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May 28, 2009
Exclusive: On Obama’s Fiscal Follies – A Response to a Reader
I received the following e-mail from a reader who took exception to my recent article entitled “Is Obama’s ‘Tortured’ Obsession with George Bush Impeding His Ability to Move Forward?”
I have just finished your opinion piece on Obama's handling of terrorism, torture and national security.
While I understand the need to ridicule a standing president and members of Congress, I would like to share with you my reasons for supporting this man.
I voted for a person who values marriage. As a thirty year married man, I appreciate being with a dynamic, intelligent partner. Mr. Obama shares that very important value with me.
I voted for a man who values his children. Mr. Obama has two fine young daughters. I hope that as a family website, you are helping him to guide these youngsters through a White House youth.
I voted for a man who values education. It is no small task to achieve a law degree.
I voted for a man who is fiscally sound in his personal life. No amount of examination has uncovered evidence of unpaid bills, or forgotten debts.
This is a man who represents me. I value marriage, children, and a commitment to education.
I assume you will either ignore this e-mail, delete this e-mail or take it as an attack. For that I apologize. I do think that it is sad that a website devoted to family attacks a strong family in the White House.
Monty P.
Had Monty’s e-mail been laden with expletives, personal attacks or other forms of rudeness, yes, I would have considered it an attack and ignored it. However, he very politely explained his reasons for supporting President Obama, something I appreciate. I was originally going to respond via e-mail, but decided to do so in a more public forum.
To address his first points regarding marriage and family: Despite my personal opinions of Barack and Michelle Obama, I agree that it’s refreshing to see public figures whose marriage is, as far as we can tell, a stable and happy one. (The same could also be said about our last president, George Bush.) And yes, the Obama children seem to be happy and well-adjusted, something else worth celebrating. I would like to reassure FSM readers that I have no intention of defaming or attacking those girls here or elsewhere for the sake of scoring cheap political points. Let children be children. They have nothing to do with their father’s politics or his policies as president.
Let’s move on to Monty’s comments about President Obama’s dedication to education via his successful efforts in attaining a law degree. While I myself do not have a law degree and have no intention of going back to school to get one, attaining a law degree is hardly unusual in this day and age. How many people in this nation get law degrees each year? According to this article, about 44,000. For comparison, 454 nuclear engineering degrees were handed out in 2008. And just think of how many lawyers populate Congress! Out of 535 total members (both the Senate and House) of the 109th Congress, 228 had law degrees and 217 had former occupations in law – by far the most dominant professional group in our legislative body. I would be surprised if the numbers changed dramatically for the 110th Congress.
Brilliant, educated minds do not necessarily translate to competent leadership. Having leadership experience, otherwise known as executive experience, counts for much. Obama had little real-world experience in anything before launching his political career, which has become apparent during the appointment process. Hundreds of positions within the administration have yet to be filled, and of the appointments he has made, many have come with unwanted baggage – more on that later.
Going back to the education meme, his one shot at "running something" was his chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, intended to improve schools in Chicago. Unfortunately, lots of money spent didn't garner much in the name of results, as "the Challenge had little impact on school improvement and student outcomes." (That's probably a good thing, considering the involvement of radical William Ayers at Annenberg during the same time period.) What it boils down to is that within a six-year period, the reform initiative led by Obama spent $49.2 million with pretty much nothing to show for it.
But apparently there is hope in sight. According to John Simmons, with the Strategic Learning Initiative, “What people miss is that Annenberg took on a bold move nobody ever did before.” With liberals, even a complete failure is a success as long as your heart is in the right place. $49.2 million? Eh, don’t worry about it. The Annenbergs are good for more, right?
And does Obama’s desire to further his own education necessarily correlate to his views on education in general? Considering he killed a successful voucher program in Washington D.C. that benefited inner city children in failing schools (although children already in the program will be allowed to continue until they graduate), one might conclude that his dedication to education begins and ends with the happiness of the teachers’ unions, who were among his most ardent supporters during the campaign.
