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When someone says, "We're on the wrong track..."

I find it kind of funny that many Americans, Republican politicians in particular, seem to feel this country is on the "wrong track." While we certainly have our share of problems in this country (and overseas), do these people remember where we were 6 years ago? Remember how many jobs were being lost toward the end of Bush's presidency and at the start of President Obama's first term? How can these people look toward another with a straight face and say, "We're worse off today than when Obama took office"?

According to FactCheck.org, here are the numbers from the time President Obama took office in late-January of 2009 to July of 2014:

- Affordable Care Act Exchange Sign-ups: +8 million

- Affordable Care Act New Medicaid Sign-ups: +6.1 million

- Jobs: +4.8 million

- Unemployment rate: down to 6.1%

- Corporate Profits: +184%

- Real Weekly Earnings: +0.3%

- U.S. Crude Oil Production: +67%

- New Car MPG: +21%

- Wind & Solar Power: +231%

I haven't agreed with every decision the president has made, however, I'm also not going to make the ridiculous statement, "Yeah, we're worse now than we were at the start of the Great Recession, because Rush Limbaugh said so and I just don't want to believe things have gotten better since Bush left office and Obama entered it."

Humorously enough, many of these harsh Obama critics were (still are) devout Reagan supporters. When comparing the two and their recovery efforts, Polaris Financial Partners CEO Bob Deitrick had this to say to Adam Hartung of Forbes:

"President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President. So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this 'Great Recession.'

As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama's job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.

President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his sixth year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today's number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration."

Deitrick added:

"What's now clear is that the Obama administration policies have outperformed the Reagan administration policies for job creation and unemployment reduction. Even though Reagan had the benefit of a growing Boomer class to ignite economic growth, while Obama has been forced to deal with a retiring workforce developing special needs. During the eight years preceding Obama there was a net reduction in jobs in America. We now are rapidly moving toward higher, sustainable growth."

With regard to investing, Deitrick said the following:

"As this chart shows, over the first 67 months of their presidencies this is a clear 'winner' from an investor's viewpoint. A dollar invested when Reagan assumed the presidency would have yielded a staggering 190% return. Such returns were unheard of prior to his leadership.

However, it is undeniable that President Obama has surpassed the previous president. Investors have gained a remarkable 220% over the last 5.5 years! This level of investor growth is unprecedented by any administration, and has proven quite beneficial for everyone."

So the next time a Republican politician says, "We're on the wrong track," someone should respond with, "From a job creation and investor's perspective, we're on a better track now than we were under Reagan. Oh, and what kind of track were we on under Dubya? That's right, the Great Recession..."

http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/obamas-numbers-july-2014-update/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/

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