Black America vs. Obama?

[peejay 327]

Black America vs. Obama?

by Patrick J. Buchanan )

Posted 07/12/2011 ET

"The Disappearing Black Middle Class" ran the headline over the Chicago Sun-Times story. And the statistics from the Economic Policy Institute were indeed sobering.

In 2007, best year of the Bush era, white households had a median net worth of $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households.

By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860. For black households, it had plummeted 83 percent to $2,170, a near wipeout.

As Algernon Austin of EPI's Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy put it, "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households had two cents."

One explanation for this surely is the wave of foreclosures on subprime mortgages, a large share of which were held by African-Americans.

But while unemployment among white men has surged in the Great Recession, among black men it has hit 16 percent, the highest level since the Department of Labor began to keep records in 1972.

Ominously, things are likely to get worse, because Bill Clinton's assertion, "The era of big government is over!" is today palpably true.

Not only in Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey, run by Republicans, is this so, but in liberal mega-states like New York and California. There, Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Jerry Brown run the show, and government payrolls are also being slashed and government pensions pared back.

From Greece to Portugal to Ireland to Italy, an age of austerity has begun. And now that age is about to begin in Barack Obama's Washington.

Why should this adversely affect black America?

Because not only are African-Americans disproportionately the beneficiaries of federal programs, from the Earned Income Tax Credit to aid for education and student loans, they are even more over-represented in the federal workforce than they are on state payrolls.

Though 10 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force, African-Americans are 18 percent of U.S. government workers. They are 25 percent of the employees at Treasury and Veterans Affairs, 31 percent of the State Department, 37 percent of Department of Education employees and 38 percent of Housing and Urban Development. They are 42 percent of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 55 percent of the employees at the Government Printing Office and 82 percent at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.

When the Obama administration suggested shutting down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants whose losses of $150 billion have had to be made up by taxpayers, The Washington Post warned, in a story headlined, "Winding Down Fannie and Freddie Could Put Minority Careers at Risk," that 44 percent of Fannie employees and 50 percent of Freddie's were persons of color.

In Washington, D.C., we have also seen the result of government cuts on African-American leaders who had to approve those cuts.

When Mayor Adrian Fenty stood behind schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who fired hundreds of teachers, most of them African-American, the wards east of the Anacostia cut him dead. In 2010, Fenty was thrown out by many of the black voters who elected him.

Not only are African-Americans over-represented among government employees, these jobs are the backbone of the black middle class. For federal pay and benefits have in recent years far outstripped those of the private sector.

From 2000 to 2010, the number of federal employees earning over $150,000 increased tenfold. That number doubled in the first two years alone of the Obama administration. The average pay of federal civil servants in 2009, after benefits were factored in, was $123,000, twice the average pay and benefits of $61,000 in the private sector.

Indeed, because of the salaries and benefits that District of Columbia and federal employees receive, Washington is first among all metropolitan areas in per-capita income. And the three congressional districts north and west of the city in Maryland and Virginia are among the top 10 in the nation in average income.

The half-century since the Great Society was launched in the mid-1960s have been the salad days of the government sector. No segment of the population has benefited more than black America.

But with the U.S. government running its third deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, and Obama talking of cutting $4 trillion from future spending, those days are over. And as black America benefited immensely from the Great Society, so it is likely to hurt most as the cuts come.

Already, black voices are beginning to blame the black president whom fate has chosen to preside over the downsizing.

Obama, says Princeton professor Cornell West, "lacks backbone." He is a "black mascot of Wall Street and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. ... I don't think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Barack Obama."

Incredibly, the question must be asked.

Is this Democratic administration about to go to war with its base? Is black America souring on Barack Obama?

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=44791

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And who are these persons of color going to support? Michele 'you-black-folk-were-better-off-during-slavery' Bachmann? Right.

[웃 910]

And who are these persons of color going to support? Michele 'you-black-folk-were-better-off-during-slavery' Bachmann? Right.

