What you won't hear from Barack Obama in Tuesday's State of the Union address is the truth about Benghazi, or the IRS's continued targeting of conservatives and Tea Party groups, or the disasters behind the roll out of ObamaCare, or an admission that his economic policies have failed to lead a recovery, or an explanation as to why he green-lighted Iran's nuke ambitions, etc., etc., etc.
What you will hear is a lot about income inequality; "the defining challenge of our time" as he calls it.
If he really believes that it is such a big issue, then he needs to explain why he has failed so miserably with that one, too.
According to Gallup 67 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way income and wealth are currently distributed in the U.S. Barack Obama is an adept enough populist to talk about what significant majorities of Americans want to hear, especially at a time when a growing number of voters are unhappy with him.
After all, this is the same Barack Obama who guaranteed anxious millions "if you like your health care plan you can keep it. Period." He has no problem telling you what you want to hear; he just has a problem delivering.
However, even Obama's normally adoring media can't ignore the facts. "But of course, income inequality has actually gotten much worse under Obama's watch," wrote the folks at MSN Money this week in anticipation of Tuesday's SOTU speech. Median household income fell 4.4 percent during Obama's first term in office, they also pointed out.
If you're compelled to listen to the SOTU on Tuesday night as I feel obligated to do, just remember the following graph courtesy ofInvestor's Business Dailyand John Merline.
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As indicated income inequality has increased faster under Obama than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, and is now at the highest level since the Census Department began recording data in 1947. Actually, under Bush – who Obama loves to vilify – there was no net increase at all.
Importantly, Merline cites official government data from the government's Gini Index. These are the Obama Administration's numbers.
Merline concludes that the policies Obama "is pushing now have either had little impact on inequality or have provided few benefits to those they're supposed to help." He then provides a summary review of many of those policies, the full text of which can be found here. It's an important read.
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