Only Obama is Better Off

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

The only person I know who is better off today than he was four years ago is President Obama.

He’s making more money, living in a bigger house and playing more golf. And when his wife goes on a shopping spree with her girlfriends, it’s to Spain on the taxpayer’s dime.

If you asked President Obama if he’s better off today, he’d say, “Hell, yeah! And we don’t want it to stop!”

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Meanwhile, as the president skates through the Great Recession, his failure to get the economy back on track has turned a country known for its optimism and belief in a better future into a nation of pessimists.

According to a recent opinion poll by Scott Rasmussen’s company, 63 percent of voters — liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans — do not think today’s children will be better off than their parents.

That’s unbelievable. But what’s even more discouraging is that only 16 percent — 1 in 6 — do think the next generation will be better off.

The percentage believing the next generation will live better than their parents is a record low. As Scott Rasmussen said, people think something is going terribly wrong in America. They’re not sure what it is, he said, but they sure don’t like it.

I know what’s gone wrong with America — we’ve had four years of President Obama’s bad ideas and hot air. That’s why the 1,000 voters Rasmussen polled see a gloomy future everywhere they look — the economy, stocks, housing, you name it.

And remember the American Dream? Forget it. Only 32 percent think it’s still possible for “just about anyone in America to work hard and get rich.”

About the only silver lining to be found in the Rasmussen poll is that 53 percent think it’s still possible for anyone in America to work themselves out of poverty.

That’s a good thing to believe in, because by the time the Obama administration and his wrecking crew finish turning America into Greece, 53 percent of the country is going to be poor.

This week the Obama reelection campaign released an ad called “We’re Coming Back.” It’s a blatant rip-off of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” ad that pointed out how much stronger, prouder and better America had become during my father’s first four years.

The Obama ad claims that we’re on the road to recovery and says the president is working hard to finish the job he started. It’s not supposed to be funny.

But there’s one serious problem with the Obama ad — after four years of his reign of errors things are not getting better. And he has no new ideas, just the same bad Big Government ones he’s been pushing — more taxes, more spending and more regulation.

When “Morning in America” ran in 1984, inflation and interest rates were half what they had been in 1980 and were going down. There were no more lines at the gas pumps and no more gloomy talk from the Oval Office about a national “malaise.”

Ronald Reagan turned the country around the right way. He lowered taxes, cut regulations and got the government off the back of businesses and out of the way of the American people.

After four years of my father’s administration, Americans could see real signs of improvement and a hopeful future for the country. That’s why RR was re-hired. After four years of President Obama, our only hope is that in November he is fired.

—–

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com, or e-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com.

©2012 Mike Reagan. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. For info contact Cari Dawson Bartley. E-mail Cari@cagle.com, (800) 696-7561.