Barack Obama seems to think that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency next month, she will carry on his legacy.
What is Obama’s legacy?
Let’s start with the numbers that impact most people younger than age 65: those associated with ObamaCare, more formally known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Remember, “If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor” and ‘you’ll be able to save as much as $2,500 a year in premiums’?
If the Gong Show were still on TV, Chuck Barris would have “gonged” the president twice and had him removed from the stage.
Premiums are increasing by double-digit percentages, and many of the insurance companies that offered policies in 2010 are either gone from the marketplace or headed for the exits.
Remember Gitmo?
Obama promised to close it during his first year in office. It’s still open. Will Hillary close it, either in 2017 or eight years later? Not likely. Anyway, she is committed to killing people in the Middle East
where they are rather than capture them and bring them to Cuba to let them rot in prison.
Then there’s the national debt. It was $10.63 trillion in January 2009 when Barack Obama took the oath of office. That was about $34,840 for each of the nation’s 305 million people at the time.
The debt is now $19.688 trillion – a whopping increase of more than nine trillion dollars in less than eight years – or $60,380 for each of America’s 324 million inhabitants.
How long can this continue, with the increase in the per person national debt – $34,840 in 2009 to $60,380 today – far outpacing the growth in population?
Nine trillion, if you’re having difficulty visualizing it, is a nine with one dozen zeros after it: 9,000,000,000,000.
You may want to try to grasp the numbers this way: One year ago, the debt was $18.150 trillion, or $1.538 trillion less than it is today.
Remember, the debt has to be paid sooner or later. Already the mere interest on the debt now runs to substantially more than $400 billion a year, or more than ten percent of the entire federal budget each year.
It would be folly to believe that either of the major party candidates for president next month will do anything to reverse these trends. For one thing, even if either of them tried, Congress would not let them. Oh, perhaps one of them might – might – try to do something at the margins; but you’d be hard pressed to find any sunshine amidst the mud being thrown at their debates.
Human beings are by their very nature flawed individuals, some more obviously flawed than others.
This year’s presidential campaign has unfortunately brought to the fore not merely the lesser of two evils but also the evil of two lessers.
Expect nothing of the eventual winner, except more of Obama’s legacy from both of them. Unfortunately, there’s an excellent chance you won’t be disappointed.
