[Citizen Zed]

Obama probably got the idea from Mitt, Jeb and Larry Kudlow. But Obama will say that most leading economists and Reagan would want this. Where do I find the SOTU bingo card?

[ripley]

Divide and conquer.

(These Progressives seem to have it down pat.)

IMHO

[plain talk]

he just raised taxes on the higher earners. some of the taxes just kick in this year

[Texas Eagle]

HA! I call BS.

Who do you think his biggest donors are? It's the 1%.

Obola despises the middle class. If anyone is targeted, it's us.

[Rome2000]

MORE CLASS WARFARE

NEVER ENOUGH FREEBIES FOR THE MARXISTS, ALWAYS MORE.

CLASS WARFARE IS A TWO WAY STREET

KILL THE POOR

[KarlInOhio]

to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class,

Just as I thought, instead of decreasing the middle class tax rate Obama is looking to increase the nightmarish complexity of the tax code by putting in a bunch of social engineering targeted tax credits. Do a trick and get a biscuit like a dog in training.

[Cheerio]

President Obama will use his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise taxes and fees on the wealthiest taxpayers and the largest financial firms to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class, pressing to reshape the tax code to help working families, administration officials said on Saturday.

ALL OF A SUDDEN HE FEELS THE NEED TO ASK CONGRESS?? This is certainly no way for a King to act!!!

What Not Even the King of England Could Do
A federal researcher points out George III couldn’t suspend laws — as many say Obama just did.

[Artie]

For some unknown reason, I am always drawn back to something a Clinton advisor once said. “He’s selling the sizzle, not the steak.” David Gergan I think

[silverleaf]

Obama keeps the eyes of the envious on the “1%”” because that is who he hangs out with, whose luxury homes his wife and children borrow for vacations, and who surrounds him to gush at $25,000 per plate fund raisers. The imagery matches the narrative that these “folks” should be paying a lot more taxes. Idiots all around.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Everything he is floating is designed to make Republicans look bad in 2016. He knows none of it will pass and the Dems can then claim the Repubs are obstructionist, against free education, in the anti-middle class, in the pockets of big business, not for the little guy, yada, yada, yada.

Maybe he’ll scare some Repubs to sign on for his crap.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I don’t know why “da rich” are being forced to subsidize this piece of sh*t, BIG government we’ve got in this “country”. It’s time for the sick, lame and lazy freeloaders and other non-taxpaying lowlife scumbags like Al Sharpton to start paying their “fair share” of taxes. If they are poor, they can get up off their @$$es, get a job and start paying some taxes. Barry and his ‘RATS have created “millions” of jobs since Obama rose to power in 2008. Just ask any “news source” or “pollster. They’ll tell you. The freeloaders don’t have an excuse anymore for not working. Da rich shouldn’t have to carry these freeloading maggots on their backs anymore. It’s not right and it’s not American.

[Organic Panic]

“Just a little bit more” - Gibsmedat Obama

I thought illegal were bringing fabulous wealth with them.

[molson209]

Oh My , 2 more years of Obama Regurgitation

[i_robot73]

Let me get this D.C. math: Raise the taxes on the 1% so the ‘middle class’ can KEEP more of their $$??

No wonder our education has gone to sh!t...the logical fallacies and NEW new math.

Wonder when the ‘free’ press is going to ask ANY elected official to whom does property ($$, in this case) belong? AND, to what degree of a slave do they think is ‘normal’ (all income taxes are slavery taxes).

[jimfree]

The economic genius was ignorant in 2013 of the correct term “seed corn” when he described “eating your corn seed”. The Moron-in-Chief now proposes eating corn seed.

[dead]

Why didn't he do any of this when his party controlled congress?

Because he, and his donors don't really want to do this. They want to say they tried to do this, so the dumb angry idiots believe that the Democratic Party will throw them bags of money off the treasury truck. It's all kabuki for the simple minded.

It's all about the next presidential election. The next two years will see dozens of goofball liberal ideas floated. Basically, everything you could read on Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders Facebook page.

[Slyfox]

Obama is in the last half of his dead duck presidency. He is pretty bold to think that he is going to be able get a majority to agree with him.

[Caipirabob]

Obama targets 1% to finance cuts for middle class

If you are actively receiving subsidies from the government in the form of food stamps or other similar non-retirement related aid, you are not part of the "middle class", you are the dependent, poverty class.

Over 50% of Americans are now on some sort of government subsidy/aid program.

