Feb 21
The article below is a scathing commentary on the unfettered deception that Obama and the media have continued to foist on a not so unwitting American public. Claims of the recession ending several quarters ago and an economy that is improving to plan is abject prevarication.
True unemployment continues to increase, now assessed by non-government officials at a whopping 10% with underemployment (which the government so conveniently avoids) is averaging nearly 20% nationally. That is 1 in 5 Americans.
We have experienced the longest period of time where unemployment is above 9% since the Great Depression. One in seven Americans are behind in their mortgage while 27% of all houses have negative equity.
Our national debt is reaching bankrupting levels while “president” Obama continues reckless and unsustainable deficit spending. And the Fed keeps printing money.
Meanwhile, Obama and Michelle continue to party at the White House like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. They have also cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars on their multitude of vacations while millions of Americans are just trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
It would be best for America and the rest of the civilized world if the contemptuous, incompetent, racist, narcissistic, hedonistic and radical Obama were removed from office before the next election.
A little Cairo action by the majority of Americans would surely be welcomed…
Obama's Economics of Deception
Steve McCann February 18, 2011
Barack Obama, perhaps the most dishonest president in modern history, has, in a cynical abdication of leadership, not only proposed a budget that, if adopted, is guaranteed to destroy the financial future of the country, but he has done so while lying about a supposed economic recovery underway. His proclivity to do or say anything to enhance his image or achieve his ends was amply on display at a press conference held on the 16th of February.
There is a recovery underway for those in the federal government and those that have signed on to the Obama version of crony capitalism in the boardrooms of certain major corporations and Wall Street. But for those in "flyover country" who pay the taxes and create the jobs the facts are starkly different.
In the bubble that is Washington D.C. there has not been a recession as incomes continue to soar. Wealth has also increased as property values in the fourth quarter of 2010 grew over 7.5% (as compared to the previous year) while the national average showed a further decrease of 2.0%. The currentunemployment rate in the metro Washington D.C. market is 5.6% as compared to Gallup's latest estimate of a national unemployment rate of 10.0% and an underemployment rate that has now hit 19.6%.
Some may point to the soaring stock market as an indicator of economic growth. In reality the stock market is a reflection of the need to find a home for the massive amount of new dollars essentially printed by the Federal Reserve. As a result there is the beginning of a bubble emerging in the stock markets, particularly in various internet stocks. Gold has topped out and virtually all commodities are at their all time highs. Municipal Bonds have become a very high risk with so many States and municipalities in dire financial trouble now facing the very real possibility of a downgrade in ratings thus making the bonds an even greater risk. Meanwhile the interest return on CDs and IRAs is averaging around 1.0% or less thanks to the Fed monetary policy.
However, the markets do reflect a reality that the Obama administration and their sycophants in the mainstream media will not acknowledge, as their primary and only interest is the re-election of Barack Obama. The American people can no longer trust or look to the current governing class for honesty or integrity, but should instead rely on what the financial markets are saying, whether it is the impending state and municipal debt crisis, inflation or global political upheavals.
The major worldwide concern is, at present, inflation -- something the Federal Reserve and the Administration refuse to acknowledge. However, since August investors have been switching to inflation-linked debt instruments in the United States and other European countries. These index-linked bonds, the traditional way investors protect themselves against rising prices, have become a favored asset class for many fund managers. In the U.S., the world's biggest market for these securities, the issuance of these instruments will set a record this year.
Consumer prices have jumped more than 4% in the United Kingdom, in China over 5%, and in Germany by the fastest rate in over two years. And the estimates are that these rates will continue to rise. In January, the cost of living in the U.S. climbed more than forecast, led by higher prices for food and fuel. The consumer price index increased 0.4% for a second month (annualized at 4.8%). By contrast the real average hourly earnings have increased only .4% over the past year (January 2010 to January 2011).
Many companies that have, over the past year, absorbed the higher cost of manufacturing, will be forced into raising prices, which will further exacerbate the rise of the consumer price index. This action could also precipitate a drop in sales volume which will impact any decision to hire new employees on a permanent basis.
