President Obama spoke at the House Democratic Issues Conference last week.
Boiled down to one quote, here's what he said.
"That's pretty rare where you have two visions, a vigorous debate, and then you test who’s right -- and the record shows that we were right and middle-class economics does work." |
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Still on a roll from his recent State of the Union wisecracks, Obama called out the opposition for its latest acquisition. A conscience.
The President reminded the Democrats in the audience that they have some accomplishments.
"We've seen 11 million jobs created, best job growth since the ‘90s, best job growth in manufacturing since the ‘90s; steepest drop in the unemployment rate in 30 years; deficit cut by two-thirds; over 10 million people with health insurance that didn’t have it before." |
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The Democrats achieved more than 58 months in a row of private sector job growth, which is a record. The 2,861,000 jobs added in 2014 made it the best year since 1997.
But that's not all.
June 2012
President Obama announced a new immigration policy, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), for young people who came to the US as children, and remained without applying for permission from federal authorities. The policy was intended as a temporary remedy until the passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
June 2012
The Supreme Court struck down key provisions of Arizona's anti- immigration law, SB1070. In its decision the court said: "As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain in the United States."
November 2012
Obama was elected to a second 4-year term with 332 electoral votes.
December 2012
Federal budget negotiations ended the lower tax rate on top incomes passed in 2001. The top marginal rate of 39.6% was restored.
Note: A persistent zombie lie still circulates about the income level where the top rate goes into effect. The tale claims that the cutoff was raised from $250,000 to $400,000 as a favor to the wealthy. Except it isn't at all true.
At the Tax Foundation website, the marginal income tax rates are listed for every year since 1913. The tables show that 2012 was the last year when the lower rate of 35% was in effect and it applied to income over $388,350. The income cutoffs were indexed to inflation in 1994 to prevent something known as "bracket creep." That was the last year when the top rate applied to income over the $250,000 level. By 2003, when the lower rate of 35% went into effect, it applied to income over $311,950.
In January 2013, the capital gains rate applied to the highest incomes was also restored. The raise from 15% to 23.8%, included a 3.8% hike mandated by the Affordable Care Act. A 0.9% raise in payroll tax applied to highest incomes to improve funding for Medicare also went into effect at the same time.
June 2013
The Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, 5 to 4.
June 2013
Landmark legislation providing for comprehensive immigration reform was passed in the Senate with every Democratic member voting in favor.
September 2013
After chemical weapons were used against civilians in Syria, a disarmament deal was brokered with the cooperation of Russia. A year later, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) reported that 98% of Syria’s chemical weapons had been surrendered and destroyed.
November 2013
A nuclear non-proliferation agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, China, France, Germany, Russia, & United Kingdom) was announced. The agreement went into effect in January 2014 and it is still in effect despite the Republicans’ attempts to sabotage it.
July 2014
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) went into effect. The law was passed in 2010, during the Democratic majority. It stops the 1% from using off-shore tax havens (like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands) to evade taxes.
It's not a bad record.