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The Obama Watch
Irrational Flip-Floppin on Jobs
The White House radically changed its rhetoric.
The rhetoric at the White House radically changed on September 27. The event was the signing by President Obama of the Small Business Jobs Act.
Until the afternoon of that ceremony in the East Room, the party line expressed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats was that the income tax hikes on “the rich” that they were proposing for January would not have any negative impact on job creation.
Stuck with the fact that we need millions of new jobs and the reality that nearly 70 percent of the nation’s jobs are created by small businesses, President Obama and the Democrats had been dancing for a year around the obvious link between job creation and their proposed tax hike on job-creating individuals with incomes above $200,000 and on married couples with incomes above $250,000.
They said the proposed income tax increase would apply to only a tiny sliver of America’s small-business owners, a small group of people who “can afford it,” and therefore any effect on job creation would be negligible, an impact not important enough to be worth considering.
Adding specific numbers to the party line, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that “98% of American families and about 97% of small businesses” would be exempt from the planned higher taxes on incomes above $200,000 and $250,000.
Vice President Joe Biden echoed Pelosi’s numbers, stating that only 3 percent of small businesses would have to pay the higher tax rate.
The continual repetition of those numbers was supposed to create the belief that the Democrats’ proposed income tax hikes wouldn’t take a dime from 97 percent of the nation’s small businesses and that the number of jobs being created in the economy would be basically the same with or without the tax increase.
The distortion that’s inherent in repeatedly citing the 97 percent figure, the intentional falsification, is explained by Alan D. Viard and Kevin A. Hassett, a resident scholar and the director of economic policy, respectively, at the American Enterprise Institute: “According to IRS data, fully 48 percent of the net income of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations reported on tax returns went to households with incomes above $200,000 in 2007. That’s the number to look at, not the 3 percent.”
Last Monday, September 27, the tone at the White House completely changed. Gone was the talk of raising taxes on “the rich.” Instead, President Obama, speaking before signing the Small Business Jobs Act, said that government “can create the conditions for small businesses to hire more people, through steps like tax breaks.” Tax breaks, not increases.
Continued Obama, sounding not unlike an advocate for free markets, “Government can’t guarantee success, but it can knock down barriers to success.”
He didn’t mention any of the numerous “barriers to success” that he and his Congressional allies have advocated over the past year, his own set of proposed costs and controls that have produced high levels of uncertainty and low levels of business expansion and job growth — higher energy costs via Cap and Trade, higher business costs by way of new health-care mandates, more barricades to business growth via a broad expansion of federal regulations, higher levels of unionization via “card check,” a measure designed to strip workers of their right to a secret ballot in unionization drives, and higher federal taxes on dividends, inheritances, capital gains, and income.
Obama also promised billions in new loan money for small businesses, something that would be less needed if the government simply didn’t confiscate such a high and growing level of business income in the first place.
Bottom line, taking more and more income from small businesses via higher taxes, more mandates and more regulations and then offering more loans to those same businesses isn’t exactly the most efficient or rational strategy for job creation.
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (17) | Leave a comment
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DefendUrRights| 10.5.10 @ 6:28AM
Obama is a consummate liar. He should get the Nobel Peace Prize for the one person who lies like a rug...as my mama would say. He "lies when the truth would've served the purpose better." Liar. Liar.
Deborah D | 10.5.10 @ 6:37AM
Obama lied and the economy died. Truly, you can't believe any word that comes out of this man's mouth. Liberals destroy everything they come in contact with, and this man is destroying the presidency. We might not have exactly liked every president who sat in that Oval office chair, but never in my lifetime can I remember not trusting any word that comes out of the president's mouth. Now, he wants everything he does equated to the most historic this or that...well here's the biggest thing he'll go down in history for: He's the most dishonest president ever! I'll bet by the end of his term he'll be the least trusted president ever. Now, isn't that historic?
Booger| 10.5.10 @ 6:42AM
From the desk of President B. Hussein Obama:
Dear Rich Voters,
It has come to my attention that some of you are challenging my pronouncements concerning your vast, illegitimate wealth. While you are acting stupidly in questioning My Word in this, or any other matter, I will lower Myself to address your impertinent questions.
Firstly, where do you think your wealth comes from, anyway? I Myself have seen the printing presses from which your wealth issues. Every day my faithful disciple Timmy Geithner slaves away to make sure the presses keep rolling, printing ever more dollars, so that I may bestow wealth across this nation. You need to release the futile imaginings of your selfish hearts if you think you generate any wealth, for I Myself have seen from whence it comes.
Secondly, what wealth you do have is not really yours anyway. Look at the bank notes in your possession. Those are the property of the U.S. government, and its rightful Head for Life, Myself. How outrageous it is that you would hold My currency in your grubby little paws, always greedily rooting around for more, and then try to deny Me that which is rightfully Mine. Truly, your covetousness knows no bounds.
Thirdly, the wealth you currently hold is ill-gotten gains, taken from the theft of this land from the Native Americans and acquired through the use of slave labor of people of color. If I take the ill-gotten wealth you have stored up, and restore it to its rightful owners, am I not just? This is nothing but your chickens coming home to roost.
That being said, learn to accept your abasement in this matter, without complaint, realizing that your pitiful existence is without true meaning. I suggest you look up the word "dhimmi" to understand your proper role in this matter. If you will accept My heavy yoke it will go as well as may be expected for you. If not, beware My wrath and an IRS audit. We know to whom you give your political contributions.