Within the international marketplace there is now open discussion of replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency with SDRs (Special Drawing Rights or a basket of international currencies in conjunction with the IMF). The purpose is to have a reserve asset for central banks that better reflects the global economy since the dollar is vulnerable to swings in the domestic economy and changes in U.S. policy. In other words Washington D.C. has made a hash of the domestic economy and the entire world is also paying for it.
In other news: Applications for jobless benefits increased yet another 25,000 in the week ending February 12 again surprising the so-called experts. There is a record share of U.S. mortgages in foreclosure. The combined share of foreclosures and loans with overdue payments hit a record 14% of loans in the country (one out every seven mortgages in the U.S.) At the end of 2010 16 million housing units or 27% in the country had a negative equity in the property. The projections are that housing values will continue to decrease and foreclosures increase as job creation and income will not be growing.
With this as backdrop the leadership of the United States, in the comfortable bubble that is Washington D.C., proceeds to flounder, obfuscate and play games with the American people.
The Federal Reserve in its latest FOMC meeting minutes "continues to express disappointment in both the pace and unevenness of the improvements to the job market" and conceded it would take five to six years to return to historical rates of growth and job creation. However, they claim that the second round of quantitative easing (essentially printing money) was so far a success.
The Fed expects the GDP to grow even faster than their last projection (they have been wrong for 8 straight quarters so far). Even more surprisingly they don't expect the recent increases in commodity prices to filter into broader inflation permanently. Their preferred price index (which inexplicably does not include food and energy costs) is projected to rise only 1.3% in the twelve months of 2011. Yet the consumer price index in January, which does include food and energy, rose 0.4% on one month alone. No mention was made of any anticipated growth in average hourly earnings.
At the White House, whose motto is: "The end justifies the means," its primary occupant, Barack Obama is perfectly comfortable saying whatever he wants knowing the mainstream media will report his spin with straight faces. As befitting high school juveniles, the Administration, the Democrats, and the media can portray the goings on at each end of Pennsylvania Avenue as game of gotcha, while the country sinks under a mountain of debt.
The only place that the American people can turn to for the truth is themselves and the international financial markets that do not have a vested interest in this irresponsibility.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/obamas_economics_of_deception.html
Posted in Arrogance Economy Financial Government spending Incompetence Narcissism Obama Recession US Debt Unemployment with No Comments
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Nov 7
Obama, the apotheosis of narcissism, elitism and arrogance, continues to sing praises of his accomplishments. You would think that we were in the midst of a relatively healthy growing economy.
Is he still smoking pot? Or is it permanent brain damage resulting from it?
Unfortunately, the data and tens of millions of Americans irrefutably contradict his apocryphal claims. In fact, as noted below, the 14 straight months of the jobless rate exceeding 9.5% is the longest stretch since the Great Depression – and there is no good news yet in site...
That is, except for the House of Representatives soon to be firmly under Republican control.
We need to add more to the House and elect many more Republicans to the Senate in 2012 to as well as the White House. Only then do we have a great chance for unleashing the growth potential of a capitalistic system.
President Obama's Hollow Jobs Boast
Investor’s Business Daily 11/02/2010
Economy: A closer look at federal data shows that the employment picture is grimmer than the president paints it. In fact, private-sector job growth, despite his claims, is trending in the wrong direction.
In a last-minute attempt to polish Democrats' resume going into the midterm election, Obama boasted that they had "stabilized" the economy. "An economy that was shrinking is now growing," he said on Jon Stewart's show. "We've got nine months of consecutive private-sector job growth."
While true, private-sector job gains are tiny when compared with past recoveries, which churned out millions of new jobs. More worrisome, private job growth peaked at 241,000 in April and has rolled over precipitously. Gains in private payrolls plunged 31% to 64,000 in September from 93,000 in August, when they fell 21% from the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. September's gain, in fact, was the weakest since June.
Obama can no longer blame the Bush recession. After the steepest drop in private payrolls on record, the private sector stopped shedding jobs in January. On Obama's watch, however, the trend is turning south again. Companies are churning out fewer and fewer new jobs, and the trend line is threatening to return to negative territory.
The deceleration in private-sector job growth is tarnishing the one minor bright spot for the economy that Obama can point to. "We're making progress, step by step, inch by inch, day by day," Obama reassured voters on Stewart's show. Correction: We were making progress.
