The Obama campaign released an interactive chart today called “The Life of Julia,” which purports to show “how President Obama’s policies help one woman over her lifetime – and how Mitt Romney would change her story.”
We first see the fictional cartoon Julia at age three, enjoying the Head Start program that Obama says he has “taken steps to improve.” Under Romney, we’re told, budget cuts to Head Start would result in 200,000 fewer slots per year for young children. Thanks to Obama’s birth control mandate, the 27-year-old Julia is able to “focus on her work rather than worry about her health.” Romney, on the other hand, supports legislation that would “place Julia’s health care decisions in the hands of her employer.”
The chart goes on to describe how Obama’s policies would help Julia and Romney’s would hurt her at various ages. As you can imagine, most of it is wildly dishonest. But instead of rebutting all the falsehoods, I’d rather take a look at how Obama’s policies would impact Julia throughout her life, based on another chart the White House released, buried within Obama’s FY13 budget proposal.
It’s the chart showing the trajectory of publicly held debt as a percentage of GDP if Obama’s FY13 budget was extended through 2084. And while it’s much more optimistic than the conservative estimates, it’s still not pretty:
Let’s catch up with Julia at her various ages and see how the publicly held debt will be doing at that point:
Age three: That’s this year, 2012. According to Obama’s chart, publicly held debt is roughly 80 percent of the GDP.
Age 17: It’s 2029, and publicly held debt is now nearly 90 percent of the GDP. Fortunately, Obama’s Race to the Top program means that Julia can “take the classes she needs to do well.” Unfortunately, both liberals and conservatives have blasted Race to the Top as a failure, and interest in refunding it has reportedly been dwindling.
Age 25 – It’s 2037, and publicly held debt as a percentage of GDP is now hovering around 100 percent. But the good news is that Julia’s personal debt burden will be reduced, as President Obama will keep interest low on student loans.
Age 37 – It’s 2049, and publicly held debt is now 130 percent of GDP. However, Obama says that Julia’s kindergarten-age son Zachary will still be able to take advantage of Race to the Top program. (Note also that even under the most generous circumstances, it has now been at least 33 years since President Obama’s last term in office).
Age 42 – It’s 2054, and publicly held debt is now 140 percent of the GDP.
Age 65 – It’s 2077, and publicly held debt is now 180 percent of the GDP. But Julia will still be covered by Medicare “as we know it,” at least if President Obama was reelected in 2012. That’s right, no Medicare reform for the next half-century, according to Obama.
Age 67 – It’s 2079, and publicly held debt is now 190 percent of the GDP. And thanks to President Obama’s 2012 reelection, Social Security is miraculously still solvent and unchanged.
Age 72 – Obama’s Life of Julia chart only shows us her life up until age 67. That’s too bad, since Julia hits a milestone around 2084, when publicly held debt will be just about 200 percent of the deficit – and rising.
We all know why debt will continue to careen out of control in the coming years. It’s entitlement spending, and even the White House acknowledges it in its FY13 budget. And yet Obama’s Life of Julia chart pretends that we can continue along the current path without fundamental changes. Instead, any reform proposals are demagogued as an attack on women’s health or children’s education.
For all its faults, the Obama ad cites tangible policies and their purported impact on voters and taxpayers. nDo you really think some Romney campaign spokesperson will win this argument by reciting a bunch of statistics on publicly held debt..? n nMARCU$
The real point, of course, is that there's no real chance that Julia, or Julia's daughter will never actually reap these benefits.
Marcus, n nPerhaps that is the stupidest argument that I've ever heard in favor of a candidate. You assume the voters are stupid. By that token, I could make an argument that by taking my family to a ballgame and paying $100 for tickets I am essentially putting $100,000 into the economy by virtue of how many times my $100 is circulated. You'd of course say that's absurd, but the point is this: just because Obama makes a claim doesn't mean that it is true or believable to many.