Your President for Life,
B. Hussein Obama
JFGalt| 10.5.10 @ 8:09AM
Your words sound exactly like the words of Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe which just showed us with 1,000,000,000,000,000% inflation the illustriousness of his inspired policies. Maybe Obama has a secret advisor?
Fenestra| 10.5.10 @ 8:52AM
Booger you have perfectly expressed the liberal sentiments I hear every day. No amount of logic or learning can dissuade them from the belief that they are right and just, and that we are wrong and evil.
But "buck up" they are the minority.
BackToBasics| 10.6.10 @ 1:33AM
I know a couple liberals very well and over the years I have seen them at a loss for words at times when I've spoken about politics with them. I could even tell that they knew their positions were wrong. But I also could see that they would NEVER admit to being wrong. In truth sometimes liberals know they are not right but PRIDE gets in the way. I think they would rather die than admit they were wrong.
In their thinking, they know that if they admit they are wrong in just one thing then they know the whole game is up. Truth is not a game and since they do not have truth on their side all they have is political games. They'd rather be deceived even though in some moments the truth does shine on their hearts. They will quickly dismiss it so they can go on being deceived again.
The bottom line with all of them is that they are opposed deepinside to Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth andf the Life after all. I've confronted them with this and there was no denial of what I said. Just silence. Then they tried to change the subject. Typically liberal, change the subject, deflect from the main truth.
wodiej| 10.6.10 @ 10:27AM
lol....well done.
To further the point of liberals being uninformed, on Hannity last night there was a focus group and the topic was the illegal who worked for Whitman. The ignorance of the audience was astounding. One woman was talking about how the document said the woman was illegal. It said no such thing.
Ret. Marine| 10.5.10 @ 7:31AM
Being the consumate liars they are, they have truely underestimated the patience of the American working class, underestimated their numbers of their core supporters, and underestimated their understanding of economics, and now have decided to go in a total new area, speaking of the truth, government does not create jobs, the market places generates the necessary conditions for jobs to be created by those who create them, those in the category of which they have made attempts to ruin.
Nice try, you still are liars, and We the People have no problem calling a horse a horse or an ass an ass, or in this case, a jackass a jackass. I can see Nov. from my porch in the flyover country. Victory smells sweet in the fall mornings.
TR| 10.5.10 @ 11:06AM
These are the expected results when you place a silver spoon-fed man-child who has never held a real job in charge of a nation. This liar and his lying minions are a clear and present danger to our Republic. They are motivated by ideology not by the best interest of our nation.
Marxists must fall in November. Vote them out.
Texas Mom 2010| 10.5.10 @ 12:04PM
When I hear Obama speaks it always sounds like pronouncements from on high, like he thinks what is says 'is and will always be.' It seems that he truly believes that when he says something that it will magically ( or godlike) just happen without he having to actually do anything to accomplish it. It is frightening to me that he is so divorced from reality.
Ned| 10.5.10 @ 5:19PM
did you catch the clips today of Barry Bullsh*t in one of his "not a campaign event" backyard get togethers, trying to talk without his pet Teleprompter... he couldn't stop tripping over his tongue. Again.
Houston Rao| 10.5.10 @ 12:49PM
What do you expect? They have some pesky elections thingy coming up soon. The votes they can steal, with their Acorn like partners, won't be sufficient to overcome the rising tide. Nice verbiage fooled the people the last time, they are trying it again.
Bob S| 10.5.10 @ 1:01PM
It seems that no one either thought of, or (hopefully) didn't mention is that red herring that "they're rich enough to afford it". What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China? It's completely irrelevant whether or not someone can "afford" a tax increase. IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY! It's the difference between "can do" and "should do". Just because the CAN raise taxes on the "wealthy" (whatever that means in their definition du jour) doesn't mean they SHOULD.
Fredrick Ward| 10.5.10 @ 11:19PM
"IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY!"
According to Barak Obama, it is the government's money. It is within their rights to redistribute the wealth of other people as he, and his ilk, see fit. That is the singular premise behind this whole thing; that they know best, and they should have and will have the right to take from us to do what they wish with our hard earned money.
He said in a radio interview, when he was a Senator, that it is a tragedy the Constitution wasn't radically reinterpreted to force redistribution of wealth for African Americans. He believes the courts should have done this during the civil rights movement. He doesn't think that it will be done in the judicial system, but he does believe it can be done legislatively.
This is exactly what he is attempting to do right now. We need to get out and vote these Communist/Marxist bastards out of office, and begin undoing all that he has done.
Jeffrey Ady| 10.6.10 @ 5:40AM
Mr. President, you can apply for your own job RIGHT NOW by: (1) supplying the normal, unadulterated records we'd expect for the position of POTUS--like citizenship proof; (2) transcripts from your elitist colleges; (3) a pedigree that makes any sense; and (4) a basic evidence of a nominal ability to engage in linear, rational thought like a GED diploma from an accredited GED program in the United States. AND (5) samples of addresses, statements to the press, letters, and campaign speeches that demonstrate fidelity to the original Constitution of the United States of America, which you swore to uphold!
Otherwise you are the Nation's Number One "Undocumented Worker"!
wodiej| 10.6.10 @ 10:30AM
lol...why spend hundreds of thousands to keep these facts sealed unless he is hiding something?