Job scarcity is putting more pressure on the housing market. The number of homeowners missing payments and falling into foreclosure has risen along with unemployment. More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007. Analysts say that number could climb as high as 10 million over the next three years if the jobs picture doesn't improve.
The jobless rate has topped 9.5% for 14 straight months — the longest stretch since the Great Depression. Most economists expect it to stay there through 2011 and not drop to a historically normal 5.5%-6.0% until at least 2018 — several years later than previously thought.
"Inch by inch" progress is not good enough. Economic growth would have to average at least 5% for a whole year to lower the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point. Yet growth in the Obama recovery is averaging less than 2% — not nearly enough to create new jobs at a pace that will lower the jobless rate and curb foreclosures.
Normally housing leads the way out of recession. Now it may be leading the way back down. And more foreclosures mean fewer future homebuyers, since foreclosures stay on credit reports for several years.
Thanks to Obama's policies, the jobs market is a basket case. If Friday's jobs report confirms the downtrend in private-sector jobs, it will be a validation of Tuesday's election results and a repudiation of Obama's economic agenda.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/552515/201011021903/President-Obamas-Hollow-Jobs-Boast.htm
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Nov 1
If there is no extension or a repeal of the expiration of the tax cuts by Congressional Democrats, all socioeconomic levels of Americans will be significantly and adversely affected. The massive amount of money that will be sucked out of the private sector will likely cause our already sick economy to plunge back into (effectively, it is still not out of the recession for most people) a deep recession with a concomitant escalation of the already high unemployment rate.
These arrogant, power addicted elitists must be removed from office on Nov. 2nd.
Let’s make sure that it happens!
Ready For Pay Cut?
Investor’s Business Daily 10/27/2010
D-Day: It's one thing when the wonks tell you to get ready for a tax hike that may or may not come. It's another when your employer tells you he's getting ready to cut your take-home pay and give it to the tax man.
That's what's happening right now, and those who still have jobs should take notice. If Congress fails to extend the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire Dec. 31, Americans at just about every income level will see their taxes rise — in some cases dramatically.
A story by Bloomberg News notes that it takes weeks for the IRS to prepare new withholding schedules. Normally, the tables are issued in mid-November to give employers time to prepare. But this year Congress left open the possibility it would do something about the expiring cuts, and employers have been left wondering what to do.
"I've been doing payroll for probably close to 30 years now, and never have we seen something like this where it gets that down to the wire," Dennis Danilewicz, the payroll manager at New York University's Langone Medical Center, told Bloomberg.
The Democrat-controlled Congress didn't address the issue before recessing for the midterm elections. So companies are preparing for the worst. A Bloomberg headline Wednesday said it all: "Employers in U.S. Start Bracing for Higher Tax Withholding."
The impact could be significant. Professor Michael Graetz of Columbia University recently estimated in the Wall Street Journal that letting the tax cuts expire will cost the U.S. economy $10 billion a month in added withholding from paychecks.
Goldman Sachs economist Alec Phillips estimates letting the Bush cuts expire could slash "nearly 10 percentage points" from disposable income growth in the first quarter of next year, and nearly two percentage points from GDP in the first half.
With GDP now at a tad above $14 trillion, the impact could be $280 billion or more in the first six months alone.
In short, the higher taxes could very well push us back into recession — at a time when the economy is struggling under 9.6% unemployment with little if any private-sector job growth.
What's most worrisome is what it will do to the working taxpayer. His or her take-home pay is about to fall, leaving noticeably less to spend and save.
A married couple without children and an annual income of $80,000 would have an added $221 taken from their paycheck every two weeks, the Bloomberg report says, quoting the H&R Block Tax Institute. That jumps to $558 for couples bringing in $240,000.
Data from the Tax Policy Center show even those with modest family incomes would take a hit. For example, a couple with income of $60,000 and four children can expect to pay $130 more every two weeks to Uncle Sam. It doesn't get much better for those who make just $40,000. They'll find about $108 more withheld every other week.
This will have a serious impact on our struggling economy at a time when we can least afford it. It may be a big reason why, in poll after poll, Americans have expressed increased disgust with the Democrat-led Congress.
