By Alan Caruba
A close
relative of mine has been spending months job-seeking and the news from the
White House in the first week of March was that the President was playing golf
in Key Largo while Joe Biden was in the Virgin Islands soaking up the sun. It’s
not that they don’t deserve some down time, but down time for the unemployed is
full time. The U.S. has 866,000 fewer people employed today than when the
recession began in the wake of the 2008 recession.
Since
Obama became President in 2009, there has been a 3.5 million increase in jobs,
but 12 million new working age people. This is supposed to be a “recovery”
according to the White House but the job numbers are not keeping pace with the
job-seekers.
It’s not
widely reported, but the labor force participation rate of 63% remains stuck at
or near its lowest point since the late 1970s. There are two million fewer
Americans in the labor force today than a year ago. The number of long-term
unemployed, six months or more, rose by 203,000.
While
Obama keeps bloviating about income inequality, too many Americans have no
income at all.
At the
same time, thanks to Obama, the U.S. debt, according to the U.S. Treasury’s
Bureau of Public Debt, has increased $6.666 trillion since he took office on
January 20, 2009. As of January 31, 2014, the total debt stood at
$17,293,019,654,983.61. While he has been President, the U.S. has accumulated
as much new debt as it did in the first 227 years.
This is a
President who has been pushing to raise the minimum wage, but according to the
Congressional Budget Office, raising it to $10.10 an hour would cost the U.S.
economy a half-million new jobs by 2016.
In an
article by Michael D. Tanner that was published by the New York Post in August
of last year, he noted that “The federal government funds 126 separate programs
targeted towards low-income people, 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind
benefits to individuals.” In addition, state and local governments have welfare
programs as well. Who funds these programs? Those with jobs. Welfare benefits
are not taxed.
“There is
no evidence that people on welfare are lazy,” wrote Tanner. “Indeed, surveys of
them consistently show their desire for a job. But they are not stupid. If you
pay them more not to work than they can earn by working, many choose not to
work.”
Former
Presidents have encountered recessions when they entered office and those such
as Kennedy and Reagan put an end to them. When taxes are lowered it puts more
money into the economy and that stimulates it. There is no such talk from Obama
and, indeed, his 2014 budget adds billions more that he wants to add to
government revenue and spending.
A March 10th Rasmussen survey found that the President’s proposed new $3.9 trillion federal budget that includes $55 billion in new spending for fiscal 2015, is regarded by one-out-of-two voters (50%) who think the Obama administration has already raised spending too much.
Spending
is controlled by the House of Representatives, but legislation to address the
present economy has been consistently blocked in the Democrat controlled
Senate. It’s the same one that enacted the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare,
which is playing havoc with the nation’s health system and impacting its
economy by forcing businesses to either cut the number of people employed or
reducing full-time workers to part-time status.
Other
actions of the Obama administration are contributing to the unemployment roles
as its “war on coal” has shut down more than 150 coal-fired plants that
generate electricity and its loans to “green” industries have cost billions as
many have declared bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State, John Kerry,
is telling everyone that “climate change” is the greatest threat to the planet
and urging U.S. ambassadors to make it a priority. At the same time, the
Environmental Protection Agency is engaged in an orgy of regulation based on
zero proof that carbon dioxide warms the Earth.
Obama and
his administration is so detached from reality that it is afflicting millions
of Americans who want to work while at the same time its policies are reducing
the number of new jobs being created.
If this is
a deliberate policy—as I believe it is—the only conclusion is that the
President is intentionally inflicting a huge debt and impediments to our
economy that are reducing the greatest nation on Earth to a third world nation
status. He opposed the view of American exceptionalism and is doing everything he
can to kill it.
© Alan
Caruba, 2014
***************************
Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens
of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 3.2 million page
views. If
you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional
skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go!
You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.
**********************
VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on
Freedom" Face Book Page!!:
(Just click on the link for more conservative
commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)
No comments:
Post a Comment