Columnist declares election a ‘referendum’ on Obama’s first term

By PAUL ROVEDA
Republican Columnist
[email protected]

On the evening of Nov. 6, Mitt Romney will be making his victory speech for president of the United States.

This election is a referendum on President Obama’s term in office, during which he has fallen short on his promises.

He entered office during a very rough period in our nation’s history but was given four years to turn it around, and he has failed to make any significant change – the basis of his platform in 2008.

Obama’s policies obviously haven’t worked, and it’s time for someone with actual executive and business experience to set this country on the road to its glory days when average Americans didn’t have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck.

President Obama ran on the slogans of “hope” and “change,” but now Americans are just hoping for a change in November.
One thing that did change from the Bush administration to the Obama administration is healthcare policy. Obama has considerably raised taxes through healthcare reform during his term.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “contains 18 separate tax increases that will cost taxpayers $503 billion between 2010 and 2019.” The hallmark crime of this law is that the burden will be placed on the middle class.

Those in the middle-class will have to support those who cannot afford health insurance. In a time when the unemployment rate is 8.3 percent, a burden as large as this rips the legs off of future generations’ ability to climb the ladder to the American dream.

When the middle class is struggling most, it would seem common sense to pass a budget that could receive some type of bipartisan support. Obama went ahead and proposed his 2013 budget with the hopes of gaining support.
However, not a single member of Congress voted for the budget. All 513 members that were present to vote decided that the budget would send the country in the wrong direction.

Obama promised during his campaign to cut the deficit in half, but this obviously was a hopeless proposal.

There is no way that the deficit could possibly be cut in half after four years of higher spending and more government.

According to Forbes Magazine, people are working more hours for less pay today than they were before Obama entered office. On the day he took office, the median household income was $54,983 and now it is $50,964. That is a decrease of $4,019 per family.

The stimulus package was meant to reverse this trend. Instead, it prolonged the recession, slowed the recovery and was full of liberal pet projects, like over half a billion dollars given to hand-picked solar panel company, Solyndra.

Hope and change were written all throughout Obama’s $813 billion stimulus package, which was meant to keep unemployment below 8 percent.

All it did was rob Americans of their tax dollars, but also stole their hope, changing their life for the worst.
Former governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, said at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh this summer, “Obama has taken ‘hope and change,’ and changed it into ‘bait and switch.’”

With this, President Obama has attempted to backtrack his rhetoric; however, like Obama said to a local media outlet in Ohio, “When you’re the President, your words matter.”