How about those finances? Monty notes Obama’s ability to manage his own personal finances, which I interpret to mean that if he can manage his own money, he should be able to manage ours. Yet Obama was in poor financial shape before what turned out to be a multi-million dollar book deal, unable to rent a car because his credit cards had been maxed out.
Yes, apparently before his big bucks book deals came to fruition, the Obamas, like many Americans, were living beyond their means, depending upon credit to make up the difference (all emphasis in the original):
A close examination of their finances shows that the Obamas were living off lines of credit along with other income for several years until 2005, when Obama’s book royalties came through and Michelle received her 260% pay raise at the University of Chicago. This was also the year Obama started serving in the U.S. Senate.
During the presidential primary campaign, Michelle Obama complained how tough it was to make ends meet. During a stop in Ohio, she said, "I know we’re spending – I added it up for the first time – we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth."
Let’s examine how tough things were for this couple using various public records.
In April 1999, they purchased a Chicago condo and obtained a mortgage for $159,250. In May 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750. Then, in 2002, they refinanced the condo with a $210,000 mortgage, which means they took out about $50,000 in equity. Finally, in 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 on top of the mortgage.
Tax returns for 2004 reveal $14,395 in mortgage deductions. If we assume an effective interest rate of 6%, then they owed about $240,000 on a home they purchased for about $159,250.
This means they spent perhaps $80,000 beyond their income from 1999 to 2004.
The Obamas’ adjusted gross income averaged $257,000 from 2000 to 2004. This is above the threshold of $250,000 which Obama initially used as the definition of being "rich" for taxation purposes during last year’s election campaign.
The Obama family apparently had little or no savings during this period since there was virtually no taxable interest shown on their tax returns.
In 2003, they reported almost $24,000 in child care expenses and, in 2004, about $23,000. They also paid about $3,400 in household employment taxes each year. And as Michelle stated, they spent $10,000 a year on "extracurriculars" for the children.
These numbers clearly show the Obamas were living beyond their means and they might have suffered financially during the decline in housing prices had they relied on taking ever larger amounts of equity from their home to pay the bills.
But in 2005, Obama’s book sales soared and the royalties poured in. Michelle explained, "It was like Jack and his magic beans."
Without those magic beans, the Obama family would have eventually suffered the consequences of too much debt.
Is it fiscally responsible to borrow-spend, borrow-spend in order to make ends meet? Yet that is what it seems the Obamas did before their personal financial ship came in, and it’s what President Obama is planning for not only today’s taxpayers, but for the taxpayers of tomorrow. Book royalties ain’t gonna cut it for this baby.
During the campaign, Obama broke a promise to use public funding because he obviously figured he could raise more on his own. We were told that small donors were the secret to his success. But were they?
The study, released today by the Campaign Finance Institute, a non-partisan group, goes deeper than previous analyses of Mr. Obama’s fund-raising in examining donors who made discrete contributions of $200 or less, and found many of them donated repeatedly to exceed that amount.
The institute found that while nearly 50 percent of Mr. Obama’s donations came in individual contributions of $200 or less, in reality, only 26 percent of the money he collected through Aug. 31 during the primary and 24 percent of his money through Oct. 15 came from contributors whose total donations added up to $200 or less. The data is the most recent available.
The percentage is comparable to the amount raised by small donors by George Bush during his re-election campaign in 2004. So where did all of the money come from? That question has yet to be answered.
Of course, none of this takes into consideration the many national security policy concerns that have been chronicled here on FSM.
It’s comforting to support a candidate who has a stable marriage and a pleasant family, but just being an all-around great guy isn’t enough when it comes to being President of the United States. He must be a competent leader who knows how to delegate, make decisions of great import, take responsibility without passing the buck, put the safety and security of Americans before the “good opinion” of fair weather friends around the world, and surround himself with competent, honest people. How many of Obama’s appointees have had difficulty in paying their taxes – while average Americans are expected to pony up to pay off a multi-trillion dollar debt?
Unfortunately, it seems that too many voters looked at the nice man promising change, rather than the nice man’s experience, on-record policy endorsements, and his radical mentors and associations. And now it looks like all Americans are ready to pay the piper.
Thanks for writing, Monty.
Pam Meister is the editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org.
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