Obama Flunks His Own Fairness Test

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

Leadership: If State of the Union speech leaks are any indication, the president wants his re-election campaign to be about fairness. But why should anyone believe him, since his own policies have made America much less fair?

'We can go in two directions," Obama told supporters in a State of the Union preview over the weekend. "One is towards less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few."

But Obama has miserably failed even by his own definition of fairness. Under his administration, the only ones winning are the rich and well connected. Everyone else continues to suffer.

Corporate profits under Obama have climbed 68%, and companies are sitting on a record pile of cash — more than $2 trillion. The Dow is up about 50%.

Those gains haven't trickled anywhere. Median family income is down 5% since the Obama "recovery" started in June 2009 — a steeper drop than occurred during the recession itself, according to Sentier Research.

The ranks of the long-term unemployed have grown by 1.5 million, and almost a million have dropped out of the labor force altogether. Even union membership has dropped since he took office.

And income inequality is on the rise, according to the commonly accepted measure used by the Census Bureau. (It was flat during Bush's eight years.)

Obama can't blame Bush for any of this. It all happened on his watch, after the recession ended.

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Obama also says he wants to build an America where "everybody plays by the same set of rules."