{"id":674,"date":"2012-10-02T22:01:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T03:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/?p=674"},"modified":"2012-10-22T18:42:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T23:42:17","slug":"how-im-better-off-than-i-was-four-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/?p=674","title":{"rendered":"How I&#8217;m Better Off Than I Was Four Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With this question about &#8220;are you better off than you were four years ago&#8221;, I thought I&#8217;d blog about how I am better off than I was four years ago.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;m making almost twice as much as I was when Obama took office.<\/li>\n<li>Since I bought my house back in 2009, I received the <a title=\"IRS - First-Time Home Buyer Credit\" href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uac\/First-Time-Homebuyer-Credit-1\" target=\"_blank\">$8,000 first-time home buyer credit<\/a> (part of the stimulus) which I spent on building a garage.<\/li>\n<li>Along with people like yourself (I&#8217;m sure), we received a tax cut with the <a title=\"IRS - Making Work Pay Tax Credit\" href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uac\/The-Making-Work-Pay-Tax-Credit\" target=\"_blank\">Making Work Pay Tax Credit<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Although I&#8217;m not happy about it, Obama did extend the <a title=\"Wikipedia - Bush Tax Cuts\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bush-Obama_tax_cuts\" target=\"_blank\">Bush tax cuts<\/a> which saved us all money.<\/li>\n<li>Everyone has enjoyed <a title=\"HealthCare.gov - Preventive Care\" href=\"http:\/\/www.healthcare.gov\/law\/features\/rights\/preventive-care\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">not having to pay a copay when going to the doctor for preventive care<\/a>. I recently enjoyed this benefit.<\/li>\n<li>My bank accounts are insured up to $250,000. It was only $100,000 from 1970 to 2008.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a few examples of how my family is better off under Obama:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Obama helped my Aunt Ruth by bailing out the automotive industry. Without that, my Aunt would have lost her health insurance.<\/li>\n<li>Obama extended unemployment benefits, which helped my mom.<\/li>\n<li>The Cash For Clunkers program helped Bri&#8217;s parents trade in their old van for a Honda Civic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that this is just a list of what Obama has done that effects me personally. He&#8217;s also done a lot more that&#8217;s good for our country such as <a title=\"CNN - Obama Overturns Bush Policy On Stem Cells\" href=\"http:\/\/articles.cnn.com\/2009-03-09\/politics\/obama.stem.cells_1_cancer-and-spinal-cord-embryonic-cell-research?_s=PM:POLITICS\" target=\"_blank\">federal support for stem cell research<\/a>, killing Osama bin Laden, overturning Don&#8217;t Ask Don&#8217;t Tell, bills for veterans, <a title=\"Wikipedia - START I\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/START_I\" target=\"_blank\">signed START<\/a>, <a title=\"CNN - Obama Overturns Bush Endangered Species Rule\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2009\/POLITICS\/03\/03\/endangered.species.act\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">overturning Bush&#8217;s deregulation for endangered species<\/a>; the list goes on and on. Almost every area that you can think of, Obama has done something about.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll probably blog again a little closer to the election with other stuff that matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With this question about &#8220;are you better off than you were four years ago&#8221;, I thought I&#8217;d blog about how I am better off than I was four years ago. I&#8217;m making almost twice as much as I was when Obama took office. Since I bought my house back in 2009, I received the $8,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,28,16,29,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-healthcare","category-information","category-personal","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longlivethemonkey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}