Archive for September, 2011

Um, Mr. President, those ideas failed already (but here are some better ones)

Herman Cain

The U.S. economy is on life support. The stock market is on a roller coaster. The unemployment situation has gotten worse. The Middle East is more volatile than ever. Congress has one of the lowest approval ratings in history, while President Obama’s approval rating has hit a new low.

And now, after his big “jobs speech” before a joint session of Congress last week, the president wants to spend another nearly $450 billion to turn things around, since the first stimulus of nearly $1 trillion did not work. The speech contained the same kind of ideas he proposed earlier, packaged in some different rhetoric except for two new additions.

First, he proposed to cut the payroll tax in half for both employees and employers, but he did not say for how long. Granted, it’s half of what I have been proposing for months. But without major companion cuts in the top corporate and personal income tax rates, and the suspension of taxes on repatriated foreign profits, it’s just another crumb from the want-to-be king’s table.

Businesses are not going to rush out and start hiring people, just as they did not when the president passed the 2 percent payroll tax crumb in the first stimulus package. And businesses still do not know what the tax structure will be in 2013. That’s not fuel for the economic engine, which is the business sector. It’s just a few dollars in the pockets of workers, and more uncertainty.

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A GOP Debate, an Obama Speech, and Sarah Palin

David Karki

The last three days could not illustrate better just how far American politics have fallen as of late, and what it will take to resuscitate it and the nation from the coma into which President Obama has put it.

Start with tonight’s Republican Debate. One could call them the Seven Dwarfs, so little do they look while they obediently jump through the ridiculous hoops presented to the by the biased media that effectively works for Obama.

And even when they have glimmer of understanding how obviously they’re being manipulated, as Newt Gingrich did when he criticized moderator Brian Williams of NBC News for trying to instigate squabbles amongst them rather than allowing them to target Obama, they still stupidly play the game. After all, this was a MSNBC/Politico debate – what the hell else did the seven fools think they were going to get from two blatantly liberal outlets? If any of them really believed in what Newt said, to say nothing of having an ounce of strategic thinking, they would never have bothered showing up for this rigged dog-and-pony show in the first place! Read the rest of this entry »

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Gee, let’s borrow and spend another $300 billion to ‘create jobs’

Dan Calabrese

Reports leaking in advance of President Obama’s much-heralded-for-some-reason jobs speech say he will propose $300 billion in new initiatives designed to “create jobs.”

Unsurprisingly, there are said to be no initiatives aimed at eliminating barriers to productivity and growth in the private sector. Obama wants to spend money the federal government doesn’t have on unemployment checks and public works projects, which he thinks will spur consumer spending and get construction workers back on the job.

So much to say about this:

- If the theory is that more consumer spending creates jobs because more people buy stuff, and you can therefore employ more people to make more stuff, how does that work when you’re merely extending unemployment benefits for people who have already been getting them for some time now? By doing that, you don’t increase consumer buying power to anything greater than it already is.

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Laces out, Jay!

Brett Noel

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Large version for newspaper publication.

Greyscale version for newspaper publication.

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Another speech, another zero for Obama

Herman Cain

Last week, the Labor Department reported that no new jobs were created in the month of August – something that has not occurred for more than 60 years. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said on CNBC, “I believe we have done everything we can, and I know that right now there is lot of concern with what’s happening in Congress, and we have to get beyond that.”

I don’t believe you have done everything, Madam Secretary.

You could start with a basic understanding that businesses create jobs, and that more government spending on government projects is not the answer. The American people are not going to get past what’s happening in Congress, because way too few of the right things are happening in Congress.

The Minority Leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, issued a statement blaming the zero jobs report on the uncertainty created by the Republicans from the debt ceiling debate, and the Republicans’ repeated blockade of the Democrats’ plans.

What plans?

That’s code for more spending and debt, which have not worked. The Republicans should block proposals for more spending and debt.

Now, President Obama wants to address a joint session of Congress to discuss his plan for jobs. If his Labor Secretary has given us a clue from her statement, then we will not hear anything new – just more spending proposals repackaged in different rhetoric. If he listens to his party’s Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, then he will once again crank up the rhetoric of blaming the Republicans, and throw at least a few political jabs toward former President Bush.

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