"You ain't seen nothin' yet" was Ronald Reagan's standard
rally-ending line during his 1984 reelection campaign. He won 49
states, losing only his opponent's home state, Minnesota, 49.7
percent to 49.5 percent.
Obama could truthfully use the same "ain't seen nothin' yet"
line, except Reagan was referring to more jobs, smaller
government and more individual freedom, while Obama is pushing a
job-killing agenda that promises to expand an already bloated
government while simultaneously shrinking individual freedom.
In its latest official tally of jobs being lost per month, more
than seven months after Obama's $787 billion non-stimulating
stimulus bill was rushed through Congress, the Labor Department
reported that 263,000 more jobs were lost in September,
increasing the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent and bringing the
total number of unemployed to 15.1 million.
That doesn't count the so-called "discouraged" workers who've
quit looking for work and are no longer considered part of the
labor force. By the Labor Department's count, the U.S.
workforce is currently 615,000 workers smaller than it was a year
ago, even though the working age population is expanding.
Also uncounted in the 9.8 percent unemployment rate are
part-timers seeking full-time work. Add these underemployed
part-timers and the "discouraged" to the official jobless rate
and the real unemployment rate in September was 17 percent.
In January, urging quick passage of the stimulus bill, President
Obama called the legislation "the most sweeping economic recovery
act in history" and said it would "save or create 2.5 million
jobs" -- and quickly, via "shovel-ready" projects.
Instead, most of the shovels are still hanging in the garage and
the economy has lost 2.7 million jobs since the "most sweeping"
stimulus bill was signed into law in February.
"In my wildest dreams," declared Vice President Joe Biden,
painting the stimulus as an unqualified success in a speech to
the nation's governors on September 24, "I never thought it would
work this well."
What will also work well in creating jobs, according to Obama and
the Congressional Democrats, is their real clunker of an economic
recovery agenda that includes a carbon tax, higher energy prices
for consumers and employers, the cancellation of secret ballots
for workers in union organizing drives, mandated hikes in the
minimum wage, higher payroll taxes on businesses to fund the
administration's health care schemes, and higher tax rates on the
incomes of the nation's key job creators.
Under tax hikes now being considered, the top federal tax rate on
income would climb to 45 percent. In states with top tax rates,
the combined federal, state and local tax on income would exceed
50 percent.
"Three fourths of those affected by these rate changes are
small-business owners," says Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas,
meaning that funds will be drained directly from "the sector of
the U.S. economy that's producing 63 percent of all the new jobs
created."
Adding to this capital drain from the private sector and the
subsequent job destruction is the Obama administration's cap and
trade proposal to address the supposed dangers of global warming,
even with kids in Idaho this year enjoying the earliest no-school
snow day in history.
As Obama explained in January 2008 during an interview with the
editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle,
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would
necessarily skyrocket."
An analysis by the U.S. Department of Treasury estimates that the
cost of cap and trade law per American household could run as
high as $1,761 per year. On top of seeing no problem with
skyrocketing prices for electricity, Obama explained during the
same interview how bankruptcy is the answer for the disobedient:
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can;
it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be
charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being
emitted."
When he took office on January 20, 1981, Reagan inherited a
zero-growth economy with unemployment and inflation rates,
respectively, of 7.4 percent and 10.4 percent in the final
quarter of 1980.
By the end of the Reagan's presidency in 1988, the unemployment
and inflation rates had dropped, respectively, to 5.4 percent and
4.2 percent, an economic success that particularly benefited
those at the bottom who could least afford double-digit price
increases, an economic success that especially helped the
jobless, the millions who moved from unemployment to a paycheck.
Reagan's economic achievements were produced by tax cuts and a
program of smaller government. Obama, advocating an agenda
that's exactly the opposite, is likely to get a result that's the
exact opposite of Reagan's successes.
topics:
Unemployment
