“Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits,” President Obama said in his economics address last week, “nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1 percent.”

It’s odd that Obama touts these facts, because the facts indict his policies. This is even stranger: Many Republicans want to downplay these facts, even though they provide the GOP with an opening.

Obama’s first term, with all its tax hikes, regulations, mandates, subsidies and bailouts, saw stock markets rise, corporate earnings break records and the rich get richer, while median income stagnated and unemployment remained stubbornly high.

Obama rightly calls the last few years “a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water.

Median household income has fallen by 5 percent since 2009 — when the recession ended and Obama came into office — as the Wall Street Journal pointed out after Obama’s speech. But corporate profits and the stock market keep hitting record highs.

How does Obama think these are points in his favor?

If he’s using this data to prove he’s no Marxist, fine. Point granted. But Obama seems to think that middle-class and working-class stagnation under Obamanomics somehow calls for more Obamanomics.

The unstated premise is this: More government means more equality, while the free market favors the rich and tramples on the rest.

Liberals and mainstream journalists believe this, but so do some Republicans. When Mitt Romney dismisses the lower 47 percent of earners as hopelessly liberal, he’s buying the notion that free enterprise is a system for the wealthy.

But Obama’s own facts help undermine that: Government grows, the wealthy, the big, and the well-connected pull away, and the rest of us struggle.

One reason: Obamanomics leans heavily on trickle-down economics. How does Obama promise to create jobs? With more loan guarantees to sell jumbo jets and more subsidies to make solar panels — taxpayer transfers to the big companies with the best lobbyists, with some crumbs hopefully falling to the working class.

Also, Obama’s regulations crush small businesses, protecting the big guys from competition. This hurts Mom & Pop and would-be entrepreneurs, but it also hurts the working class. New businesses are the engine of job growth, but new business formation has accelerated its decline in the last few years, hitting record lows.

This gives Republicans an opening to explain that they can deliver on Obama’s promises of helping the middle class and the working class, but they can do it by reversing Obamanomics — cutting everyone’s taxes, undoing the most onerous regulations, ending trickle-down corporate welfare and so on.

Call it free-market populism, or libertarian populism.

Trig’s Supermarkets, in Wisconsin, is an emblematic victim of Obamanomics. Trig’s employs about 1,100 people, with about two-thirds working part-time, according to local TV station WJFW. Under Obamacare, anyone who works more than 30 hours per week is considered full time, though, and Trig’s will be forced to provide health-care coverage for them.

The company crunched the numbers and decided this would spell bankruptcy. So, they told their workers their hours would be cut to below 30 per week. Nobody is happy with this, but the alternative was laying off all 1,100.

In a couple of ways, this story shows how Obamanomics undermines its stated goals and creates an opening for free-market populism.

Big-government regulations are supposed to hold big business accountable. But Trig’s story shows how they often do the opposite. Recall Walmart loudly supported Obamacare’s employer mandate, and Costco’s founder — who also spent at least $180,000 trying to elect Obama — publicly lobbied for Obamacare.

Walmart and Costco can afford the costs of government — and Costco even got a shout-out from Obama in his economics speech. Smaller employers aren’t so lucky.

Government tends to benefit the big and well-connected, and that’s not Mom & Pop. Every small-business owner is a potential Republican if the GOP becomes the party of free-market populism.

More important, though — and more numerous — are the hundreds of Trig’s employees seeing a reduction in hours. Obamacare was supposed to help them. Obama, on his economic-policy tour, suggests more government intervention will help them. But Obamacare is hurting them. Why should more of the same help?

Obama is right about the middle class being left behind. The working class is faring even worse. This doesn’t call for more Obamanomics. It calls for unrigging the game that Washington has rigged.

Source: Tim Carney

In memory of Purple Aces announcer and 1974 graduate John MacCauley, Jr., the University of Evansville has created a new scholarship for military veterans and invites contributions to the endowed fund.

Established by MacCauley’s friends and fellow veterans, the John MacCauley, Jr. Memorial Scholarship for Veterans will give financial support to post-9/11 veterans in all branches of the military who attend the University of Evansville. The scholarship will support UE’s contributions to the Yellow Ribbon program, which offers free tuition to qualifying post-9/11 military veterans.

In August 2012, MacCauley, a Marine Corps veteran, died of a heart attack before he could fulfill his longtime goal of establishing a scholarship for veterans. After his death, his close friends Guy and Linda Banta, Dave and Julie Binnix, David and Lauren Jones, Herschel and Marian Purdue, and Bob and Mary Tiemann joined together to make his dream a reality.

On a recent University of Evansville alumni cruise to Alaska, Mary MacCauley, John’s widow, was surprised with a plaque commemorating the scholarship. (John had planned the cruise before his death; in addition to serving as the Purple Aces’ men’s basketball announcer and president of the Purple Aces Club, he also was a travel agent and planned many UE-related trips.)

To contribute to the scholarship fund, visit www.evansville.edu/give (in the drop-down menu, select John MacCauley, Jr. Memorial Scholarship for Veterans), or mail your gift to Catherine Renner, assistant director of gift planning and capital support, University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Avenue, Evansville, IN 47722.

Evansville’s Celebration of Diversity Distinguished Lecture Series Board of Directors announced today the change of date for their fall speakers, The Blind Side’s Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy. The event originally scheduled for Thursday, September 26, 2013 will now be held on Tuesday, October 1, 2013.

The event date was changed to accommodate the Water for People concert/fundraiser being held on

September 26th at the Victory Theatre. Water For People (www.waterforpeople.org) partners with communities, local government, and other organizations to help people improve their quality of life by supporting the development of safe drinking water and improved sanitation projects. “We appreciate the efforts of such a worthwhile organization, and we want the community to have the opportunity to attend both events,” said Diversity Lecture Series Board President Lynn Miller-Pease.

The Lecture Series event will be held at The Centre’s Aiken Theatre. The event is free and open to the public, and tickets are not required for admission. Special accommodations may be requested at The Centre Box Office. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the lecture will begin at 7 p.m. The Tuohys will sign copies of their books following their presentation.

The Touhy family’s life is chronicled in the best-selling book “The Blind Side,” which became a blockbuster movie. Beginning in 2004, the Touhys took in, and eventually adopted, Michael Oher, an African American teen that was being raised by his crack-addicted mother in the Memphis projects. “Who knows where I’d be?” says Michael, who could have been just another statistic. But with the love and support of the Tuohys, Michael improved as a student and became one of the most sought after players in college and professional football.

Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy will share their personal Blind Side observations – from seeing Michael for the first time to how the experience changed the Tuohys as a family, which includes daughter Collins and son Sean, Jr. “Michael had a much greater impact on our lives than we did on his life,” says Leigh Anne. The Tuohys continue their mission to inspire hope, ignite generosity, and motivate deserving, but underserved youth.