Posted on 05/30/2011 10:28:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
The question that ended the last malaise comes back to haunt us now.
On October 28, 1980, President Ronald Reagan looked into the camera for closing remarks during his last debate with Jimmy Carter and said:
Next Tuesday is election day. Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls. You will stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision it might be well if you ask yourself, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
While I don’t know what went through the minds of the millions of television viewers who heard Reagan ask that question that night, by the time they entered the voting booth a week later a clear majority of them had decided the answer to Reagan’s question was: “No, we are not better off.” The results of the presidential election of 1980 proved that Reagan had done a masterful job of drawing attention to the disaster Carter wrought upon our economy, our military, our energy supplies, our national morale, and on and on.
And though we’re just over halfway through President Obama’s first term in office, it seems all Americans should ask themselves if we’re better off now than we were two years ago.
The answer is just as straightforward: No, we’re not. Unemployment is at 9% and our national debt is over $14,000,000,000,000. According to Reuters, our floundering economy is only poised to get worse. Obama’s answer to the unemployment and incomprehensible debt is to raise taxes to the tune of $2 trillion: that’s “$1 trillion in new taxes on wealthier Americans (and small businesses)” and another trillion sought “in higher tax revenues by reducing tax breaks and subsidies.”
Gasoline, which was $1.81 a gallon when Obama took office, has jumped to over $4 more than once. (It’s now hovering around $3.70.) Throughout this more than 100% jump in gasoline prices, Obama maintained his offshore drilling moratorium and prevented us from drilling for more oil in the western states and Alaska.
Obama’s arrogance is so great that when a citizen asked him how average Americans were supposed to make ends meet with gas prices so high, Obama simply “suggested that the gentleman consider getting rid of his gas-guzzling vehicle.”
We don’t even have to revisit Obama’s quasi-government takeovers of GM, Chrysler, and a myriad of banking institutions to understand why our national morale is low. It’s so low, in fact, that columnists and bloggers grasping for a suitable analogy now compare today’s political and social climate to the malaise we endured under Carter.
And if you think the comparison to the Carter years is a stretch, just consider the irony of one of the other questions Reagan asked as he looked into that camera in 1980:
Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was four years ago?
Well? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was two years ago?
Reagan wanted the people listening to him to know that it was time to make a choice: that America faced a perilous future unless we changed course at that moment in time. And I dare say we will face an even more dire future now than we would have then, if we don’t determine to change our course in 2012.
I am much worse off financially. Increased cost of living (power, gas, heating fuel, home insurance, food, etc.) has pushed my bills for the basics up to match my paycheck. The decline of a very old car and repairs took out the savings. I have a relatively secure job for another 3 1/2 years, but pay has been frozen for last three years and will continue, and perhaps decrease over the next several years. I am in public service in a small rural county and get paid very little. (Less than I was paid in the private sector in the 1980s.)
Local government has laid off 40 some employees over the past three years and will be laying off at least another 35 this next fiscal year. At least I have a job.
yes, despite the best efforts of congress, the president, and local officials
Yes I am, but that’s not the pertinent question.
Is the country better off than it was 2 years ago?
How can an overly large government be sustained with revenues of little value and no large manufacturing base during this post-industrial age? Government at all levels is weakening now, in that many regulations can’t be often enforced. Here and there, desperate government offices are trying the last ditch tactic of making examples of individuals.
I never saw the sense in basing your vote on such a myopic worldview. I am far, far better off than I was 2 years ago, but I don’t vote with my wallet. What benefits the country is not always best for my bank account.
Vote the commies out!!!!
In only one way....I own more guns and ammo.
Was I better off 2 years agon than I was 6 years ago?
Was I better off 10 years ago than I was six years ago?
The only idiots who think they are better off are those who are also the only ones driving around with a ‘Hope and Change’ bumper sticker still on their cars.... =.=
Prefabs and mobile homes are the low cost housing. Problems, problems, problems... much crime ... bugularly, drunk driving, rapes, fights, domestic disputes, drugs, drugs, drugs, ... our jails are overly full and we have added to them twice(one is a whole new jail) in the last few years. God help us in our day, in Jesus name, amen.
You’re so right about the social problems, crime problems and costs. Many with government incomes see those problems as “industries.” Shame. But before long, they won’t have the revenues or available debt to pay for increasing and messing around with those problems.
There were some social and crime problems trickling down a little before the 1930s. The Great Depression cured a lot of that. Many better families circled their wagons, got rough, and took care of those ugly businesses while rejecting what socialites said was in style.
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