Our own polling shows that 80% of Americans want the tax cuts made permanent or extended at least until the economy recovers. And this includes 74% of Democrats.
Congressional Democrats, however, seem incapable of grasping the damage they've done with their trillions in new spending and debt in the name of "stimulus," while refusing to halt what amounts to the largest tax hike in history.
Fortuitously, the names of most of them will appear on Tuesday's ballots.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/551878/201010271922/Ready-For-Pay-Cut-.htm
Posted in Arrogance Congress Democrat Economy Ideology Liberal Recession Taxes Unemployment with No Comments
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Sep 27
If you just obtained your news from the “mainstream” media, a de facto branch of the Democratic Party, you wouldn’t know that the poverty level under the Obama Administration and the Democratic controlled Congress is at its highest level since records were kept 50 years ago.
Nor would you realize that dependence on the federal government is at an all time high with federal payments to individuals as a percentage of the GDP reaching 16.4% which also is an incredible increase of 37% just over the last 3 years.
These are but a few concrete examples of failed policies of the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats. If these politicians and government officials weren’t so ideologically blind and intransigent they could have learned from myriad examples in the past, both here and abroad, that their policies are doomed to failure and which is quite evident.
These policies of failure must be terminated and replaced with those that will succeed.
As a corollary, we must also replace those who are champions of these failed policies.
Oust these Democrats in November and vote in Republicans that will reverse this course.
Policy Of Poverty
Investor’s Business Daily 09/16/2010
Poverty: A new report comes as a punch in the gut for proud Americans: One in seven of us is poor, government data show.
Surprised? Don't be. It's what happens when you kill the most productive parts of a country.
An estimated 14.3% of the population, or 43.6 million people, were considered poor in 2009, up from 13.2% the year before, the Census Bureau reports. This is the highest share living in poverty since the government began keeping records half a century ago.
How can this be in the richest nation on Earth?
Since Democrats took power — Congress in 2007, the White House in 2009 — policies that punish the productive private economy have become the norm.
Meanwhile, government wastes massive sums bailing out failed businesses, purchasing bad loans and rewarding those who borrow too much, make bad economic decisions or belong to unions.
Knowing this, no one should express shock that 15 million Americans don't have jobs, and that perhaps another 14 million or so are working only part time when they'd prefer to be working full time.
Persistent unemployment from misbegotten government policies is why we have this poverty. And it leads, inevitably, to dependence on government. As recently as 2006, federal payments to individuals as a share of GDP — a proxy for welfare — stood at 12%. Now it's 16.4%, a 37% rise in three years and the highest level ever.
Our own IBD/TIPP Poll of 908 Americans across the country, taken last week, shows that 39% of all American households and 22% of all individuals today receive some kind of federal aid.
Why? For three years now, the private sector has been systematically punished for the sins of the federal government with higher taxes and greater regulation. Businesses, though sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash, won't invest in such an environment.
Washington's response? Spend hundreds of billions more on ill-considered "stimulus" plans and consign millions more to unemployment and poverty.
In the past two years we've witnessed a breathtaking expansion of federal government. And it'll only get worse, with a planned $44.8 trillion in spending over the next decade, an 83% rise. This new spending will add $13 trillion to our debt, pushing the total to $23 trillion by 2020 from just $7.5 trillion as recently as 2008.
Contrary to the repeated assertions of our nation's Keynesian elites in the media, Washington and academia, all this spending and debt doesn't create jobs. It kills them. The money siphoned from the economy destroys investment and consumer spending, leading to slower growth, higher joblessness and lower incomes.
Growing government activism has robbed our economy of its dynamism. Cutting spending is therefore the best thing we could do to reduce poverty, joblessness and dependence right now.
That's not just our opinion. A recent major study by Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna confirms this.
Looking at 107 cases of large fiscal adjustments made in 21 wealthy countries from 1970 to 2007, Alesina and Ardagna found that tax cuts were the best way to boost economic growth. They also found that spending cuts without tax hikes reduced deficits and debt more than those that included tax hikes.
Further, "adjustments on the spending side rather than on the tax side are less likely to create recessions" — a fact that pretty much destroys the Keynesian argument for more spending "stimulus" and tax hikes to boost the economy.
