Let's Never Forget This

With all the arguments swirling through the media and politics about fairness, income distribution, the direction of the country and the state of the economy, there are a few important points that people should not forget.

1) The American economy is in very bad shape. Since the official end of the recession in 2009, growth has been anemic at best. New jobs have not been created even after president Obama got his stimulus of nearly a trillion dollars. In fact, the only thing that has allowed the unemployment rate to go down to just under 9% is the fact that three million American workers gave up looking for jobs. If one counts these folks as unemployed rather than totally discouraged (like the government does), then the unemployment rate last month was about 11.5%, and that is after two plus years of "recovery".

2) President Obama had two years of total control of the government with enormous Democrat majorities in both the House and the Senate. After pushing through the stimulus which he promised would cap unemployment at 8%, Obama spent all of his time discussing health care rather than doing anything about the economy. As a result, government spending soared out of control, but the economy did nothing. The USA ran up debt faster than ever before, and we are approaching bankruptcy. It has only been during the last eleven months, since the GOP took control of the House, that the subject of getting control over spending has even been discussed.

3) President Obama has taken a variety of steps that have prevented job creation. Acts like delaying the hundred thousand jobs to be created from the Keystone XL pipeline or preventing the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would accompany expanded drilling for energy are just examples of typical Obama moves. Even Obama's favorite programs like expanding "green" jobs have been more a bonanza for big Obama contributors (see, Solyndra) and have produced few, if any, jobs.

4) Obama has now made "fairness" the cornerstone of his programs. simply put, Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, the one who actually create most of the jobs. Think about that. Will raising taxes on the wealthy create even a single job? Will raising taxes on the wealthy speed economic growth? The answer, of course, is no. So here is the key question: What is Obama's plan to increase economic and job growth? The answer is that Obama has no plan.

So remember these points. Obama has totally failed to get the economy moving again. He has no plan even now to do so. He only wants to penalize those who have been successful. America has a choice. Do we want to stay in stagnation and decline but bring everyone into that mess? That is the Obama course. Alternatively, do we want to grow the economy, create jobs and get people back to work even if it means that some are more successful than others? That is the basic Republican plan. Can we really take another four years of Obamanomics?