What is it about people in Ohio? First they elect a governor and then don't let him do his job, and then they insist upon getting behind the one guy who, more than anybody else in the last four years, can be said to be responsible for their plight. Ah, that would be Barry "Almighty". Now you'd think that since Ohio households are poorer now than they were last year, and actually more than they’ve been in over 25 years, and the number of people now living in poverty is higher than it’s been in more than 30 years, that it just might occur to them that just maybe this Barry guy ain't the right guy for the job. But apparently not, because the last time I looked he was leading in the polls there in Ohio.
You see, when adjusted for inflation, the 2010 annual median household income in Ohio of $46,093 was down by $543 from the previous year, and down 15.3 percent from the peak of $54,395 back in 2000, that according to the census’s Current Population Survey, which was released yesterday. The inflation-adjusted figure hasn’t been lower for Ohio since officials began keeping that record in 1984, census officials said. Ohio’s level of poverty, 15.3 percent, was worse than the nation’s, which was at 15.1 percent. Ohio’s level jumped 2 percentage points from 2009; it has never been this high since those records were first kept in 1980.
The worst year before 2010 was 1994, and that would be when we had another Democrat, "Slick Willie" Clinton, in the White House. At that time it was 14.1 percent of Ohioans who were living in poverty. The 15.3 percent translates into 1.74 million Ohio residents living below the poverty line last year, which means a family of four making less than $22,300 a year. About 639,000 Ohioans younger than 18 were in poverty, and 244,000 children younger than 5 were. "If this isn’t a wake-up call to our policymakers, I don’t know what is," said Renuka Mayadev, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio. "We have to stop the backward slide." So they want 4 more years of Barry?
After two major tumbles by the stock market, a burst housing bubble and a weak recovery from the Great Recession, Ohioans’ household balance sheets are hurting. "It’s just been this cascade of unfortunate things since then," Newton said. Though rising inflation has played a part, "obviously, it goes beyond that, because you would expect over three decades of time to see some growth in real income levels," Newton said. "This is suggesting that Ohio is doing poorly" partly because of the massive loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs. I'm not understanding how it that these people think that Barry is someone they can count on to turn things around, because that's clearly not part of his plan.
And it's thanks to Barry that, nationally, the annual median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median after adjusting for inflation. That was the worst showing since 1996, and down 7.1 percent since the peak of $53,252 in 1999. Nationally, there were 46.2 million poor people in America, the largest number in the past 52 years. And I must admit I'm not sure of the accuracy of that number. But if we do use that number as our total and base the fact that is it said that one in 3 of America’s poor are children, that would give us a number of 15.4 million kids, which is over 950,000 more than the previous year. A pretty grim statistic.
Recently released figures also show that about 13.7 percent of Ohioans had no health-care coverage last year. Again, while it's difficult to determine the accuracy of these numbers, that would still be better than the national average of 16.3 percent. "We are better off than some states," said Cathy Levine, co-chairwoman of Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage. Levine noted that, nationally, 18- to 24-year-olds were the only age group to improve in having health-insurance coverage over the past year, from 70.7 percent being covered to 72.8 percent. She attributes the increase to the new Obamacare rule that lets workers keep their children on employer health plans until age 26.
"Young adults, an age group that’s always been among the concentrated demographic that’s uninsured, is suddenly doing better than other age groups," Levine said. Based on yesterday’s numbers, what’s the future hold for Ohio? "It suggests horrible things," Newton said. In coming years, Ohioans likely can count on continued poor employment growth, little in the way of pay increases, and more health-care costs shifted to them. "This (income) number is going to continue to come down," Newton predicted. So I would ask these people, where's the incentive to vote for a socialist president? What is it that has these people so convinced that he is able, or is even willing to try, to get things turned around.
Look, what we have here is a president whose long term goal is to bring about a total and complete economic collapse in this country so that he can then make the claim that the government would need to spend even more massive amounts of money. And how do you suppose our government would go about garnering all that money? Well folks by doing something that's already being talked about. Through the enacting of a European style VAT tax, which would effectively drive up the cost of all goods and services by another 20 percent. Is this what Ohioans see as being the answer to their prayers? If the answer is yes, then by all means vote again for Barry, but is the answer is no, I'd recommend voting for Romney.
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