To Stop the Crippling Debt and Save America, It's Time for an Intervention

What behavior defines a junkie? Needy, erratic, self-destructive, delusional, blind to the harm they are causing others, determined to continue their ways at all costs, unable to listen to reason, lashing out at those who most wish to help. This is the American Left, addicted to government growth and unable to fathom less spending no matter the cost to future generations.

America is being run by junkies and just like a junkie's personality is no longer recognizable to their family and friends, we are unrecognizable to our forefathers. Our addiction is government - big government, more government, government as God, massive spending and entitlements, programs out the wazoo, an agency for every day of the year, a bureaucrat for every minute of our lives and then some. 

We are no longer a nation of self-reliant men and independent women yearning for freedom from an intrusive state. What we are, like all junkies, is myopic and self-centered, more interested in our next fix than the nourishing values we were brought up on and built this country into something great.

Sadly, President Obama's latest budget does nothing to curb our appetite for destruction (with apologies to Guns n Roses). While some on the Left will spin it as a step toward recovery, a "spending freeze" after greatly expanding the size and role of government over the past two years (including an 84% increase in discretionary spending) falls dramatically short of a reliable 12 step program. This is like a heroin addict saying, "I won't cut back on my habit, but how about I promise not to be more strung out than last year?" (again, apologies to Guns n Roses).

Looking down the road, the fiscal path Obama has laid out for America becomes even more disheartening. By 2021, government spending is projected to be a whopping six trillion dollars with deficits still hovering around one trillion. To put that in perspective, the entire fiscal budget was less than two trillion as recently as 2002 and the deficit as low as $200 billion as recently as 2007 (you know, during those irresponsible Bush years).

Obama's threats to veto GOP budget cuts after two years of massively expanding government and super-sizing bureaucracy prove he's the last advocate for restraint. And he's unwilling to even mention entitlement reforms. If the Republican plan can be described as budgetary rehab, what the president proposes is no better than free needles for addicts.

While not all of the debt is President Obama's fault, he has exasperated what was once a manageable crisis, doubling down on bad fiscal policy. What we are left with is a crippling disease in terms of economic growth. Without massive reforms to shore up America's finances, even under the president's rosiest scenario the national debt will increase from $14 trillion to $25 trillion in 10 years. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will swallow up huge chunks of discretionary spending. The economy will flat line, our nation's line of defense will crumble, and all we'll have to show for it are brand new choo choos that go an average speed of 80 mph and make putting a man on the moon look like cost-efficient transportation by comparison.

The last time the federal government actually spent less money than the year before was, well... nevermind, because it hasn't happened in our lifetimes. We have been conditioned to accept the endless march of big government as the norm, something unfathomable to our founding fathers. As John Adams once warned us, "There are two ways to enslave a country. One is by sword, the other is by debt."

Our future does not look promising. In the last four years, the federal budget has doubled and the deficit has quadrupled. These are record low points for our nation's fiscal health. We are obese, at least as far as governments are concerned, and this alone should concern the First Lady if not the president. Let's move! If we are going to fight obesity, shouldn't we start with those unnecessary pounds of bureaucracy? To quote the concerned mom in one of those Lifetime movies (or perhaps my high school guidance counselor), "Can't you see you're ruining your future?!" 

It's hard to convince a junkie. If a sea change election won't cut it, Republicans should hold their ground in the face of a temporary government shutdown. It's time for an intervention.

The Obama Malaise and the Captive Economy

Earlier this week, a panel of economists came to the consensus that the recession ended over a year ago, in June of 2009. Why is this important? Because it means the lack of a recovery, the continued high unemployment, the decrease in wages, and the record low consumer confidence Americans have experienced for the past 14 months is not the result of the “great recession.” How could it be if it had already ended? No, it must be the result of an environment of economic uncertainty and hostility towards businesses created since then. In fact, if these economists are correct, the recession ended before even a dime of Obama’s $900 billion “game-changing” stimulus could be circulated through the economy.

