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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Things are Looking Up, or so Say the White House "Spinsters"... Really?

Are things getting better for our fellow Americans? The White House says yes; yet lots of We the People still say no.

We report; you decide.

Grim Census 'Progress' puts it all in its proper perspective for us:

"On Wednesday's terrible Census Bureau findings on income and poverty, the White House put out a statement saying the report shows "we have made progress digging our way out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression," even if "too many families are still struggling."

Oh? Such progress includes median household income falling by $777 to $50,054 in 2011, a decline of 1.5% in real terms and the second in two years. This measure of middle-class incomes is 8.1% lower than in 2007.

The share of the population without health insurance did fall modestly by 0.6 percentage points, to 15.7%, which liberals are attempting to use as evidence that the Affordable Care Act is working, though the law doesn't kick in until 2014. But even if these claims were true, the problem is that the gains came largely by government crowding out private insurance. Some 3.9 million people on net joined the public rolls, led by a jump in Medicaid enrollment of 2.3 million, while the number of individuals with normal insurance rose by about 800,000.

The Census data show that since 2007 people covered by the private sector have slipped to 170.1 million from 179 million. But Medicaid has grown by 11.1 million, or 28%, and that's before ObamaCare adds another 25 million or more.

Meanwhile, 46.2 million Americans live in poverty, a near-record high at 15% and also unchanged since last year. They'll be happy to know the White House considers this progress."

Summing Up

I guess if we all agree to set our expectations low enough, we'll be able to meet them.

In other words, if we don't know where we're going, any old road will get us there.

Thanks. Bob.

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