“If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” 

-President Barack Obama, NBC, February 2009.

I’m going to make this very simple.

As of December 2008 (That is, the last month of the Bush Presidency)

-Unemployment: 7.1 % 

-Workforce Participation Rate: 65.8% 

-Number of Individuals Below the Poverty Line: 46 million Americans

-Number of Individuals on Food Stamps: 31.7 million Americans

-National Average Cost for a Gallon of Gas: $1.78

-Debt: $10,699,804,864,612.13

-Debt Per Citizen: $35,081.00 (Total Debt/Population in Dec. 2008)

-Deficit for FY 2008: 401.6 billion

As of August 2012:

-Unemployment: 8.3%

-Workforce Participation Rate: 63.7%

(WFP Rate means the total number of people participating in the work force or looking for work. This lowered percentage means that there’s a smaller pool of people measured as “workers” in the economy than during the Bush presidency, thus bringing the overall unemployment down from a real measured unemployment rate of 15%. According to Townhall.com, “the U-6 ‘real’ unemployment figure crept up to a full 15 percent.  The U-3 number [8.3 percent] would be 11 percent if Obama had maintained the workforce participation rate he inherited.  Instead, it has slipped to a three-decade low, perversely “helping” the unemployment rate.”)

-Number of Individuals Below the Poverty Line: 66 million Americans

-Number of of Individuals on Food Stamps: (note: Data up to May 2012) 46.5 million Americans

-National Average Cost for a Gallon of Gas: $3.82

-Debt: $15,956,622,160.00 (Note: at the time of the posting of this article it rose to $15,956,628,035,813.00. Additionally, the debt ceiling has been risen, allowing for debt spending over 16 trillion dollars.)

-Debt per Citizen: $181,313.00

-Deficit as projected by the Congressional Budget Office for FY 2012: 1.1 trillion 

President Bush’s numbers were by no means good. In fact, they were pretty bad. President Obama then proceeded to run a campaign based upon the concepts of Hope and Change. On the campaign trail, he called Bush “unpatriotic” for holding such a debt, yet has proceeded to spend like a drunken sailor, raising the debt to the astronomical sum we see today.

Mr. President, you DID inherit a mess. You just made it worse.