If only we had stopped there. Business would be in a full recovery. Of course, the turtles wouldn’t have gotten their tunnels, the military bases wouldn’t have gotten their spas and saunas, and the Austin hippies wouldn’t have a new Frisbee golf course to sell and purchase their hydroponic. But we would have jobs (come to think of it, maybe some slackers wanted the stimulus to keep from getting jobs).

In every previous recession, once adjusting for market irregularities, America has bounced back. Well, except for the Great Depression. Unfortunately, instead of letting the markets dictate business activity, this administration has done everything to intervene, to basically arm wrestle the free hand of enterprise into submission. They have used the economic downturn as an excuse to push their Big Government, far left agenda, fundamentally transforming the relationship between the individual and the state, and not in the favor of the individual.

All of this is supposed to lead to some grand utopia down the road if we can just be patient enough, if we can just learn to be dependent on food stamps and unemployment benefits for the next four of five years. We are told the sacrifice of this transformation will be worth it, that the government will take care of us until that day of glory comes.

“Don’t give the keys back,” we are told by Obama... not to the businesses and wealth producers and individuals who want Americans to succeed or fail based on free market principles. No, instead we should let the government artificially prop up losers and steal from winners. We have to rule and regulate firmly if we are ever going achieve equality. 

This is the same promise of every socialist state, from Venezuela to Cuba to Moscow. I don’t have to tell you that day never comes – and why would God let it? A society of equality of outcome is a society absent of consequences for good or bad decisions, providing no incentive for moral behavior. It only encourages citizens to turn on each other in hope of currying the favor of the almighty state. It’s no coincidence that the workers’ paradise promised by the October Revolution led to the most hostile working conditions on the planet in the Soviet Union.

As I wrote last year, an economic recovery will come eventually so long as President Obama and the Democrats don’t kill it in the womb. Now that we have the data, it looks like it’s too late. Like all neo-progressives, they think they know better than the people. They are the smartest guys in the room. If no one has been able to bounce a square ball before, it’s only because they haven’t tried it with the right people in charge. And while it fails, they work even harder to create the illusion that progress and wealth are just around the corner.

In some corners of the world, they call this a captive mind. Here in America, we have seen it at work in cults and corrupt business practices like Enron. What we end up with either way is an economy bound by the chains of ruling class elites.

About That Recovery, Sales Tax Receipts Show Otherwise: Consumer Spending Down 14 Straight Months

As someone who closed a retail furniture store earlier this year, I can tell you from personal experience how low consumer confidence in Texas is right now. My store experienced a 40% drop in revenue from 2008 to 2009, including a dismal 70% drop during the month of August when cash-for-clunkers was introduced. This was in Austin, Texas, which Time magazine recently lauded as one of the best cities to do business and one of the least affected by the recession.

So what gives? Where are all these confident shoppers? Could it actually be that Obama's policies are killing the chance for a recovery? The evidence suggests that the president has made the recession worse, not better. He has created economic uncertainty tilting the flow of money from the private sector into government and keeping consumers at home. I'm just one of many small business casualties of his poor ecoomic policies.

When Obama talks about helping small businesses, trust me, it's just talk. Every tax credit he has introduced is worthless to businesses cutting back, and no small business owner is going to borrow money they don't have during times of economic uncertainty and sporadic revenue just to save a few thousand dollars in taxes they probably won't have to pay anyways - because they are losing money!

The mainstream media has hold us for nine or ten months now that the recession is over, that we are turning the corner and shoppers are beginning to spend again. Often these reports cite increases in same-store sales, but don't be fooled. This is a mirage. When big chains close stores, nearby stores see a sales boost. That's not due to an increase of shoppers, just a redistribution of them.

There has been no uptick in consumer confidence, and the strongest evidence of this is the continued decline in sales tax receipts. This year's March revenues from sales tax for the state of Texas were down 8% from last March. Let me emphasize that. March of 2009, during what was considered the height of the recession was better for businesses than March of 2010. In fact, sales tax receipts in Texas have been on the decline for some time now, and eight of the previous months saw double digit decreases.

