Middle Class Malarky

Even for a man with a penchant for political exploitation, President Obama's rhetoric on the extension of the Bush tax cuts has plumbed new depths of demagoguery.  In a desperate gambit, the White House warned that failure to reach a tax deal would sack middle class families' Christmas shopping plans.

"The president believes Democrats and Republicans should come together to renew middle class tax cuts,"  the White House said in a statement that predicted retailers' Christmas stockings would be stuffed with lumps of coal if the Republican-authored tax cuts were allowed to expire.

The crass appeal from the White House painted the president as a champion of the middle class, a favorite theme of the Obama campaign during the election.  What makes the empty oratory so odious is the fact that the Obama presidency has been no friend of the middle class.

On practically every economic measure, middle class Americans are worse off than four years ago.

Annual incomes for the middle class have plummeted an average of $4,520 since President Obama took office in 2009, the year the recession officially ended.  The Census Bureau reported that median income has belly-flopped to $50,054.  That's a 4.1 percent decline from 2009.

The median income level is the lowest it has been since 1995, nearly two decades ago.  The president and his economic policies have failed miserably to deliver a recovery for the middle class.  In fact, the middle class has fallen further behind under Obama.

During the Obama presidency, the ranks of the middle class have shrunk.  Pew Research found that 51 percent of all adults fell into the middle income tier in 2011.  In 1971, more than 60 percent of Americans were included in the middle income echelon.

Middle American earners' share of the household income pie also has diminished.  Middle income households account for 45 percent of all earnings.  Just two decades ago, middle earners' share of total income was 62 percent, according to Pew Research.

Meanwhile, health care premiums have skyrocketed $3,000 since Obama assumed the presidency.  Inflation has hijacked 6.62 percentage points of purchasing power from the middle class in the last four years.

Obama has saddled Americans with national debt that stands at $51,972.66 for each middle class man, woman and child. Appallingly, that means Greece's national debt per person is now 35 percent lower than the United States, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Yet Obama has the audacity to claim the tax extension will save the middle class from financial ruin.   Who is he kidding?  Obama's real agenda isn't to lift the middle class.

The president wants to stoke the fires of class warfare, pitting the middle class against the wealthy in an effort to create divisions that will promote income redistribution.  The rich are Obama's bogeymen, blamed for everything that can't be pinned on former President George W. Bush.

Another year of Bush's tax cuts will not cure what ails the middle class.  Economic growth across every industry is the shining hope for the middle class to recover from the losses suffered under the current administration.

Without a robust economic rebound, even Santa Claus won't be able to rescue the middle class.