The Keynesian orthodoxy hasn't worked in the past, and it isn't working today. It's brought our nation lower output, higher joblessness, soaring poverty rates and increased dependence on government. The only question is, why does one party remain wedded to such a destructive economic philosophy?
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=547573
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Sep 15
With the economy still mired in the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression “even” despite Obama’s previous massive near one trillion dollar stimulus bill, he now has another idea:
Another stimulus.
Or is it really? Is it much the same deception that he foisted on the American public with the passage of the previous bill?
We believe so.
We also remain convinced that Obama may actually have another agenda that has been increasingly mentioned in more and more important circles. Is he intentionally trying to destroy the economy and America?
What he has perpetrated over the last nearly 20 months is nothing short of fiscal treason, wanton irresponsibility and unfettered deceptions. He is clearly aware of what he is doing and it is evil, anti-American and authoritarian.
And what he is doing must be stopped and reversed.
Not So Stimulating
Investor’s Business Daily 09/07/2010
Leadership: The Obama administration's latest idea for "stimulating" the economy is — you guessed it — more spending. Is this just a campaign ploy, or is the White House ruining the economy on purpose?
The president's latest plan calls for another $50 billion in stimulus for infrastructure. As the White House puts it, this represents a "bold vision for renewing and expanding our transportation infrastructure — in a plan that combines a long-term vision for the future with new investments."
But why in the world do we need another stimulus when we're not even close to exhausting the funds allocated for the last one?
According to Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, $275 billion of the initial $787 billion cost of that stimulus remains unspent. And of the $512 billion that has been spent, just $18.5 billion — or less than 7% — has been paid out by the Transportation Department, the main government infrastructure provider.
This is strange, since the stimulus was originally sold to us as a way to create "shovel-ready" jobs on infrastructure.
Instead, much of the money was drained away for financially strapped states to keep their public unions and Medicaid programs afloat.
Here's what President Obama said about the stimulus bill he signed into law Feb. 17, 2009:
"Because of this investment, nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our faulty dams and levees, bringing critical broadband connections to businesses and homes in nearly every community in America, upgrading mass transit, building high-speed rail lines that will improve travel and commerce throughout our nation."
Sounded great at the time, but few, if any, of those things got done. Moreover, since the recession began, federal employment has jumped by 10%, or nearly 200,000 positions, while private-sector employment has plunged 7%, or 7.8 million jobs. So who really benefited from the stimulus? Big Government and its unions.
The stimulus did do one thing, however: It set the stage for massive spending and an unprecedented expansion of the role of the U.S. government in the American economy. This, in retrospect, appears to be the real aim of the Democratic stimulus — not jobs or infrastructure or any other real-world accomplishment.
Even as the president released his latest stimulus ideas, the Congressional Budget Office quietly issued its own estimate for spending over the next 10 years. We were struck by the sheer size of it: $44.5 trillion from 2010 to 2020 — an 82% jump from $24.5 trillion spent in the last decade.
That, in a nutshell, is the real problem — not too little stimulus, but too much spending. Over 10 years, the CBO sees deficits of $6.25 trillion. And to keep the projection that low, the agency had to pretend the Bush tax cuts all expire, that Congress does nothing about fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, that Social Security and Medicare are allowed to fester, and that after all this stimulus is done, "future annual appropriations will be kept constant in real (inflation-adjusted) terms."
Not one of those things is likely to happen.
A more realistic appraisal of the deficit comes from the Concord Coalition, which expects deficits more than twice as large — $15 trillion over 10 years, or $1.5 trillion a year on average. That could push U.S. publicly held debt from last year's level of $7.5 trillion, or 53% of GDP, to as much as $25.1 trillion, or 108% of GDP, in 2020.
These numbers may not mean much now, but they will soon: Such abrupt changes mark an economy careening towards bankruptcy. Piling on more spending now isn't just unwise policy, it's a form of fiscal insanity.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/546302/201009071908/Not-So-Stimulating.htm
Posted in Anti-American Economy Government spending Ideology Obama Recession with No Comments
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Sep 10
In the face of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and a multitude of new rapacious taxes to be implemented. The estimated overall effect of this is around $3.1 trillion in increased taxation.
This is on top of massive new regulations for businesses which already are stifling investment and expansion.
