Monday, September 6, 2010

Guest Opinion - Poised for Tragedy


Poised for tragedy
Guest Opinion
Kevin McCullough, Townhall.com

The longer President Obama refuses to acknowledge the direction of our nation's economy the greater the impact will be when the looming depression that awaits is named in his honor. For a leader who has had the advantages of an Ivy League education, he seems to be an excessively poor student of history. But in 120 days no one will be able to dispute that the economic mess the United States finds herself in belongs to anyone except President Barack Hussein Obama.
The basis of this reality is rooted in two truths that became quite pronounced this week. The first is that President Obama is ignoring the very real direction the nation is headed. The second is that he is purposefully ignoring the impact his looming historic tax increases will have. Both are contributing to the pessimism that overarches the morale and tone of the entrepreneurial framework of the future.
This week President Obama took to the White House press corps and by extension to the nation to claim that the nation saw job growth of 67,000 jobs in August. Even if this number was real it would be a pitifully tiny percent of the 14,885,000 who are both on unemployment (1 in 10 Americans) as well as those 23,768,000 who are underemployed (working but not earning enough for basic needs - 1 in 5 families).
The bigger problem for the president however is that the number isn't real. The fact is the nation saw 114,000 people added to the unemployment lines in August and the net jobs lost for the month sat at 54,000. In all the "summer of recovery"--as both President Obama and Vice President Biden pronounced it--saw 238,000 more jobs disappear. Telling the nation that his plans have taken the economy in the right direction, and implying that the nation is seeing a recovery in the area of employment is either willfully dishonest, or painfully, even treacherously naive. At the rate of this "recovery" another 317,333 workers could be sitting on the sidelines before the end of the year.
Additionally we are now on track to see the single largest collection of tax increases ever proposed take the Obama economy even further into the tank. In less than 120 days President Obama's plan to add a collective 18.6% to the federal tax burden will continue the economic downward spiral into record breaking depression-era territory. And remember he repeatedly said--on the campaign trail--that he should be elected expressly to prevent the nation's economy from complete deterioration.
Instead unemployment that was growing in the transition from Bush to Obama has exploded to double what it was under Bush. Even worse this means that while 14,885,000 Americans are claiming unemployment assistance, some 23,768,000 families are presently struggling through work that they have but are unable to meet their basic needs.
And about the time we are belting out Auld Lang Syne this holiday season, President Obama will raise all five income levels of tax categories between 3-5%.
Ironically the President will be raising the rate on the category that is home to seventy-five percent of all small businesses in America by the largest increase.
I call it ironic because it is the small business community in America that hires 2 out of every 3 new workers in America.
Eventually it all adds up.
The president is not pushed on this issue by the press. The president's team pretends that these realities do not exist. The president himself is willing to perpetuate the false notion that the stimulus package set up a "recovery summer" that in truth ended up in greater pain than it began with.
None of this takes into effect the additional costs that will be incurred by taxpayers when the full implementation of President Obama's control of one-sixth of the economy through the manipulation of how we receive health care benefits kicks in. And not that it has great likelihood of passing this year, but if by some miracle it did, the Obama tax penalties that would be incurred by every citizen in the nation under the proposed "Cap & Trade" legislation would add even greater misery to the growing pile.
All of these pending tax increases will be put into effect against well more than 95% of American taxpayers. Speaking of which that certainly contradicts his most famous campaign line.
President Obama is ignoring and misrepresenting the rate of growth (or lack thereof) in the job numbers, and his economic team has laid the groundwork for the harshest attack on small businesses and every family in America that pays taxes effective January 1, 2011.
By every indicator this pundit can see, we are poised for tragedy... and I didn't get an Ivy League education!

Kevin McCullough is the nationally syndicated host of "Baldwin/McCullough Radio and columnist based in New York. He blogs at www.muscleheadrevolution.com.

Have a great day and feel safe and secure. Big Brother watches over us.
Watch for more Bits ‘n Pieces as they occur. Good stuff? Bad stuff? You decide.

Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. If you wish to receive notification of his comments, opinions and reports when they are posted, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. Feel free to express your views.

1 comment:

CER said...

Hi, Bob
Up until this point in time, the erosive destructive effects of “politics as usual” could be absorbed by the vigor of the American economy developed by our ancestors.
Unfortunately we no longer have that luxury.
It is time that we (Republicans) stop acting like a bunch of bullies at the back of the school room, shooting their spit wads at every brave student that had the courage to stand up in front of the class and perform.
We repeat – bullies. It’s time to lay off Obama. When we read your articles and those of Kevin McCullough we almost wish that Obama would simply resign and throw the reins of power to the Republicans. To criticize him for delivering an upbeat assessment of the economy is unfair and you know it is. Elected officials of both parties have always been cheerleaders for the economy. What did Republican Sec. of Treasury Henry Paulson (the same Henry that made tens of millions at Goldman Sachs doing the things that led to ours and even the world’s economic disaster) do? Even he was upbeat about our economy until the fatal weekend when in a panic he called together the political leaders of both parties on a Saturday.
Tell us what policies the Republicans would come up with that differ from the preceding eight years under Bush. The Bush administration operated under the same spend spend spend Democratic policies with the only nuance being “don’t tax”.
It is time that we give our economic collapse the benefit of a macroeconomic analysis and an accurate diagnosis of how we got ourselves into this mess.
Please take the time to read our Labor Day article entitled “How to celebrate Labor Day during a period of high unemployment” in the Darkejournal.com. We believe you will agree, that by comparison, the Guest Opinion “Poised for tragedy” is nothing but trashtalk at a very crucial point in our country’s history.
Your friends and supporters,
Dr. and Mrs. Charles Reier