Barry’s strategy is to saturate the media with his face and voice. He’s everywhere, all the time. You stay up late at night and he’s on late night talk shows, you wake up in the morning and he’s being interviewed on the morning talk shows like Good Morning America and the Today Show. It’s never ending. He's on MTV, he's on ESPN, yadda, yadda, yadda. n nIt’s a technique. A very old technique. You see it in countries where there is a king or dictator—for real. The leader is omnipresent. Assuring, scolding, comforting, threatening, that’s the point. He’s our first American dictator. And even if he gets a second term and then leaves office he’s set the ‘new’ standard. We will never elect a conservative again. Not that we have in a while. n n
On the bright side, people might get sick of him.
Even though Julia started working full-time when she was 23 years old, she depends upon the Government throughout her life. After being employed for eight years, she's needs checkups, prenatal care, and free screenings under Obama Care when she decides to get pregnant. I guess this is because her Employer could no longer afford to offer health insurance under Obama Care and opted to pay the penalty instead. After 19 years of full-time employment, Julia has the brilliant idea of starting her own web design business and ran to the Government for a Small Business Administration loan. If Julia's business tanks, will the Government bail her out and forgive her loan like they did with GM? There's no doubt her business venture did tank because the poor thing doesn't seem to have any retirement savings or an IRA. She's dependent upon Social Security. She's probably volunteering at the community garden so she can secretly grow marijuana to fortify her income. Where does Julia's personal responsibility start? What did Julia do to prepare for her son's college education? By the way, the slides end with Julia at the age of 67. Was Julia diagnosed with cancer and denied treatment under Obama Care that may have saved her life?
I wonder if I should send my Mother's Day card to the federal government? n
Good point, MARCU$,r nr nAs long as some “tangible benefit” can be touted, no price is too high. Thank goodness we have that money tree one the White House lawn.
Trillions spent and six million fewer employed Americans and those working making $5000 less on average. Way to go Obama. You de man.
hahahaha! and ha! n ndont worri, im not voting FOR julia!
The funny part is how this all hinges, "Julia's" entire life, on things absolutely never changing. On everything going exactly as planned. Who's afraid of change, now?
Foolya!
in its simple terms, the obama presentation cites tangible effects of the Ryan budget on the lives of ordinary citizens. n nif the Republicans wish to tagline their economic push with a steep tax cut for the wealthy, the result will be that every cut in social programs will be deemed to have gone to pay off Romney's fat-cat supporters. n nFiscal austerity requires sacrifice by everyone – and Ryan pushes all the costs on the poor while giving a windfall to Romney & Co and the rest of the moneyed elite. A real concern with fiscal sanity would have forced sacrifice on everyone – not just the weakest members of the economic society.
Does anyone else find it oddly appropriate that Obama's team used the name "Julia"… the name of the female protagonist in George Orwell's "1984"?? n nBig brother is watching you… and is here to "take care" of your every need. You don't even have to *think* for yourself!
Alana: I think you have hit on the main point. All of the programs cited in the Julia mythos have a cost. What I would like to see is the Obama cartoons accompanied by the dollar amount of the federal debt born by Julia and later Zachary, the interest payments due per person in each of those years, and the amount of the annual cutback in Social Security. A comparison with the Ryan budget could be included. I have neither the artistic nor the policy chops to do that, but I don't think that it should be that hard.
Try $803 Billion for the Iraqi war, not $7 Trillion, and since the war was never going to last forever (like entitlements) it will not increase the future debt. As opposed to Obamacare that the CBO says will cost $384 Billion per year (not adjusted for inflation), and will grow to near $1 Trillion per year! The issue of the future debt is that there will be no money left after debt interest to pay for these 'benefits' that Julia expects to receive. Of course Obama just wants to be elected now, and doesn't care one whit about the truth about the future of our economy or the country. Obama's stimulus went 85% to public and private union employees (auto industry and police, fire, and teachers), even though union employees only make up 12% of the workforce. Now that stimulus funds are gone the local government must cut those jobs back, and Republicans are not the cause of that. If he had spent the money on getting the private sector going instead, maybe our economy would be growing and tax revenues would be available to pay for those public employees. It takes about 3 private employees employed to pay for each public employee, so something must give.