We are in trouble. National unemployment is over 9 percent. When we count the underemployed, and those who have quit looking for jobs, we reach the devastating reality that 1 in 5 is out of productive work. Labor force participation for blacks, Hispanics, youth, and middle aged Americans all lag even further behind.
1 in 4 Americans owes more on their mortgage than their home is worth. Entire towns and rural areas display blight. Home foreclosures and for-sale signs are common even in the most well-to-do neighborhoods. The Central Valley of California is now the new dust bowl, owing to federal water regulations which prize a one-inch delta smelt fish over the livelihoods of agriculture families.
Worker wages are not going up. Business capital is being invested abroad in no small part due to federal and state bureaucrats that have been over-regulating and pouring “sand in the gears” of the free enterprise system. Can anyone name a city in any state (save Texas) where one may get a construction permit in less than 8 months?
The current administration continues threatening ever more health care mandates, business transaction taxes, capital gains and dividends taxes, corporate taxes, income taxes, fuel taxes, and wealth, death and other taxes.
Americans already pay a stunningly high amount of sales, property, and wage taxes. Yet President Obama proposes to phase out tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property, sales, and state and local income taxes, and medical expenses. He also seeks to raise the already very uncompetitive U.S. corporate tax rate. Does the administration think that investment capital cannot find another home on this planet, besides the United States?
The Obama administration’s economic record and current strategy has been woeful. Borrowing, printing, and taxing has failed, once again, in a globally competitive economy where worker productivity and standards of living rise only when capital investors trust in stable, sustainable, economic leadership.
The ideology of redistribution of wealth has failed the American people. The Administration’s senior economic advisers are now discredited or gone. The Obama recovery has produced anemic real economic growth.
The President lamely jokes that “shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected”. And the “new” jobs from government expansion were created expensively, temporarily, and for political cronies, allies, and supporters.
Mr. Obama violated 200 years of corporate law to subordinate GM bondholders to pennies on the dollar and pay back labor union allies with the plunder. His recessed-picked NLRB leader continues to block Boeing from building 787 Dreamliners in South Carolina for political reasons.
The profligate spending has created monstrous deficit and debt, damaging the U.S. credit rating and the American dollar. Mr. Obama has cheered on the Fed’s loose monetary policy, hoping to limp into re-election before rising interest rates threaten a double dip recession. The current lengthy jobless recovery is a nightmare for Americans. Prepare for more dark times as the percentage of the federal budget spent on interest payments and the welfare state grows.
What to do? Here are just a few proposals to reverse Obamanomics:
Stop the Federal Regulatory Madness: There are thousands of pages annually in new Executive Branch regulations in the Federal Registry, which businesses cannot possibly follow. To the Congress: Stop! Stop the Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank, and Waxman-Markey bills. They all have massive negative consequences for U.S. economic investment. Start the repeal process now.
Allow for domestic energy exploration, permitting, and drilling.
The war on energy production hurts workers and has raised energy prices.
Western economic growth means better products and a cleaner environment. Why let China win the future? It most certainly won’t be a cleaner one. And why is Mr. Obama telling Brazil we will be their biggest energy customer? Why aren’t we trying to make them ours?
Reduce the size and scope of government, balance the budget and initiate across the board spending limits. Everyone has skin in the game, and everyone loses if our economy stalls, and the dollar declines. Everyone wins if we battle back through stimulative tax cuts, like payroll tax holidays and incentives for investment. Economic velocity and growth is a policy choice. Stop the ivory tower aversion to freedom, individual achievement and American success.
Ratify export-opening trade agreements, and invite innovators and investors from around the world to invest in the U.S.A. by creating an environment that is superior to our global economic competitors.
Allow legal immigrants who achieve advanced degrees to stay and start companies here.
Cease foreign aid to all but the most dependable allies across the world. We cannot afford it. It is a wellspring of fraud and abuse both at home and abroad. Buying friends is a feeble policy and everyone knows it.
And finally, address the “elephant in the room”, HEALTH CARE. As we repeal Obamacare, let’s double down and repeal President Bush’s Medicare Part D prescription drug plan.
Americans are suffering. It’s long past time to get government off their back, and on their side.