As the Austin-American Statesman reports:

A closely watched indicator of Texas' fiscal health, the state's sales tax revenue is now $1.5 billion below where it was at the same time last year, the figures showed.

Even so, state officials say they have not yet decided to pull the trigger on proposed agency budget cuts, aimed at saving about $1 billion in the current two-year budget.

The $1.46 billion collected from February sales — and remitted to the state in March — was 7.8 percent less than the amount brought in during the same month a year ago.

Here's a chart of Texas sales tax receipts. Keep in mind March brings in a lot of tourists, including spring breakers and SXSW participants to Austin, so it should be up considerably. These numbers are disappointing to say the least:

Of course the liberal Statesman is selling it as a "softening." They might also want to note that Austin construction companies "softened" paychecks by firing 2300 people last month. Somebody tell Newsweek.

Hat tip to Mish.

When Success Means Failure (and Failure Means Success)

When Rush Limbaugh expressed his desire last year for Obama to fail, I admit I was taken aback. The rhetoric seemed harsh, a display of sour grapes after a brutal election year that had conservatives scrambling. But not anymore. Now I find myself waking up every day hoping Obama will fail. Why? Because after a year in office, the evidence is in. I've seen what he considers his successes and it's devastating.

Oddly enough, it's where Obama and the Democrats think they've succeeded that they've failed the most. The budgets they have passed have been dreadful, increasing discretionary spending by 84% in just over a year. They've quadrupled the deficit. Their stimulus bill stole money from the private sector to shore up union and government jobs that are a drain on state budgets. It also failed to create new jobs, as 4 million Americans (and counting) found themselves out of work during the president's first 12 months in office.

Now, in order to deal with the never-ending, unsustainable debt, tax increases are being discussed. This is the worst time to hit Americans with a decrease in take home pay, when consumers are already reluctant to spend and higher interest rates are on the horizon.

Passing Obama's government takeover of health care will only make things worse. It's a massive entitlement program that will increase deficits, raise taxes, and make health care more expensive. Ultimately, health insurance rates will go up, not down, based on massive government regulation.

This isn't theory. This is fact based on analysis of current state's insurance rates, which I wrote about here. Guess which state had the most expensive rates? Massachusetts - the only current state with government run health care.

Obama and Democrats consider their inability to pass this monstrosity a failure of the administration. Given the failure of their successful legislation, I'd say that's actually a success. Same goes for the EPA regulating carbon as a "pollutant" and the decision to try KSM and other enemy combatants with full constitutional rights in a civilian criminal trial. These are all first year successes for Obama, his policies have prevailed, but they are highly unpopular and damaging the future of this country. In fact, they are so bad that he must spend countless hours convincing an unconvinced public that he is smarter than all of us. Damn the results.

When you have to campaign as hard as this president does to seduce people into believing his passed legislation is "working", the truth becomes evident. If Obama's successes are such failures, we should all hope he has less of them. Rush was right. The president might have graded his first year in office a B+, but we'd all be better off next year if he gave himself an F.

I'm a Casualty of the Obama Economy

My apologies for disappearing from the blogosphere for a while. I am in the process of closing a business, a retail store in Austin which did quite decent until this year. Since our lease is up at the end of December, I have been trying to clear all our inventory. The discounts are steep and I am probably losing money, but since most of it's massive handmade furniture, storing it will be more expensive. I think we will still have an online presence. It's fairly easy for me to call my manufacturers and have them ship something out, so if you are interested in distressed hacienda style furniture, visit the online catalog.

Anyway, I will write more about my experience on the front lines of this dreadful economy once I close and have a chance to clear my head. Suffice it to say, Austin did not experience a housing bubble or bust like the rest of the country. We are seeing population growth (as people move here from California or Michigan) and the recession in Texas has been described as fairly mild in regards to layoffs. But I can tell you from my perspective that President Obama has created a climate of economic uncertainty with consumers - they are afraid to spend while government messes with rules and regulations. Meanwhile, Democratic allies or leftist causes receive the bulk of our tax dollars in the form of porkulus money. This is anything but a stimulus.