It is no wonder that we are mired in the longest recession since Roosevelt’s time – when he perpetrated similar policies and thus prolonged the Depression.
Paralysis By Taxation
Investor’s Business Daily 09/03/2010
Recession: The Democrats' politicized housing and mortgage policies pushed our economy into its worst downturn since the Great Depression. So, of course, it's a perfect time for the biggest tax increase in history.
Why is the economy still paralyzed after the president's much-touted "Recovery Summer"? It may be that private investment, too, has been immobilized.
With unemployment now up to 9.6%, Americans fear that the economy won't get moving again anytime soon. As a new report from Americans for Tax Reform shows, that fear is completely rational. The report outlines the impact of the largest-ever tax hike that's coming in just 120 days as the Bush tax cuts expire.
On New Year's Day, "The top income tax rate will rise from 35% to 39.6% (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10% to 15%. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates."
Of crucial importance to entrepreneurship and job creation, the top capital gains tax rate rises from 15% to 20% next year, while the top rate for taxation of dividends rises from 15% to 39.6%.
And, "These rates will rise another 3.8% in 2013," ATR points out.
Then there are the 20 new or increased taxes dictated by the ObamaCare government takeover of the health care system. All told, Americans' taxes will go up by $3.1 trillion, as Heartland Institute economist John Nothdurft noted in IBD last week.
With all that on the horizon for an already-crippled U.S. economy, the Obama administration has saturated the Internet with WhiteHouse.gov propaganda — like an interactive map in which you can "Roll over states to learn how many estimated jobs have been created and saved due to Recovery Act funding."
Maybe playing with that map of fictional jobs on their computer can give unemployed breadwinners something to do.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in July sent an open letter to the president, Congress and the American people, warning: "Through their legislative and regulatory proposals — some passed, some pending, and others simply talked about — the congressional majority and the administration have injected tremendous uncertainty into economic decision making and business planning."
"This is why banks are reluctant to lend and why American corporations are sitting on well over a trillion dollars," the Chamber wrote. "It is why America's small businesses and entrepreneurs, the engines of innovation and job creation, are starving for capital and are either struggling to survive or unable to expand."
Amid all this, the president is reportedly mulling "emergency" infrastructure spending — another stimulus to throw tens of billions more in good taxpayer money after bad.
If there's a ray of hope, it may be for change in Washington.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., says extending the Bush tax cuts would be the first order of business if voters give Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives this November.
That may be the only way this listless, limping economy has any chance of walking tall again.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/546135/201009031923/Paralysis-By-Taxation.htm
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Sep 4
The Obama Administration is replete with elitists and academicians with little real-world practical experiences. Their biases are theoretical and ideological versus empirical and historical.
The results?
The most severe, protracted and painful economic “Recession” since the Great Depression. The actual situation is far more severe than most are aware because both the federal government and the news media have suppressed much of the damning information.
What the Obama Administration is doing to combat our disastrous economic milieu is the antithesis of what would actually work. In other words, they are exacerbating and needlessly prolonging the agony rather than curing it, just like the errors perpetrated by the Franklin Roosevelt presidency. Even worse, if Obama was a student of history, he should learn from these mistakes.
But he is not learning nor does he show substantive concern … except when it comes to playing golf and taking a multitude of vacations.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and head of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers, must be fired or resign.
And, of course, Obama must also be removed from office.
Fire the Job Killers
by Newt Gingrich 09/01/2010
On Monday we will celebrate Labor Day, a holiday to commemorate and give thanks for the contributions of the American worker to our nation’s strength and prosperity.
This year’s holiday is a particularly opportune time to reflect upon that message.
America’s unemployment rate stands at a stubborn 9.5%. If you include those who are underemployed (working part-time but seeking full-time work) that number is closer to 18.4%.
Last week, the Labor Department revised second quarter economic growth down from 2.4% to 1.6%.
Sales of existing homes are at the lowest level since 1995.
The small business confidence survey is at the lowest level since the survey began in 2003.
Overall, it has been 31 months since the recession started and the economy is still losing jobs.
This Labor Day, ask yourself: If America’s strength is indeed a product of the strength of the American worker, what does it tell us about America’s prospects when so many Americans are not working?
