Obama turns focus to destroying economy

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, President Barack Obama made a few favorable references to his erstwhile opponent, Mitt Romney, the guy who four months ago was such a heartless cad that he “didn’t even care” that some woman got sick and died years after she left a company that Bain Capital took over.

Wasn’t that sweet? Maybe if the guy plays his cards right he can still be ambassador to Luxembourg.

That seems to have concluded any “move to the middle,” however. Mr. Obama had already signaled the week before that he will “aim to work around an uncooperative Congress” (in the words of Washington Post reporter Zachary Goldfarb) by enacting many proposals — from tougher regulations on coal-fired plants to new protections for gays and lesbians — through what the Post calls Mr. Obama’s “increasingly aggressive use of executive authority.”

The problem with this rule by executive order, with its avoidance of debate and compromise, is not so much that it gives us a “gets-things-done” dictator who can murder U.S. citizens at whim. (No one in Washington is losing much sleep over that, needless to say.) The problem is that Rand Paul and the other handful of remaining non-totalitarians in Washington have a point: much of Mr. Obama’s command-and-control agenda not only has failed before, but will further cripple any hoped-for job creation.

And that, unlike a few thousand dead foreigners in funny hats, could eventually mean lost votes.

The Wall Street Journal headlined their Wednesday story “Obama Turns Focus to Boosting Economy.”

Really? An administration that’s invested $5 billion based on Vice President Joe Biden’s 2009 forecast of “billions and billions and billions of dollars in good, new jobs” in an electric car industry that’s now dead in the water — and wants to keep plowing in billions more?

How about “Obama turns focus to destroying economy”?

The president vowed nothing he was proposing in his speech would “increase our deficit by a single dime.” He then proposed at least 29 new government programs, including federally subsidized pre-school for every four-year-old in America.

“Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on — by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime,” the president says.

Which means it won’t cost a dime? I’ve met junkies with better explanations of why you should give them a hundred bucks.

The president brags that he’s cut spending, but these are the kind of “cuts” that can be discussed with a straight face only in the Emerald City. In fiscal year 2008, the year before Obama took office, federal spending was $2.98 trillion, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. In fiscal 2013, the current year, OMB estimates federal spending will be $3.80 trillion — an increase of 27.5 percent. Since Obama was first inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal government’s debt has increase by $5.86 trillion.

Cuts? Deficit reduction? Quick! More smoke and mirrors!

But as bad as deficits are, the real job-killers in the president’s speech — coming on top of the burgeoning per-employee costs of ObamaCare, which explain why so many of us are now trying to make a living selling used socks on e-Bay — were the president’s calls for “equal pay” and for a higher minimum wage: $9 an hour for starters, and then indexed to inflation to outlaw successively more start-up jobs as time goes by.

Compiling economic truths now embraced by most economists, Harvard University economist Greg Mankiw lists “A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers” as drawing 79 percent agreement — just below “A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy,” at 83 percent.

“Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to nine dollars an hour,” the president said.

But economists including Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell have demonstrated hardly anyone tries to raise a family on the minimum wage. Rather, low-income jobs provide a bottom step on the ladder for young and inexperienced workers, who quickly earn raises as they improve their usefulness to employers.

One of the terrible ironies here is that the most pernicious effects of a high minimum wage — in truth a sop to the labor unions who have long considered Mr. Obama their “go-to guy” — are felt among minority youth, who already struggle hardest to reach that “bottom rung.”

While the overall U.S. unemployment rate stands at 8.1 percent, African American unemployment is now at 14.1 percent, and the official unemployment rate for black youth aged 18-29 is 22.3 percent.

Since this doesn’t count those who’ve never been able to find a first job at all, this means an entire generation of young black men are at risk of never being able to find the stability and self-esteem that come with honest work. Yet a black president draws applause for vowing to outlaw even more of the starter jobs they need?

Then Mr. Obama urged Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Make no mistake: The idea that a woman with equal qualifications should be offered less to do the same job as a man is unacceptable. It’s also been virtually unheard of in America for decades, in part because it’s already illegal. Instead, what the president and those on the far left propose is a remedy for the fact that women sometimes earn less over their lifetimes because they choose different jobs from men, or because they lose seniority by voluntarily taking years off to raise children.

