Barack Obama will set another record this year for amount spent on an election campaign—somewhere around one billion dollars, breaking his own record of $730 million in 2008—but in spite of all that money he’s facing an uphill battle because of something we will call the X-Files.

To wit, take the trend of any good thing over the three years of Obama’s presidency, pair it with the trend of any bad thing, plot them on a graph, and you get a big ugly “X”.

Everything has gotten worse since Obama became president and voters, who are living the nightmare, surely know it.  First example:



The blue line shows a steep decline in percentage of people in the labor force starting with the Obama presidency, the red line shows an equally steep rise in the number of people dependent upon the government (from the Heritage Foundation index of dependence), and together they make the first of our awful-looking Xs.

(There’s nothing unique about the specific charts displayed here.  You can pick almost any two related trends where one represents something bad and the other something good and see the same big X.)

Here’s another one—gasoline prices (in red, the “bad thing” you don’t want rising) plotted against existing home prices (in blue, the “good thing” you do want rising):



Riding around in Air Force One, taking vacations in Martha’s Vineyard and Spain, the first family doesn’t comprehend how much pain those rising fuel prices and falling home prices are causing so they have no clue how bad things are for the people whose votes they’re soliciting.

As Obama dives into his reelection effort, Americans will have trouble noticing any difference because the man never exited campaign mode after the last election.  He’s been running non-stop for president since before he became a senator in 2005, never really stopped running after taking the oath of office as president, and with six straight years of campaigning under his belt he probably doesn’t know any other way to live at this point.  If the Mayan calendar is correct about the apocalypse happening in 2012, Barack will be the guy standing on a rock afterward, giving speeches about the low unemployment, running for President of the Wasteland.

Or maybe the apocalypse has nothing to do with Mayans—maybe Barack Obama himself is the apocalypse.  Here’s government welfare spending compared to the disposable income of working Americans:



For the first time in our nation’s history, the average welfare recipient has more money to spend than the average working person.  Suddenly it’s more rational, financially, to sit home and collect government checks than get a job.

Of course, the massive increase in welfare spending isn’t a surprise.  President Obama and congressional Democrats have presided over gargantuan increases in federal spending and the money clearly hasn’t gone toward maintaining our military superpower status:



As the presidential budget proposal has gone from Bush’s $2.77 trillion for 2007 to Obama’s $3.803 trillion for 2013, a 37% increase in 6 years, the percentage spent on defense has shrunk from 20% to 16.7%.  To make ends meet the Obama administration has been cancelling critical purchases such as the F-22 Raptor, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and the YAL-1 Airborne Laser weapons system, while dialing back missile defense, nuclear warheads, and military personnel.

Hey, maybe there’s a bright side.  Maybe Iran and Red China will be our friends and help us police the world.

The X-Files are not only about money.  Even when it’s dollars being plotted, sometimes what the graphs reflect is a pervasive spiritual and moral decline—as when Planned Parenthood is contrasted with NASA:



Forget about exploring space.  Let’s spend more money killing babies in the womb.

In many ways, this particular X is the consummate symbol of America’s dissoluteness under Obama’s leadership.  We are no longer courageous explorers striving for understanding of God’s universe, nor a nation of people capable of achieving great things.  We are, rather, liabilities, each and every one of us, requiring health care and government food stamps and crotch pat downs at the airport and an endless variety of expensive coddling to keep us safe—we are suddenly people who can never make up for the disfavor we did the world by being born.

When historians look back at the presidential election of 2012, they’ll either say it was the year we saved ourselves or they’ll say it was the year one billion dollars overwhelmed truth and bought Obama another four years in the White House.  Either way, X will mark the spot.


From Reno, Nevada, USA        Tweet

February 16, 2012 - Great Column.....I am so proud to be your sister and I am so proud of you! - Mary, Florida

February 16, 2012 - The X works both ways. It also represents the vampire class getting more and more blood from taxpayers. As the vampire number increases are they less likely or more likely to award the party sustaining them? With 47% of the populace paying no taxes Obama further undercut the economy and future of the nation by tapping social security taxes. Already bankrupt the reduction in these taxes will only hasten its demise. Yet we are cursed with a GOP that goes along rather than confronts an out of control government in the hopes that they will soon have the chance to be in the driver's seat. Despite the horrific nature of the Obama administration the cocktail party elites are trying to foist Romney, another RINO, on the people. At this point I have little hope for a nation that would seem to prefer the security of the chains of socialism than the freedom and risk that capitalism offers. - Veritas, Washington, D.C.

February 16, 2012 - Go to Koss much for your "facts" Daryl? - xiphos, Chicago

February 16, 2012 - Funny, real funny!!! Check your facts ..Both Bush 1 and 2 gave more to assistance than President Obama. They are the real foodstamp presidents!! Bush made the presidency his personal investment. He profited from oil while Cheney profited from Haliburton. Oh did we forget the 30 day vacations of Bush?? Matter of fact where were these observations while Bush was in office. I challenge you to name something good from his administration. Check your facts!!!!! OBAMA 2012!!! - Daryl E., Atlanta

February 16, 2012 - Doug Ross owns a website that accumulates news links, like the Drudge Report only slightly different because he includes some actual content and some damn fine writing of his own. Doug Ross @ Journal has a huge following, and I can always tell when he lists one of my columns by the uptick in hits, but today is the first time a JPAttitude column was listed FIRST. Here's the screenshot, preserved for eternity:



Hey, thanks for the link Doug! And for whatever difference it makes I think your site is way better than the Drudge Report. - J.P. Travis, Reno