Maybe Mitt "Who let the dogs out - hoo hoo" Romney:

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Maybe Mitt "Who let the dogs out - hoo hoo" Romney:

Well, Mitt first has to get past the crazies in the GOP. If he can do that w/o having to cross too many bridges into loonie territory then yes, perhaps Mitt. If I knew what he actually stands for, I might just consider voting for him. As it stands, though, Mitt stands for everything as he has taken both sides of just about any major issue there is. Despite that, he's the sanest guy running on the GOP side. No wait, he's the only sane person running on that side.

[Ban Hammer 12,837]

And who are these persons of color going to support? Michele 'you-black-folk-were-better-off-during-slavery' Bachmann? Right.

nah, they can then chant the mantra of michele "i hate america" obama.

[luckytxn 2,263]

Obama the Socialist will just go and tell Blacks that he had to lower everyones economic prospects but now that he has achieved that he will be able to in his second term to concentrate on making sure Blacks are over compensated. They will by it big time. After all when their hopes are dashed again he will already be in office and can't run again anyway.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I have little faith that a community that repeatedly has battered wives syndrome every election cycle when they vote.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

nah, they can then chant the mantra of michele "i hate america" obama.

Of course, despite what your GOP politburo propagandizes, Mrs. Obama never said any such thing. Mrs. Bachmann, on the other hand, supports and signed a document that said in no uncertain terms that black folk were better off during slavery than they are under the fist black President.

I have little faith that a community that repeatedly has battered wives syndrome every election cycle when they vote.

I hear you. I don't have much faith in the redneck communities either.

[Zero Sum 305]

Obama the Socialist will just go and tell Blacks that he had to lower everyones economic prospects but now that he has achieved that he will be able to in his second term to concentrate on making sure Blacks are over compensated. They will by it big time. After all when their hopes are dashed again he will already be in office and can't run again anyway.

I will +1 this on comedy alone.

Obama lowered it himself. Its a conspiracy.

I have little faith that a community that repeatedly has battered wives syndrome every election cycle when they vote.

And I will report this for obvious racism in the way its presented.

[DaveE111 10]

Of course, despite what your GOP politburo propagandizes, Mrs. Obama never said any such thing. Mrs. Bachmann, on the other hand, supports and signed a document that said in no uncertain terms that black folk were better off during slavery than they are under the fist black President.I hear you. I don't have much faith in the redneck communities either.

Without being rude, please find me a quote that says what I highlighted. This is what I understood she signed, and I quote "“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American president". I don't see a mention of "black folk", or "better off".

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Without being rude, please find me a quote that says what I highlighted. This is what I understood she signed, and I quote "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USAs first African-American president". I don't see a mention of "black folk", or "better off".

Were slaves black? Yes. Are African-Americans black? Yes. Is the pledge not saying that a child is better off growing up with his/her father and mother in a two-parent household? Yes. Is it therefore not saying that a black child was better off during slavery than it is today? I think the answer is, once again, Yes.

While they have since erased this portion of the pledge but the fact remains that Michele Bachmann happily signed it with this rather offensive and irgonrant language in it. She's just so special. But what do you expect from a former federal tax collector?

Edited July 12, 2011 by Mr. Big Dog

[Ban Hammer 12,837]

Of course, despite what your GOP politburo propagandizes, Mrs. Obama never said any such thing. Mrs. Bachmann, on the other hand, supports and signed a document that said in no uncertain terms that black folk were better off during slavery than they are under the fist black President.

yet she wasn't proud of america until the past few years....

I hear you. I don't have much faith in the redneck communities either.

so you think only rednecks batter?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

so you think only rednecks batter?

Did I say that? I thought that's what Paul was suggesting.

[Zero Sum 305]

yet she wasn't proud of america until the past few years....

so you think only rednecks batter?

Either implies it isn't just 'black America' or 'redneck America.' The Michelle Obama misquote is pretty lame in its use here too.

I don't have much faith in the redneck communities either.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

yet she wasn't proud of america until the past few years....

Not being proud isn't exactly the same as hating. At least outside the GOP poliburo's propaganda machine it isn't.