Where is this "middle class" they speak of? It would seem you have the poor on government assistance and those who just barely missed poverty and won't get aid.

[al_c]

He’s targeting himself and all of congress?! ;-)

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Mr. Obama's advisers characterized the plan as the next phase in the president's economic message, which he has been promoting over the past two weeks with trips highlighting the nation's financial rebound.

From another article about the "great" success: "President Obama on Saturday hyped next week’s State of the Union address and said he’ll use the once-a-year speech to tout America’s economic progress over the last six years while also putting pressure on Republicans to end their 'political games.'"

I'd like to play that game and offer this in response to his State of You'n Us speech. It attempts to bring together numerous federal gov't sources. The only "rebound" of Obama's is on the court.

The hyperlinks do not work here. Use this FR thread for the sources to keep this reply from being even bigger. here.

Labor Force Statistics from the Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) and other federal sources. Comparing Obama to other administrations.

The data are annualized except when noted otherwise. All are monthly or quarterly. I use the last month / quarter of the year.

Much of the size of this is taken up by instructions on how to get the sources of the data and much, much more data!

I tire of "sources" like "government figures show", "Gallop poll numbers..", "the Washington Post.."; and I tire of clicking on a link to find it's only the home page of the site.. so I did some research in preparation for Obama State of You'n Us Speech. Not all of this is meant to compare to Reagan, however. The data I copied and formatted for display here date back to the '40s in some cases. The percentages have the extra decimals to make the computation more accurate.

Taking into account the year preceding the administrations, compare the first six years of Reagan and Obama. Examples: using these spread sheet formulas:
(1986 value - 1980 value) / 1980 value and
(2014 value - 2008 value) / 2008 value

I get

• Col 2. Civilian noninstitutional population [thousands] increase
  • Reagan 7.5118707%
  • Obama 5.9695518%
• Col 3. Civilian labor force [thousands] increase
  • Reagan 10.3730385%
  • Obama 0.9920956%
• Col 4. Civilian labor force participation rate
  • Reagan from 63.7 to 65.4
  • Obama from 65.9 to 62.8
• Col 5. Employed [thousands] increase
  • Reagan 11.0483522%
  • Obama 2.2576011%
• Col 6. Employment-population ratio
  • Reagan from 59 to 60.9
  • Obama from 61.4 to 59.2
• Col 7. Employed full time (persons who usually work 35 hours or more) [thousands] increase
  • Reagan 10.464863%
  • Obama* 1.2056036%
• Col 8. Employed part time (persons who usually work less than 35 hours [thousands]; increase
  • Reagan 13.958321%
  • Obama 7.0483047%
• Col 9. Unemployed [thousands] increase/decrease
  • Reagan 1.9136346%
  • Obama -16.166651%
• Col 10. Unemployed looking for full-time work [thousands] increase/decrease
  • Reagan -0.3932244%
  • Obama -16.994117%
• Col 13. Not in labor force [thousands] increase / decrease
  • Reagan 2.4913472%
  • Obama 15.5826321%
• pop. Population [thousands] increase
  • Reagan 5.6817182%
  • Obama 5.0577132%
• income. Median income increase / decrease (2013
  • Reagan 5.9159184%
  • Obama -4.5642467%

If you take into account the 2007 number of Employed full time 121621 [thousands] Obama's number would be negative. About all that happened is despite Obama most of the jobs lost in the first few years of his admnistration were recovered by the end of 2014.

Gee. How come Obama had such big decreases in (Col 9.) Unemployed and (Col 10) Unemployed looking for full-time work? Guess.

Col 11 and Col 12 are the Unemployment rate and Unemployment rate of the full-time labor force, respectively. The rest of the columns are:

• labor. Labor force domestic born;
• Labor force foreign born (hover labor domestic born if column is missing);
• Recession. Recessions;
• GDP. GDP percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product (annual rates);
• PCE. GDP Personal consumption expenditures percentage of GDP, Seasonally adjusted at annual rates;
• U-6. U-6 unemployment rate;
• U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs (hover U-6. if column is missing, starts in 1967)
• SSDI Selected Data from Social Security's Disability Program (monthly additions)

Year

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Year

2.

168693

170990

173046

174950

177133

178941

181365

183467

185253

232937

234825

236739

238712

240431

244169

246564

248843

2.

3.

107442

109057

110959

112160

114257

116211

118587

120593

122488

153645

154723

153591

153803

153995

155450

154989

156258

3.