When consumer spending is 70% of the economy and all that's in the news is more government intervention, regulation, and taxes, that's not going to encourage consumers to part from their hard-earned money. They are hanging onto it like squirrels gathering acorns for the winter. Without massive tax cuts, I fail to see how or why consumers will feel relief from this recession. I have written before that the worst of the banking and housing crisis is over, but Obama's policies are killing economic recovery in the womb.

That's one of the reasons that I am closing my store, a small business that has brought in and helped circulate over $1,000,000 to other small businesses and local craftsmen over the past five years, not to mention all the tax revenue that the government has collected off my success. Should enough small businesses like mine fail, you can see how that trickles down (yes, even poverty can trickle) and has a devastating effect on the economy. No spending or government interference coming out of Washington is going to prevent that. It can only make it worse.

Obama Jobs Tour: Hide the Decline in 09

The Obama Jobs Tour: Hide the Decline in 09! officially kicked off in Allentown last week with more tour dates to be announced in selected swing states. Nothing like a slew of campaign rallies to jump start the economy. Well, at least those peddling anti-Obama merchandise might make out with some quick cash.

The tour is free, but as everything goes with Obama, the cost to America will be great in the long run. The president promised more jobs as soon as private companies start hiring again. Of course, private companies aren't going to start hiring so long as President Obama continues to pursue statist, anti-capitalist policies like government takeover of health care, crap and trade, higher taxes, and more government bailouts.

Obama's policies have destroyed at least four million jobs this year. That's how many people have been laid off since February. Yet he keeps insisting that he's saved jobs, that it would be worse if not for his policies. Is this provable? Absolutely not. That's why he makes the claim. Just like the global warming crowd has been fudging the numbers, Obama wants to hide the decline, to be judged by an imaginary, immeasurable, and arbitrary number instead of the actual proof on the ground. It's a brilliant political strategy because the media lets him get away with it, but it's a lie. The lie may make Obama look better, it might even make him feel better, but it does nothing for out of work Americans or the 10% unemployment rate.

Here's a reminder for brain dead Democrats who still fail to grasp economics. The government doesn't produce wealth and can't create wealth. They only confiscate it from the private sector. Oddly enough, the private sector is the only place where wealth is produced. When the government confiscates this money, the private sector loses capital it would otherwise invest in jobs, research and development, and expansion. So how do you encourage companies to hire, reduce unemployment, and boost the economy? Stop confiscating the money by cutting taxes. There's your answer, Mr. President, and it has nothing to do with another porkulus or making homes more "energy efficient", which are just some of the lame, useless ideas to come out of his jobs summit.

No matter how much money the government spends on "Jobs Programs" or temporary financial incentives like cash for clunkers, they are ignoring free market principles, artificially boosting demand at the expense of market correction, which is necessary for long term stability and growth. You might as well just light a match and have a big bonfire with all the money this administration has wasted on "economic programs" so far. It's worse than doing nothing, because we are literally digging a hole that ends in bankruptcy and a next to worthless dollar.

The more Obama spends on expanding state bureaucracy and saving bloated government jobs, the more he is ensuring higher taxes in the future, discouraging companies from hiring in the first place. Stop confiscating the money in corporate and income taxes, let those who earn the money spend or invest it, and watch the economy take off. You'll still get credit for it, Mr. President, and it works every time it's tried.

But I guess that's too much to ask from an administration whose economic advisors have almost no experience in the private sector. In fact, only 7% of Obama's economic advisors have actually worked outside of academia or government. Let's put that in perspective. The current unemployment level is higher than the experience level of the men Obama has put in charge of fixing it.

In his autobiography, "Dreams of My Father", the president referred to his brief stint in the private sector as "going to work behind enemy lines." Which poses an interesting question. If Obama considers the creation of wealth the enemy, how does free enterprise even stand a chance, and who exactly will Obama let hire who without government interference?

