The graph above is courtesy of Innocent Bystanders. It shows Obama's projections back in February for unemployment with or without a stimulus. As you can see by the data, we are way worse than any of his economic team predicted. The stimulus, which has rolled out too slowly and only stimulated government and special interests at the expense of the private sector, has been perhaps the biggest boondoggle in American history. It is an overwhelming failure, costing us (when figured with interest and lost GDP) more than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has undoubtedly hurt the economy and hindered job creation.
As President Obama tries to control the economy by regulating markets, restricting profits, taking over private companies, attacking entrepreneurs and corporate executives, and replacing free enterprise with central planning by government bureaucrats, investors continue to pull their money out of the American marketplace. Banks, for the most part, still aren't lending.
We are seeing a nation gripped by fear, not fear of success, but fear they will be punished for their success by this administration. This fear is not just based on comments made by Obama and Pelosi demonizing profits. It is a fear that success will be regulated, that the fruits of private endeavors will be confiscated by out-of-control government expansion, and that the risk won't be worth the reward. Great ideas are left on the drawing board, capital risks are avoided, and this nation's potential, the greatest potential of any nation on earth, is left untapped. This is a crisis of confidence. The American Dream in on life support, and President Obama is sending his end-of-life counselors to talk us into pulling the plug on capitalism.
In order to create jobs, the American economy has to be free from the restraints and restrictions that statists like Obama are obsessed with controlling. Free markets have to be encouraged, not controlled. The incentive for profit has to be greater than the risks and liability involved in starting a new business. I wrote about this previously in an essay called America's Spiritual Drought. We must renew our spirit, a spirit to the founding principles of this nation, to liberty, and to free enterprise. It is this commitment to Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that has allowed the best and brightest ideas to rise to the top. It has improved all of our lives in ways that other societies, people, and cultures can only dream about. It's called American Exceptionalism, something Obama clearly doesn't understand as evidenced by this quote:
“I believe in American Exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British Exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek Exceptionalism.”
Can someone please tell the Ivy-league educated president that American Exceptionalism isn't the same thing as American patriotism, because that's what he described. If there's one thing I've learned from this fiasco of a presidency, I'm not sending my kids to Columbia or Harvard.
The Obama administration has lost all credibility. They have failed at renewing America's spirit. For a campaign about hope, they certainly have left a lot of us hopeless, as jobs shrink and family businesses close. I'm sure they will claim that the economy would be even worse if not for their stimulus. But it's not true, and there's a way to verify it. Take a look at this graph of several nation's GDP over the past two years. You'll notice that the economies of countries that did not pass huge government spending bills during the downturn are growing, while the U.S. and Britain, who both passed a stimulus, continue to be mired in recessions with increased deficits and poor job markets. In other words, America is lagging the global recovery.
Now economists are saying that it will be years before we see a substantial improvement in GDP and unemployment is expected to hit 10% by December. If Congress passes Obamacare and the proposed cap-and-trade legislation, I'm predicting that number will get as high as 14% in the next few years. Welcome to the Democrat-created depression, a lost decade of opportunity for American families.
Hat tip: Powerline
I really liked this article!! I completely agree. The government needs to get the HE*@ out of the way. People think that FDR saved us from the Great Depression with his New Deal, and it didn't really hardly do jack squat, and Obamas stimulus is way worse than FDR's New Deal. Even Bush's 600 million he pumped in before he left office was a joke. Okay, I'm getting all worked up, and the veins are starting to pop out of my neck, heheh, just kidding. But seriously, we need to start completely over....just keep the constitution and bill of rights.....throw every politician out into the streets, and just start over. As Thomas Jefferson says, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots .... A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. - Thomas Jefferson ..."
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