So the proposal is that the government force private employers to pay some women more (or some men less) for what some bureaucrat decides is a job “equivalent” to a different job held by a man — a job which requires different training or which fewer people want to do, and which the private employer thus finds harder to fill.
Such a step could indeed create more jobs — but unfortunately, only among the class of attorneys retained to fight ginned-up discrimination lawsuits. Diverting employer cash and energies into this new bureaucratic maze is supposed to help overall employment?

Let us have a lot less of this “increasingly aggressive use of executive authority,” please, whether the goal be to drive up our electric bills and cause layoffs in Wyoming by shutting down clean coal-fired power plants, or simply filling up a slow day by committing a few more remote-controlled murders in Distant East Crapistan.

Mr. Obama should submit his pathetic socialist public relations schemes to Congress for open debate. For the job of Congress is not only to pass laws, but also to air and reject bad and harmful ideas, no matter how nice they may sound as applause lines in some cooked-up speech.

5 Comments to “Obama turns focus to destroying economy”

  1. Questionman Says:

    This is a message to you! You have proven the hardcore fact that I have been saying for the last five years as fact!

    YOU ARE A HATEFUL, BIGOTED, RACIST! You and the entire cancervative movement are the modern version of the KKK. Racists to the core. Anyone who hates Barack Obama IS a bigot, IS a racist! of this there can be NO doubt!

    What is even more disgusting is that you racist constantly demean and desecrate the name of God and Using God’s name To Promote Right Wing political Anti-Christ, Racist, Bigoted, Obama-hating rants like this!

    You think Obama is a “pathological liar?” I haven’t noticed him stretching the truth any more than any other politician on Capitol Hill.

    If anything, I think Obama has been quite candid about what he said his plans were back when he was running as a candidate, and has been quite diligent in pursuing those goals as president. He’s fulfilled quite a few of his campaign promises, and those he hasn’t only because of obstruction in Congress.

    Is Barack Obama a Muslim?
    No

    Is Barack Obama a pathological Liar?
    I don’t think so. He has a modern relative perspective on truth, pervasive and part and parcel with modern culture.

    It is not Obama or illegal Mexicans or welfare fraud or “eroding of liberties” (which the Repubs are at least as good at) that is destroying America, it is good old-fashioned Corporate greed.

    if Obama was the dictator you try to pretend he is, you would all be forced to wear yellow swastikas on your clothing.

    Calling the President a traitor and domestic enemy is somewhere between insubordinate and treasonous. Unacceptable for anyone to say such things about the commander-in-chief. To publicly call the President a domestic enemy and a traitor is seditious at best and mutinous at worst.

    Obama is NOT a communist, or a marxist, or a socialist

    Obama is obviously a corporatist. Anyone looking at his record, who is aware of what the term means knows that. People who ACTUALLY studied his policies, not the racist, bigoted uneducated scumbag who believes what hate radio and head racist Rush Limbaugh tells them.

    Those spewing the socialist/marxist meme are (deliberately?) misinformed or simply ignorant.

    It’s offical: its pretty clear that racism is rampant in the GOP. And I think it always was. It just took a Black man becoming president to bring it back to the surface.

    Anyone who calls Obama a fraud and a POS is without doubt a disgusting racist, bigoted piece of shite, and That’s a fact.

    Anyone who calls for Obama’s impeachment is also without doubt a disgusting racist, bigoted piece of shite, and That’s a fact.

    I get it now, the Party of NO, is basically the Party of NO black people in the White House. There are plenty of individuals with dual citizenship.

    Plus, M. Romney was born in Detroit Michigan, which, last I checked, was within the United States. So, who cares where his father was born…… Non-issue.

    Any person born within the United States (inclusive of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands) is automatically granted U.S. citizenship.

    Obama, born in Hawaii, = US Citizenship. His parents could have been Martians. Their citizenship is irrelevant. If you are born in the US, you are a US citizen as far as the US is concerned. The birthers claims with regard to Obama is that he was NOT born in Hawaii.