Hat tip: Stefan Deeran at BNET Intercom.

How about a "Listen to the People Forum", Mr. President?

Last week, President Obama announced a "Jobs Forum" to solicit ideas to help put unemployed Americans back to work. This would be fine and dandy if we were talking about a student council proposal. Meet and have cookies, discuss possible themes for the prom, and maybe sign everybody up for a leadership conference or two. But when the President of the United States of America starts suggesting brainstorming sessions and team-building exercises to jump-start the economy, you know he is completely in over his head.

Not that we should be surprised. If you've spent your entire political career running for office and never been held accountable for actually running an office, holding a "Jobs Forum" probably seems like the perfect solution to pretending to do something about a problem you have no desire or idea how to fix. When unemployment is expected to reach almost 11% and one in six Americans is said to be looking for more hours of work, you have to at least act like you're concerned. Such antics might work in an election, but it's a terrible way to lead a nation.

Not only can't the government create jobs without stealing resources from the private sector (thus killing private sector growth), but every policy the president has pushed so far can accurately be described as a "Jobs-Killing Forum." From the stimulus boondoggle to handing control of car companies over to the unions, from cap-and-trade energy schemes to state-run health care, from protectionism to higher taxes, President Obama has all but declared war on free enterprise.

Rather than let the invisible hand of the free market correct the economy, the Obama administration has cut it off and inserted their own heavy hand in its place, picking winners and losers and threatening regulations at every turn. Private companies now change their behavior to meet the federal government's whimsical desires, often at the expense of innovation and job creation. What good is a forum when the best ideas to come out of it will be ignored if they don't support a larger, more intrusive bureaucracy?

Of course, the purpose of the "Jobs Forum" isn't to turn the economy around. It's to protect and insulate the Obama brand from the political fallout from his statist policies. To turn the economy around, Obama would have to abandon his Far Left agenda, shrink government, lower taxes, and listen to the will of the people. That's not going to happen. Meanwhile, so long as we're aimlessly brainstorming, why not hold a "Peace Forum" to solve Iraq and Afghanistan.

The only forum that Obama doesn't seem willing to hold is a "Listen to the People Forum." He has all but ignored the results of this year's elections in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey in which Republicans, left for dead nine months ago, won handily. He has ignored the polls, demonized the Tea Party protesters, and vilified news organizations that oppose his policies.

Only the most callous person would continue to push an unpopular ideology at the expense of everyday Americans, but it's become clear that Obama holds in contempt those who wish to succeed without relying on the state.

Murdering Economic Recovery in the Womb

New figures show unemployment has hit 10.2%, but that could be far from the bottom. This from today's Washington Examiner:

As Examiner columnist and practicing economist Irwin M. Stelzer notes in today's edition, some of the traditional signs of recovery look positive. But businesses aren't investing in new jobs, they are instead hoarding cash, waiting for the next shoe to drop in Washington on such issues as health care reform, cap-and-trade, and federal taxes, spending and deficits. "There is a nagging fear among those who closely watch not only the economy but government policy that these nascent economic forces might be murdered in their crib by the current administration," Stelzer notes.

It's time for Obama and Democratic congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to step back from their radical plans to vastly expand federal power, spending, deficits and taxes, and instead reach out to conservatives in both parties who understand how to make the economy grow with tax cuts, reduced bureaucracy, and lower government spending. In other words, stop playing ideological games and get serious about restoring economic growth before millions more jobs are lost.

Democrats will argue that reforming health care is part of the economic recovery, but nothing could be further from the truth. The economy didn't tank because of the costs of an MRI. I don't know of one economist making this nonsensical argument, unless Keith Olbermann counts as an economist. Of course, I'm surprised he even counts as a TV personality. Leave it to progressive kool-aid drinkers to blame the economy on tax cuts (instead of out-of-control government spending) and a health care system that 8 out of 10 Americans are satisfied with.

