Resolved: The GOP's staunch opposition to the presidency and the left has caused more harm than good

My opponent has asked for this debate to be postponed given he was unable to meet the deadline for the final round and given my own forfeit I can agree that we were both constrained by our daily lives and that this may well be the best solution. I do, however, hope my opponent doesn't mind if I address his contention entitled 'Obama's policies have worked, and a list of common misconceptions about his plan' and more specifically the citation of Adam Hartung's piece in Forbes Magazine. I feel it is important to refute it. Lance Roberts. "Obama Outperformed Reagan? Hardly." Street Talk sponsored by STA Wealth Management. September 8, 2014. "The BLS's measure of unemployment has become obfuscated by the rise in the number of individuals that are no longer counted as part of the labor force. As I discussed in "Why The Unemployment Rate Is Irrelevant," the measure of labor force participation is markedly different between Reagan and Obama. During Reagan's Presidency, workers that were unemployed longer than 52-weeks were still part of the labor force. This inclusion gave a more accurate measure of the relative size of the labor force overall. However, in 1994, Clinton removed individuals from the labor force that were currently unemployed for longer than 52-weeks. This adjustment immediately improved the overall measure of unemployment by shrinking the labor force by some 500,000 individuals. Since then, the number of individuals no longer counted as part of the labor force has swelled to more than 92 million individuals, or roughly 45% of the working age population (16-54) as of the end of 2013 In other words, a large part of the drop in the U-3 unemployment rate is due to the increase in the number of individuals excluded from the workforce. In theory, if the dropout rate continued at the current pace, the unemployment could fall towards zero allowing the Federal Reserve to win the battle of unemployment, but losing the war of economic prosperity." With 24% of "baby boomers" postponing retirement, due to an inability to retire, it is not surprising that the employment level of individuals OVER the age of 65, as a percent of the working age population 16 and over, has risen sharply in recent years." "However, for the sake of argument, let's exclude all individuals OVER THE AGE OF 54 from the analysis so we can focus on those of working age 16-54. If the employment has indeed improved better under the Obama Administration then the level of full-time employment for the working age population should have improved markedly." "Unfortunately, that is not the case. At the end of Reagan's administration full-time employment relative to the working age population was at 51.98% versus 47.78% for Obama currently. However, following the recession in 1981, full-time employment under Reagan surged sharply as the real economy gained traction. This has not been the case as full-time employment has remained primarily a function of population growth and little else." "The surge in the stock market since 2009 has not been a representation of underlying economic strength but rather a direct correlation to the expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. The chart below shows the level of excess reserves of depository institutions and the S&P 500 index by President." "As you will notice, the surge in excess bank reserves beginning in 2009 has correlated with the surge in asset prices that is a benefit that the Reagan did not have. Therefore, to judge which President had better stock market performance we must extract the effect of the Federal Reserve interventions. The next chart shows, by President, the ratio of the S&P 500 Index divided by excess reserves at depository institutions." Lastly, there is one point that must be considered. If we are truly going to compare President Obama to Ronald Reagan, it should be on the basis of a level playing field. As shown in the chart below, President Reagan's achieved real, inflation-adjusted, economic growth of 3.88% annually on average as compared to 2.04% under President Obama." "This outperformance was achieved despite headwinds of an average interest rate nearly 5-times that of the current administration and an inflation rate that was more than double. When considering that President Obama has been able to achieve real economic growth of just 2.04% annually despite historically low levels of inflation and interest rates combined with massive government interventions and balance sheet expansions; it makes his overall performance even more disappointing."