    NO! and he’s not destroying America. He Got Bin Laden. (NOT KILLED) Got pirates. Killed more radical Muslims than civilian killing Bush. Taking Iran to the mats. Withdrew from agreement when N Korea doubled back. Got us out of Iraq, honorable. Saved the country from financial ruin. Saved GM and Chrysler and a million American jobs. Got health coverage for 40 million Americans.

    Obama is anything but a Socialist. He stands to the Right of Eisenhower and is trying very hard to save American Capitalism from its own stupidity. the racist right call Obama a Marxist, a socialist, a Communist, a Muslim because they can’t call him a Ni@@er! That’s what they mean! They can’t stand having a black in office. that this the cold hard truth!

    The biggest threat and disgrace to our country is ignorant bigoted fools. You should be stripped of your right to vote until you learn to accept reality for what it is and stop throwing around conspiracy theories. They still don’t understand that HALF of this country DON’T hate having a black man as President, half of this country aren’t as racist or a bigoted as they are.

  2. MamaLiberty Says:

    And, as if “minimum wage” doesn’t destroy enough jobs, here’s something possibly even worse…

    If you don’t hire an ex-con after a criminal background check shows they lied on the job application, the federales will sue you. Retroactively. For decades.

    Jim Bovard explains in Perform Criminal Background Checks at Your Peril http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578276491630786614.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

  3. apostle of hate Says:

    hey questionmon, I have a question for you, seeing how Obama is not black but is in fact a mullato, does that make his children quadroons or octoroons?
    Also, what’s up with hatin on bigots and racists? Those are perfectly normal human attributes common in all races of people.
    You gotta learn to accept the people’s diversity of beliefs, you gotta love the hate mon

  4. theCL Report: Blowing Bubbles Says:

    […] Obama turns focus to destroying economy […]

  5. PatriotUSA Says:

    @questionman,
    Good name for you, whatever you are. Yes, I see it all so clearly now thanks to your comments on those of us who do not like BHO, who is an unconstitutional POTUS. Ne is NOT a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. Just to make this easy for you, that is NOT that same as Native Born Citizen. Need some proof, see this site and yes, I have read the entire Ebook:

    http://the-constitutionist.com/

    This goes way beyond the birther issueand his Hawaiian BC was a fake and a hacked together ‘document’ that fools like you think is real.

    So take some time at this site and get back to us. So what about the blacks I know who loathe Obama? I know quite a few and they disliked him back in 2007 and they also cannot stand the way most black politicians do all they can to keep ‘their people’ stuck down on da’ plantashun’. I am sure they are all card carrying members of the KKK. How dare you make such accusations about us, myself who IS a CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVE and think it is based on the POS POTUS skin color. You need top go back to PMSNBC, PBS, HUFFY POO< DAILY KOS or the DNC and stay there.

    That is your downfall, the stupidity of tossing all of who dislike BHO into one box and then calling us racists. Here is a clue for you about me: At some time or other in me life I dislike every race, every color of skin, most people I met and have gotten to know, religion( especially Islam as it is not even a true religion but a perverse political ideology but we can save that for another time) and this includes myself. It is called being a person and one one who refuses to be brainwashed by political correctness, excessive diversity and multiculturalism.

    Almost Every point you made about your 'savior' BHO is wrong and the GOP is racist? They are a bunch of fools as are the democrats and why I am a registered as an independent and why we need a third party. Modern liberalism is a terminal illness and just in case you forgot this one little fact that most of the Founding Fathers were classical liberals.

    You are probably enough of a dupe to believe the U3 unemployment rate when it is the U6 numbers that are the truth.

    Just to confirm your worst nightmare, I am WHITE, MALE, over 55, legal CCW and do so, and in your eyes I am sure I am a racist, bigot, antisemitic, homophobic, Islamophobic domestic terrorist who is bitterly clinging to my religion and. Yes to the last two for sure.

    Typical rant and name calling yet I would even defend the likes of you in the name of freedom and liberty.