If PelosiCare or ObamaCare passes, health insurance will get more expensive, making the economy worse, thanks to the thousands of tax hikes and fees proposed on everything from the uninsured to the overinsured, from doctors who order too many tests to medical device manufacturers, all passed down in the form of higher premiums. Not to mention the draconian regulations and price controls on private insurers.

Add in the crap-and-trade boondoggle to create green jobs (i.e. government jobs producing inefficient energy subsidized on the backs of cheap, profitable, and efficient energy), the unavoidable inflation on the horizon, the possibility of a Copenhagen treaty on climate change that punishes US industrial growth, and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and you are looking at a deadly cocktail that will destroy jobs and increase the odds for a great depression.

I wouldn't argue that Dems are killing the recovery in the crib, however. That would suggest the recovery is further along than it actually is. The recovery is still in the womb, and Obama and company are in the process of aborting it in the name of bashing capitalism. No surprise given the Left's fanatical devotion to the procedure. If the sanctity of life isn't worth protecting, what would make free enterprise worth saving?

Stimulus Dollars for Saunas (model not included)

There's no denying saunas can be stimulating. But stimulus dollars for saunas? Sadly, but not surprisingly, our tax dollars are now being used to build saunas. So if you know one of the millions of people of Scandinavian descent lucky enough to work in the sauna industry, rest easy. The government is committed to saving their jobs. This, according to the recovery.gov website:

ROCKWOOD GENERAL CONTRACTORS INCORPORATED

57 3404::TAS RECOVERY -- KRSM050144 - REPAIR MENS AND WOMENS LOCKER ROOMS, BASE GYM, B- 520, HILL AFB UT. REPAIR WOMEN'S AND MEN'S LOCKER ROOMS IN BLDG 520; PROVIDE AND INSTALL A NEW HEATING UNIT, DOOR, LIGHTS, WALLS, AND BENCHES IN THE MEN'S SAUNA; PROVIDE AND INSTALL A NEW SAUNA IN THE WOMEN'S LOCKER ROOM,

$738,586

It's true these saunas are for the air force, and I'm usually the last person to criticize our troops. After all, we all want to provide the men and women who serve this country with world class amenities. But Hill Air Force Base just built a brand new, state-of-the-art recreation center with a rock climbing wall, a child care center, and saunas in 2006. That was less than three years ago. Spending three-quarters of a million of taxpayer dollars during a recession for more hot rocks seems frivolous to say the least. Besides, without world class models like Svetlana, pictured above, what's the point? And why not request this in an appropriations bill? It's hardly a project that will create many jobs, the supposed aim of the stimulus.

Not that it matters. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (i.e. the stimulus bill) is a boondoggle that commits money to all sorts of pet projects that have nothing to do with jobs, which is one reason why unemployment is about to reach 10% nationally (and could hit 15% in some states).

While the Democrats have been busy "stimulating our economy" with such frivolous investments as hiking paths, frisbee golf courses, turtle tunnels, and yes, even saunas, the rest of the world that didn't follow our lead into debt is climbing out of the global recession. Asia just experienced their best month of retail sales in 14 months. Australia and Germany are looking at robust GDP growth for the second straight quarter. In the meantime, our economy remains stagnant, burdened by increasing and unsustainable debt. In fact, a new report shows that America will soon have the seventh highest amount of debt relative to GDP of any nation. Turns out Obama does believe in making us exceptional at something after all. Look out, Zimbabwe, we're gaining on you!

Everyone but the Sheila Jackson Lees of the Democratic party know that Cash for Clunkers was an abysmal failure, triggering an artificial boost in auto sales at the expense of long-term, market adjusted growth. Witness the 23% decrease in car sales the month after the program ended, not to mention all the other retail businesses that lost out on August customers while everyone was encouraged to buy tiny Japanese cars. And we all know what a boost selling tiny Japanese cars does for America.

