It’s very difficult to keep track of all of Barack Obama’s plans and initiatives as they assume a chimeric quality, keeping Americans wary and guarded, lest another attempt at a costly and intrusive program originates from the chastened, but unbowed Democrats. It’s clear that the American people are most concerned with the economy, and that message seems to have finally penerated the President’s tin cochlea and now appears to be working toward his brain. Recent pronouncements following the tectonic shift in the Senate indicate that the President is promising to focus on “job creation”. Only problem is he’s attempting to create jobs through more stimulus spending.
It brings to mind the psychological adage that doing the same thing and expecting different results is the true definition of insanity. The first stimulus package neither created nor “saved” any jobs to speak of, save and except for the bureaucrats who keep dreaming up job creation achievements in non-existent congressional districts or zip codes.
There is a plethora of simple reasons why job creation in the U.S. is slow. It’s called “uncertainty”. See if you follow this: The President promises to tax “the rich”, all those making $250,000 per year or more. This causes “the rich” to freak out, putting whatever plans they had for expanding their businesses on hold for fear that any additional income might disappear down the giant tax hole. Since “the rich” and not those on Minimum wage generally create jobs, there is a sharp drop in demand for new employees among small businesses.
Then there is the threat of cap and trade legislation, which is another of Mr. Obama’s panaceas to save the planet. Everyone admits that once enacted, cap and trade legislation in the U.S. will cause massive increases in the price of everything from home heating fuel to gasoline, to fertilizers and to food and clothing. In anticipation of coping with the ultimate effects of such draconian legislation, American businesses are putting the brakes on plans to expand because of a lack of knowledge about how exactly the cap and trade legislation would affect their business. Consequently companies are not taking on new employees at this time.
The Healthcare fiasco that has recently been put in limbo by the election of Scott Brown is another job killer. And the botoxed vampire, Nancy Pelosi, is promising Americans that healthcare reform will be enacted, pretty much in the same way she has always expected it will. Taxing Cadillac healthcare plans, forcing individuals to purchase health insurance or go to jail, adding some 30 million to the Medicaid rolls and taking punitive actions against health insurers has sent a clear message to American business that the government is about to make monumental changes in the way one-sixth of the American economy operates and is not really too fussy about how much it will cost or who will pay for it. Consequently, no companies are taking on new employees, as they don’t have a clue how much the provision of healthcare to their employees will cost them.
And speaking of cost, there’s the deficit of $1.6 TRILLION this year and the proposed $1.4 TRILLION in 2011. Obama somehow blames this, all together now, ‘on eight years of the previous administration’s policies”. But at some point in time this has to become Obama’s economy and not George W. Bush’s. And it should also be pointed out that Obama’s deficits are 300% higher than the largest of Bush’s deficits. But that’s beside the point. The point is that deficits of this magnitude will have a devastating effect on the American economy.
Interest rates will skyrocket. Mortgage rates will climb and mortgage defaults will increase astronomically. The housing market will go into the toilet, dragging the entire U.S. economy with it.
This recession could last ten years or more and could cause the eclipse of America’s preeminence and it will all be at the feet of Barack Obama’s administration. The most we can hope for is that Mr. Obama continues to stumble and reel for the next three years as he has stumbled and reeled the first.
If the American people can prevent his programs from being enacted we have a chance to survive. If not, he will leave a legacy of failure larger and more devastating than the failure of the British Empire.
Klaus Rohrich is senior columnist for Canada Free Press. Klaus also writes topical articles for numerous magazines. He has a regular column on RetirementHomes and is currently working on his first book dealing with the toxicity of liberalism. His work has been featured on the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, among others. He lives and works in a small town outside of Toronto.
It’s very difficult to keep track of all of Barack Obama’s plans and initiatives as they assume a chimeric quality, keeping Americans wary and guarded, lest another attempt at a costly and intrusive program originates from the chastened, but unbowed Democrats. It’s clear that the American people are most concerned with the economy, and that message seems to have finally penerated the President’s tin cochlea and now appears to be working toward his brain. Recent pronouncements following the tectonic shift in the Senate indicate that the President is promising to focus on “job creation”. Only problem is he’s attempting to create jobs through more stimulus spending.
