Are You Better Off Now...?

A Republican friend asked, on his Facebook wall, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Rather than belittling his wildly unoriginal question, I gave him a straight forward response...

"The question is, "Am I better off now than I was four years ago?" The answer would be "Well, yes I am."

Four years ago, I was far worse off than I was in 2000 when Clinton left office.

The better question would be, "Am I better off now than I was 12 years ago?" That answer would be, "After getting worse and worse off during Dubbya's eight years, I am finally back to where I was 12 years ago when Bush took office."

Four more years of Obama, with a Congress whose number one agenda isn't to make Obama fail, and I should finally be ahead of the game. "

To expand on that...

In the year 2000, I was making the most money, annually, than I had ever made.

In 2001, in fairness, by no fault of the Bush administration, I lost my job. I picked up part time jobs in my profession, and in 2002 I got a full time job at a drastic cut to my previous salary.

At that same time time, my wife, Mrs. Blog, a public school teacher, began to make less and less money, thanks to federal and state budget cuts. By 2008, she was earning $15,000 less a year than she did in 2000.

As anyone who does not have their ideological head up their ass knows, the U.S. economy jumped into a hand basket to Hell in the year 2000 and plummeted toward the abyss, culminating in a complete economic melt-down in the summer of 2008.


That was, in case you are not paying attention, before Barack Obama was elected president.

Every increase in income that The Blog earned during that time, was countered by the decline in income of public employees, including public school teachers.

Thanks to the Obama administration, and no thanks to the obstructionist Republicans in Congress, the U.S. economy had pulled back from the abyss, and by 2011, The Blog household had hit a "break even" point.  By 2012, things are now a bit better. With any luck, a couple more years of Obama and Democratic policies will get The Blog's household back to the point that we can afford a bi-weekly house cleaning service and a new computer. Like we could in the year 2000.

The Ryan/Romney Romney/Ryan ticket has a plan to return America to the failed "trickle down" policies of the early 2000s.

Dubbya's daddy called "Supply Side, aka: Trickle Down" "Voodoo Economics."

That may be the last time a Republican told the truth about anything.