But that's chump change compared to the Democrats' stimulus bill. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is basically a trillion dollar Cash for Clunkers, an attempt to spend our way out of too much spending. As a result, the private sector has shrunk at the expense of Big Government. Companies with long term viability and a solid foundation of capital are suddenly losing out to failing companies on the receiving end of bailouts or those with close political ties. As the anemic results of the stimulus trickle in, we see profitable companies facing increased regulation and higher taxes to prop up companies that have an "in" with the feds. The companies being propped up by stimulus money are draining resources away from those who can compete on their own merits.

This country was founded as a meritocracy, but it is quickly becoming an Obamacracy, where the government, and in particular the Left, picks winners and losers. ACORN, for instance, received a million dollar grant for fire prevention awareness, beating out actual fire stations. Many recipients of stimulus dollars have received contracts based merely on their skin color. These minority-owned businesses may not offer the best services or the lowest bids, but the government awards them cash based on laws that require "diversity." Rockwood Contractors is one such company, located in California, but being awarded the sauna contracts in Utah, not to mention construction projects at air force bases in North Dakota and Texas.

Diversity is hardly a worthwhile goal if we have to inhibit the liberties of others to achieve it, if we punish successful proprietors to support the ones we feel have the right "cosmetic look". Diversity shouldn't override freedom. In fact, real diversity can only be attained as a result of freedom. That's what Martin Luther King argued for in his "I have a dream speech" - that one day we would all be free. The diversity that matters is a diversity of ideas and political philosophies, freedom for all men. In other words, the exact opposite of the Left's smear campaign against Rush Limbaugh. But more on that in my next post.

In the meantime, I did some research online and discovered a way to save hundreds of thousands of dollars at Hill Air Force Base. If you call now they'll even throw in an extra belt for free:

Sauna photo compliments of Rule 5 (How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog)

Happy Labor Day, Goodbye American Jobs

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

Economy Improves for Fourth Straight Month!

Our gracious leader was at it again Wednesday at a town hall meeting in North Carolina. The P.R.esident, as I can only refer to someone who spends more time on TV than The Golden Girls (and if you've ever watched Lifetime, you know they're on a lot), hit the neverending campaign trail, teleprompter in tow, to sell the improving economy. You know, the economy that has been shedding jobs like a snake sheds skins and driving consumer confidence down to just a notch above Michael Vick's popularity among PETA members.

"We may be seeing the beginning of the end of the recession," the president told a packed auditorium of pre-chosen audience members. "We have stopped the free fall. The market is up and the financial system is no longer on the verge of collapse."

For those with a short memory, we've been witnessing the Obama Administration see signs of an economic recovery for four or five months now. Come to think of it, April 1st sounds about right, and we're all fools for believing a word. If it seems like deja vu all over again, maybe that's because it is.

"What we're starting to see is glimmers of hope across the economy," Obama bragged on April 10. His economic adviser and architect of the stimulus, Lawrence Summers, concurred. "We can be reasonably confident that it's going to end within the next few months and you'll no longer have that sense of free fall."

This is the same Larry Summers that's also a fan of measuring the strength of the economy by monitoring google searches instead of those actually searching for jobs. But if the glimmers of hope in April were only a mirage, no worries. A month later, with unemployment hitting it's worst levels in nearly 26 years, Barack had another stirring vision.

"It's safe to say we have stepped back from the brink," the president told a Beverly Hills audience on May 27. "The stimulus bill that Congress passed three months ago is starting to improve the economy."

Moses this guy ain't, but half the country seems prepared to follow him across the economic wasteland. This is the same stimulus bill that has only handed out 8% of the hundreds of billions allocated thus far and is only slated to hand out 20% by the end of the year. Vice-president Joe Biden has also been on a speaking tour to spread the good news about the Dems' failing stimulus.

"Thanks to the Recovery Act we are making critical investments in our infrastructure, stimulating billions of dollars of activity and creating millions of jobs like the ones here in Bergen County," the veep told New Jersey officials on May 7.