In other words, can America work if Americans aren’t working?
John Boehner was right: Geithner and Summers Must Go
Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner called on President Obama to ask for the resignations of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council.
John Boehner is exactly right. While President Obama cannot be blamed for causing the recession, it was the actions of his administration (and his accomplices in the Democratic Congress) which have artificially extended the length of this recession and caused more pain for the American people.
John Boehner has good standing to lead the charge for a change in direction in our economic policies.
In addition to being a small business owner himself, John was the fourth ranked conference chair when I was Speaker of the House from 1995-1998. Two weeks ago, in this newsletter, we reviewed the record on job creation of the Gingrich Congress versus the Pelosi Congress. By controlling spending and cutting taxes under the Gingrich Congress, job creation soared while the budget was balanced, leading to over $600 billion of federal debt being paid. John remembers these principles well.
In the speech, Boehner rightly targeted the out-of-control spending, a tax code that is too complicated and has become a tool for special interests, and big “government run amok” as some of the chief culprits behind our prolonged recession.
The big government stimulus bill, the tax increases of the health bill, the plan to let the 2003 tax cuts expire, and the massive growth of government under the Obama Administration are all actions directly attributable to this administration which have killed jobs.
President Obama must be willing to hold his administration officials accountable.
The Worst Decision of All?
A few weeks ago in this newsletter, I cited a study by Robert Barro which estimated that without the extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, the unemployment rate would be 6.8% instead of 9.5%.
Barro had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week that echoed Leader Boehner’s call for the President to replace his economic team, and outlining why the Obama Administration’s policies are directly responsible for the unnatural long life of this recession.
In the piece, Barro points out that the extension of unemployment insurance to 99 weeks was unprecedented compared to previous extensions during economic downturns, which averaged around 40 weeks. For instance, during the 1982 recession, the unemployment rate was even higher—10.8%. Yet, we did not have anything close to a 99-week extension for unemployment benefits.
Borro notes that during the 1982 recession, the peak mean duration of unemployment was 21.2 weeks and the share of long-term unemployment (those unemployed more than 26 weeks) was 24.5%. Contrast those figures with those of the current recession, where mean duration of unemployment last month stood at 35.2 weeks and the share of long term unemployment was 46.2%.
Borro writes, “The dramatic expansion of unemployment-insurance eligibility to 99 weeks is almost surely the culprit.”
This decision, too, lies squarely on the back of the Obama Administration.
It is even more embarrassing considering that Larry Summers had previously written that welfare payments and unemployment insurance are a significant cause of long-term unemployment.
Geithner and Summers must go.
“Our fresh start needs to begin now”
As Boehner said in his speech:
“Now, this is no substitute for a referendum on the president’s job killing agenda. That question will be put before the American people in due time. But we do not have the luxury of waiting months for the president to pick scapegoats for his failing stimulus policies. We’ve tried 19 months of government-as-community organizer. It hasn’t worked. Our fresh start needs to begin now.”
Even Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello has called for Geithner and Summers to be fired.
There could be no stronger signal from President Obama that his economic policies have not worked and that it is time for a change in direction than by replacing his economic team to get new ideas and new perspectives into the Oval Office.
Mr. President, Geithner and Summers must go.
Consider it a Labor Day gift to the American people.
http://content.eaglepub.com/?largpZ5p.WRHIegnooqNljglqZWsuNgRl
Posted in Economy Incompetence Lawrence Summers Obama Recession Tim Geithner with No Comments
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Jul 18
We hear about unemployment rates being close to 10% which is very high for America. In many states, accounting for the underemployment and those who have given up looking for a job, this rate is in excess of 20%. What is also not accounted for in these numbers is the tragedies on the human side of the effects from our government facilitated and protracted recession. There are millions of people who are suffering and businesses which have gone bankrupt, are failing or are severely impacted as a direct result of government malfeasance particularly as regards the mortgage crisis issues.
Posted in Economy Political Cartoon Recession with No Comments
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Feb 16
The recession keeps dragging on despite close to a trillion dollars in stimulus money and other focal incentives wasted by the federal government. What is happening?
