Among his most famous quotes, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D – NY) once opined that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” The fledgling Trump administration is already presenting their own set of “alternative facts” ranging from inauguration attendance to rampant illegal voting. Unfortunately, this loose relationship with “facts” is common in modern culture and while regretful, should no longer surprise us. I expect it will continue for the next 4 years…or more likely the next 400.

Even so, a particular set of truly preposterous “alternative facts” was consistently offered by former President Obama, and are still disseminated and promoted by those wishing to bestow upon him some modicum of domestic policy success. Specifically, the idea that “by almost every economic measure, we are significantly better off” as a result of his administration. This quote − from one of his press conferences last year − was a persistent theme of his lingering “farewell tour.” Of course, nothing could be further from “fact,” and the proposition itself is almost as laughable as looking at two pictures of the national mall from the inaugurations of 2009 and 2013 and finding them to contain similar crowds.

However, the important difference is this…the size of an inauguration crowd is trivial; the performance of the economy is critical to millions of Americans.

To be perfectly clear, Presidents, whether Democrat or Republican, don’t produce jobs; don’t create wealth; don’t control the business cycle; and don’t generate economic growth. They do, however, advocate and/or implement policies which can either support or depress economic activity. President Obama’s policies generally fell into the latter category.

In future blog posts I will examine specific economic measures in detail and demonstrate that by many significant economic measures the country was significantly worse off under President Obama’s watch. By way of an overview, these are the facts, and they are not in dispute:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the primary indicator used to gauge the health of a country’s economy. Obama was the ONLY President since Hebert Hoover not to preside over at least one year of GDP growth of at least 3 percent. The average GDP growth rate since 1930 is 3.4 percent. The average for the 8-year Obama administration was 1.5 percent.
• Per capita disposable income (adjusted for inflation) grew at an average annual rate of only 1.0 percent during the Obama administration. That compares to a 2.1 percent annual average for the previous 30 years.
• The labor force participation rate (the proportion of the working-age population either working or actively looking for work) is the lowest it has been since 1977.
• When Obama came into office, 1 out of every 10.4 Americans was on food stamps. As he leaves office, that ratio is now 1 out of every 7.4…an increase of 50 percent in the number of people receiving assistance and a 70 percent increase in the number of households.
• As a share of GDP, the national debt went from about 68 percent to more than 100 percent in the 8 year Obama administration.

And yet, former President Obama vigorously argues that his policies have delivered economic prosperity to the country. His “alternative facts” would be humorous if the reality wasn’t so tragic. As former Democratic President Bill Clinton pointed out after Obama’s last State of the Union speech, “Millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America he painted, and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives.” That statement alone explains why the historical and lasting legacy of President Obama is, and will always be, the election of President Donald J. Trump.

And no set of “alternative facts” will ever change that.