the money is there.

This means stronger balance sheets that could keep the next wave of economic hard times from becoming another crisis. Plus, unemployment has gone down. There's been job growth in some industries, particularly in energy exploration and production. Does Obama deserve credit for this turnaround? You bet. These corporations made a lot of their money by cashing stimulus checks.

If You Like Killing the Environment, You Should Like Obama

The Keystone Pipeline hasn’t been approved yet, but Obama’s Department of Energy has nurtured the domestic oil and gas industries, allowing the wide scale use of hydraulic fracturing techniques to unlock natural gas deposits from previously inaccessible rock formations. This has fundamentally changed energy security for the U.S. and it’s made wildcatting -- drilling for oil outside of oil fields -- so easy that even George W. Bush could make money at it these days.

If You Hate Deficits, You Should Like Obama

Yes, the stimulus spent some cash upfront but, as promised, it was money spent in pursuit of making more down the road. The fiscal 2014 deficit is down to $514 billion from $680 billion in 2013. It's down from its peak of $1.4 trillion in 2009. The deficit, which topped off at 10% of GDP, is now just 3% of GDP. This is largely the result of higher tax collections -- thanks to the stimulus money that Obama initially spent getting businesses back on their feet.

If You Hate Abortion, You Should Like Obama

Democrats have been trying to convince cultural conservatives that, if they really love unborn babies, they should help people get the contraceptives they need to stop those babies from getting made in the first place. Under Obama, the number of women accessing contraceptives through public means has increased. According to the Guttmacher Institute, this has corresponded with a 13 percent drop in abortions. Obamacare also requires most insurers to cover medically prescribed contraceptives, so can precipitate an even larger drop.

If You Hate Illegal Immigrants, You Should Like Obama

Without a path to citizenship in place, the Obama Administration has decided to aggressively enforce the existing laws, deporting nearly 2 million people — more than the previous administration deported over two full terms. Obama has received better border control funding from Congress, and he's put it to use.

If You Like the Pentagon, You Should Like Obama

In December, Obama signed a budget restoring $64 billion worth of sequester cuts to the Pentagon over two years. This brought the total spend to $552 billion, nominally higher than it was in 2005 when the U.S. was hotly contesting two wars that have since been wound down. Hey, look! There’s your entire 2014 deficit!
Illustrations by Ryan Ilano/Esquire.
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