At the time of the speech, New Jersey's unemployment rate was 8.5%. Today it's 9.2%. The vice-president's appearances have had similar effects around the nation. If he's planning to show up in your town, you might want to treat the boss to dinner. I'm just saying. But at least Biden has been willing to jump off-script and tell the truth on occasion, as he did earlier this month when he admitted to George Stephanoupolos, "we and everyone else misread the economy."

If Obama has had no positive effect on the economy, the same can't be said for the effect he's had on the press. While some were trumpeting his economic healing powers the day after the election, others have gone out of their way to find the silver lining despite poor job reports, to sell the end of the recession as quickly as possible in order to push Obama's socialist agenda. These stooges, whether at Reuters, Newsweek, or MSNBDNC, wait breathlessly on the edge of their seats for anything they can point to as signs of a recovery. You can imagine how overexuberant they'll be the first month there isn't terrible news, as the business cycle naturally runs its course and unemployment drops back below 8 or 9%. Still far from full employment. Nevermind the biggest thing preventing private sector growth right now is increased government debt to pay for the stimulus boondoggle.

I can't imagine what it's like to live in Communist China, but I'm getting a sense of what it's like to experience state-run media right here in the U.S.A. When China or Venezuela publish their unbelievable propaganda, when they stage their silly photo-ops with the very people they're insulting, do the lies really get that much bigger? The whoppers advertised by Brother O's Traveling Salvation Show defy logic and lack credibility. It's one thing to remain upbeat and positive. It's another to pretend your policies are the only thing that can save the economy, pass them, and then lie about how well they are working.

How long before we see the headline, "Great Leader Inspires Confidence"? When such things are written, results no longer matter.

Are We Becoming Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson sang, "I'm looking at the man in the mirror." And if he would have looked in the mirror before his passing, he would have seen a broke, pill-popping ghost of himself. Once popular, once filled with so much potential, once the voice of his generation, Michael Jackson was a talented phenomena who broke down barriers and sold more records than anyone the world has ever seen. Then he lost his moral compass, quit producing viable material, spent his fortune on the useless and the bizarre, and completely self-destructed.

Is it just me or does this sound like America? Once a great nation founded on the principles of restraint - individual liberty and limited government, once the voice of freedom and democracy for people around the world, once the wealthiest nation on earth, we are now a culture on the decline, our free markets burdened by a ballooning federal government and our moral compass wavering.

We are addicted to unsustainable entitlement programs and dependent on government welfare, popping pills we hope someone else will pay for and spending massive amounts of money on frivolous programs. Our glory days are behind us, we produce nothing viable anymore or at least very little, and we have completely neglected to build the plants and refineries necessary to resupply our energy. Meanwhile, we bury ourselves in never-ending debt, most of it going to a traveling entourage of lawyers and political cronies.

It has been a process of killing ourselves slowly - until now. Under Obama, we are on the fast track to our own sold-out memorial service. If this administration has its way, it will turn every aspect of our lives over to Big Brother, from how much we are allowed to make to what temperature we can set our thermostats at to whether or not we are allowed to get the treatments for what ails us. George Orwell predicted this authoritarian future quite brilliantly when he wrote 1984. His only mistake was not calling it 2009 and setting it in America.

Who could have foreseen such a bleak course for the greatest beacon of freedom and liberty on earth? Yet like Michael Jackson, the signs of our demise have been evident for some time. Now we need the courage to speak the truth. It's time for the people of this country to look in the mirror and realize we aren't the energetic, talented and upstart, cool black kid fronting the Jackson Five or moonwalking in Thriller. Our moon trips are way behind us and we are currently thrilling no one. Our economy is sick, we haven't had a hit in years, and we've butchered our founding values as badly as Michael butchered his nose. Would Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams even recognize us today?

As it turns out, all that media coverage wasn't excessive after all. Michael Jackson, eccentric though he was, is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. And while it's too late for the King of Pop, America still has a fighting chance. We just have to tell the incumbents selling us out in Washington, D.C. to beat it.