The federal government likes to pat itself on the back for the “improving” economy. The Democrats in the White House and the Republicans in Congress will argue about who can take credit for it, but both parties agree that the economy is getting better and better. And who knows, from their points of view, they may even believe they’re telling the truth – after all, they and all their corporate friends are getting wealthier and wealthier every day.

When real people talk about the state of the economy, they are referring to how easy or difficult it is for their friends and neighbors to make ends meet. When politicians talk about the state of the economy, they are referring to how quickly their stock portfolios are growing and the size of the bonuses that their Wall Street friends are getting. This disconnect means that politicians are unable to speak meaningfully about the economy, poverty, or employment.

The government likes to brag about all of the jobs that have been created since the 2008 recession, and point to these as a sign of recovery. However, everyone knows by now that the vast majority of these jobs are low paying, part time, service industry jobs without benefits or any sort of security. This is a travesty to working Americans who see this as a crippling blow to the economy. Washington DC and Wall Street, however, celebrate because American corporations have found a way to pay less to their employees while extracting more and more labor from them.

The government hides the failure of our economy by pumping billions upon billions of dollars into welfare programs. Instead of instituting policies that would help to build our economy and allow American workers to work hard and provide for themselves, our government has instead chosen to subsidize Wall Street’s exploitation of workers by providing those workers with welfare, food stamps, and other social programs that are meant to make up for the lack of income they should have been receiving from their employers.

The federal government spent over $80 billion on food stamps in 2014 alone. The vast majority of Americans who receive food stamps are working families who, despite being employed, cannot afford to put food on the table themselves. This means that the government is choosing to make up the shortfall between the cost of living and the wages corporate America pays their workers, and then bragging about the strength of the economy.

And food stamps are only one of the ways that our government subsidizes the poor in order to avoid having millions of people starving in the streets. We need a government that will compel employers to pay their workers a living wage rather than pocketing the extra savings and investing it in yet another yacht or beach home. We need a government who won’t hide the true state of the economy by propping it up with taxes extracted from other American workers rather than from the companies that are underpaying their workers.

I want to see an America with a strong thriving economy and a population that has the opportunity to work hard and prosper from their labor. That’s why I’m running for president in 2016. If you want a president who won’t lie about the economy but will instead work to make it stronger, then please join me by casting your write-in vote for Art Drew for President.