Small businesses, the real engines of our economy, are extremely worried about present conditions and future prospects including massive government regulations and more than 2 trillion dollars of proposed tax hikes that would destroy thousands of businesses. Consequently, they are being advisably circumspect, prudent and conservative, trying to protect the viability of their businesses rather than take aggressive actions that could jeopardize their survival.
For starters, we would all benefit from a massive across the board decrease in taxes, major reduction in government spending, and abolishing useless and costly regulations...
A Real Cure For What Ails Small Biz
Investors Business Daily 02/09/2010
Jobless Recession: Small business has been a key part of plans to stimulate the economy from the very start of the Obama presidency. So why is this crucial job-creating sector of our economy doing so poorly?
The latest soundings from small business are not reassuring. In its annual poll of 2,114 members, for example, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that "small-business owners entered 2010 the same way they left 2009 — depressed." Meanwhile, the ADP Small Business Report for January shows companies with fewer than 50 workers shed an additional 22,000 jobs.
These are the businesses that account for 48 million jobs, or 44% of all private nonfarm employment — and two-thirds or more of all employment growth in recent years. But despite efforts by government to "fix" their problems, they've only grown worse. The programs were ineffective or never got off the ground.
Last year, amid much hoopla, the White House announced plans to give tax credits to "green" energy companies. As a result, according to reporter Renee Schoof of McClatchy Newspapers, the U.S. installed a record 9,900 megawatts of wind-power generating capacity last year — enough to power 2.4 million homes.
A boon for conservation jobs? Hardly. Indeed, the American Wind Energy Association reports the industry cut 2,000 jobs last year, in part because some of the wind energy equipment is made overseas.
Then there was the program unveiled in March to spend $15 billion to "unlock" lending to small businesses. That grew to a $30 billion program later in the year after TARP funds were added to the mix. But as noted by ABC News reporter and blogger Jake Tapper, this is a "phantom" jobs program.
Even Neil Barofsky, head of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, admitted as much. As of Dec. 31, he wrote recently, "the details of the initiative under this program had not been announced and no funds had been disbursed."
In short, the White House talked about $30 billion in aid to small businesses, but never did anything about it.
Meanwhile, President Obama announced a sweeping small-business aid program in his State of the Union. He knows this is key to the economy's recovery, if only because he hears it all the time from Democrats and Republicans.
Among the president's new proposals for small business are a $5,000 tax credit to hire new workers, elimination of capital gains taxes and new incentives to invest in plants and equipment. Will anything come of it? Based on recent history, we doubt it.
Congress, correctly interpreting its sinking poll numbers, has also jumped on the jobs bandwagon and is eagerly crafting another big-time jobs stimulus — this one rumored to be $80 billion in size.
Some of Obama's ideas aren't bad. But even if passed, they likely wouldn't help much. The problems that small businesses have aren't about small businesses per se; they're about the economy.
Small businesses have the same doubts as the rest of us. Besides all these "jobs programs," they see a failed $862 billion stimulus, a $700 billion TARP program that has turned into a politicized auto and bank bailout fund, Cash for
Clunkers, attempts in Copenhagen to impose massive taxes on America to stave off global warming, a $1 trillion health care overhaul, new "responsibility fees" on banks, and worry for our economy's future.
Worse, the new budget contains $2 trillion in tax hikes over a decade, mostly on multinationals and successful entrepreneurs. These taxes undo all the good the White House and Congress would do with their "incentives" and "credits" and whatnot.
Washington thus has it wrong. Businesses aren't awaiting more "stimulus." As the NFIB suggested, they're clinically depressed, seeing the government's dead weight lying across the economy for years to come in all its spending, taxing and ad hoc rule-making.
What sensible entrepreneur would commit his wealth to a money-making project in such a high-tax, high-regulation environment — one in which those who make profits are routinely demonized?
This is a problem with a solution, and the solution is the same one that's worked in the past: Cut taxes across the board — for business big and small — and look for ways to cut regulations, not add more. At the same time, pull back on the insane surge in government spending.
By unlocking our nation's entrepreneurial spirit and reviving growth across the economy, we can put an end to this nightmare and help all Americans regain prosperity. Then small businesses can get back to doing what they do best: create lots of jobs.
URL http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=520675
Posted in Capitalism Congress Economy Government spending Ideology Recession Taxes with No Comments
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