4.

63.7

63.8

64.1

64.1

64.5

64.9

65.4

65.7

66.1

66.0

65.9

64.9

64.4

64.0

63.7

62.9

62.8

4.

5.

99499

100077

99120

102588

105944

108023

110492

113527

115947

146272

144091

138368

139155

140669

143303

144205

147344

5.

6.

59.0

58.5

57.3

58.6

59.8

60.4

60.9

61.9

62.6

62.8

61.4

58.4

58.3

58.5

58.7

58.5

59.2

6.

7.

82648

82799

80606

83997

87458

89259

91297

93914

95927

121621

118281

110906

111655

113269

115610

116826

119707

7.

8.

16843

17262

18409

18556

18487

18778

19194

19660

20053

24727

25836

27423

27444

27355

27684

27378

27657

8.

9.

7943

8981

11839

9572

8312

8188

8095

7066

6541

7374

10633

15223

14649

13326

12146

10784

8914

9.

10.

6612

7491

10111

8017

6891

6697

6586

5635

5236

6009

9009

13444

12867

11521

10338

9171

7478

10.

11.

7.4

8.2

10.7

8.5

7.3

7.0

6.8

5.9

5.3

4.8

6.9

9.9

9.5

8.7

7.8

7.0

5.7

11.

12.

7.4

8.3

11.1

8.7

7.3

7.0

6.7

5.7

5.2

4.7

7.1

10.8

10.3

9.2

8.2

7.3

5.9

12.

13.

61252

61933

62087

62790

62876

62730

62778

62874

62765

79291

80102

83148

84908

86436

88719

91575

92584

13.

pop.

227220

229470

231660

233790

235820

237920

240130

242290

244500

301230

304090

306770

309330

311590

313910

316160

319470

pop.

labor1	labor1
N	N
N	N
N	N
N	N
N	N
N	N
N	N
N	N
N	N
123524	22810
121211	22138
116663	21290
117006	22153
118033	22647
119844	23216
120636	23787
122558	24890
labor1	labor1
force	force
domestic	foreign
born	born
[1000s]	[1000s]

PR²

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

68.2

67.9

67.2

67.8

67.4

66.4

66.1

65.9

PR²

UR²

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

4.7

7.6

11.0

10.6

8.8

8.0

6.5

5.3

UR²

income³

47,668

46,877

46,751

46,425

47,866

48,761

50,488

51,121

51,514

56,436

54,423

54,059

52,646

51,842

51,759

51,939

N

income³

median
income

Recession

Jan to Jul '80

Jul 1981 to

Nov 1982

-

-

-

-

-

-

Dec 2007

to

Jun 2009

-

-

-

-

-

Year

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Year

GDP

-0.2

2.6

-1.9

4.6

7.3

4.2

3.5

3.5

4.2

1.8

-0.3

-2.8

2.5

1.6

2.3

2.2

5

GDP

%
chg

PCE

3.32

-1.8

4.51

4.06

3.29

0.62

1.62

0.57

2.93

0.34

-3.16

-0.01

2.79

0.94

1.32

2.51

2.21

PCE

U-6

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

8.8

13.6

17.1

16.6

15.2

14.4

13.1

11.2

U-6

U-2

3.9

4.8

6.4

4.5

3.7

3.4

3.3

2.6

2.5

2.5

4.3

6.3

5.7

4.9

4.2

3.5

2.8

U-2

SSDI

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

823,106

895,011

985,940

1,052,551

1,025,003

979,973

884,894

810,973

SSDI

¹labor: If second labor column (foreign born) is not shown hover the labor (domestic numbers) for foreign born numbers.

Source: to find the tables go here Data Retrieval: Labor Force Statistics (CPS)

HOUSEHOLD DATA Table A-7. Employment status of the civilian population by nativity and sex, not seasonally adjusted [Numbers in thousands]
Employment status and nativity. Then

• select Employed under Foreign born, 16 years and over and
• Employed under Native born, 16 years and over

Scroll down to "Retrieve Data"

The data that I include above are from the month of December except for 2014 where November is the last month with data available.

² PR Civilian labor force participation rate, foreign born and UR unemployment rate, foreign born. See ¹ for source.

³income: For the Census Bureau income data go here. Choose "Consumer Income Reports (P60)" then choose "P60-249 Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013" (pdf file).

About these tables

Use this FR thread for the sources to keep this reply to from being even bigger. here.