We had a pretty good jobs report in January, with 243,000 jobs created. That's a good sign…but only if it continues. If we created 240,000 jobs every month, that would be 2.88 million jobs created over a year's time. Not too bad. If that continues for several YEARS, we'll be in decent shape, so I'm not going to get overly excited yet. Still, it's a good bit of news in what have been some bleak economic years.

Our economy is supposed to create jobs. That's normal. I looked at some jobs data going back through history, and every presidential administration since Calvin Coolidge has created jobs, with two exceptions – Herbert Hoover from 1929-1933 (the Great Depression), and Barack Obama. The only other President beside Hoover and Obama who didn't have net job creation during his first term was George W. Bush.

While job creation is great, the unemployment rate is not falling due to America's great job creation numbers, because they haven't been that great.

The unemployment rate is falling because record numbers of people are leaving the work force. We have the lowest labor participation rate in 30 years, as per the chart below (from Bloomberg):

What this means is that so many people are unemployed over the long term or dropping out of the work force for other reasons that they no longer show up in Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data as being unemploymed (BLS only counts those receiving unemployment benefits as unemployed).

In January, a record 1.2 million people left the labor force. They don't have jobs, but they are no longer counted as unemployed. The smaller labor participation rate is the primary reason the official unemployment rate (8.3%) is falling. If we were to recalculate the unemployment rate using the work force participation rate from December 2007, it would be 11% instead of 8.3%.

Here's the even more depressing part. To get our labor force back to the participation rates we had prior to the recession, we'd have to add about 5.7 million more jobs above the rate of population growth. With current rates of population growth, it takes about 1.6 million new jobs created every year JUST TO BREAK EVEN. To date under the Obama administration, we have not done that. We still have a net loss of 2 million jobs under Obama. Still, things are turning around somewhat. In his SOTU speech, Obama said, "in the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs". That's roughly accurate, but it doesn't really mean the employment picture is getting better. It just means it's not getting worse. It means it's keeping about even with population growth.

We have a LONG way to go.

The Lord Of The Flies movement takes baby steps…

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: “We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out to curb the influx of derelicts.” – OWS kitchen volunteer Rafael Moreno

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others, Part II: "If you’re going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There’s a lot of takers here and they feel entitled. – OWS protestor Lauren Digiola (link)

Yes, we certainly can't have any entitlement-seekers infecting the Occupy movement of…um…entitlement-seekers. Gotta keep those losers out. The stuff the Occupiers have is THEIRS, dammit !!! They can't be expected to redistribute THEIR wealth to the less fortunate !!! We Are The 99%…except for those homeless derelicts !!!
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Robbing Peter To Pay Paul: "With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. … The legislation would … provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. … USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short — while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." –The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso

I call this the Social Security financial oversight model. When the government sees a pile of money, it can't keep it's grubby mitts off of it. Btw, there is about $17.5 trillion sitting in the retirement funds of Americans if you add all of them together. How much do you think the government money-grubbers would love to gain control of that pile of cash ??? You'd have to subtract the $2.5 trillion sitting in the Social Security Trust Fund from the $17.5 trillion amount, because those SS funds don't really exist (the government already "borrowed" that money), but still, that leaves $15 trillion in our retirement funds, which is almost the exact amount of the national debt. When the cash-strapped government is already thinking about "borrowing" money from the pensions of federal employees, how long will it be until your IRA's and 401K's are taken over ? Lest you think I'm engaging in some fanciful paranoid delusion…the Obama administration already has plans to takeover your 401K's, which it could then "borrow" from. Beware.
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National Debate Loser: And what can we say about Rick Perry ? Trying to list the federal departments he would eliminate, Perry had an epic debate brain fart instead…

"Commerce, Education and the, uh, what's the third one there? Let's see…The third agency of government I would — I would do away with, Education, uh, the, uh, Commerce and, let's see,…I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."

Doh !!!! I think the third government department Perry was going for there is Lingerie, or maybe Junior Miss. Commodore Perry's presidential battleship may have just sunk.
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When Life Gets Tough, Make Things Up: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." –House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

For the record, under Obama, the alleged "job creator from day one", we have lost about 2.4 million jobs, and nobody outside Pelosi's vivid imagination believes unemployment would have been at 15 percent without Obama's failed stimulus package. Pelosi is a perpetual brain fart.
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Top 1% Denier: Here's an exchange between left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore and a CBS reporter…

Reporter: How are you helping these [Occupy protesters]?
Moore: Because I do well, I want taxes raised on people who do well, including mine.
Reporter: How are you helping these people with your $50 million?
Moore: I don't have $50 million.
Reporter: That's what it's rumored you are worth.
Moore: Well, really. Is that what you do is sell rumors?
Reporter: We're asking you for the truth.
Moore: You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
Reporter: Are you not part of the 1 percent?
Moore: Just don't lie, okay?

I'm still waiting for the FIRST left-wing multi-millionaire like Moore to give their own personal riches away for the "cause". When they start doing that, I'll start taking them more seriously, and not a moment before. Before the wealth redistributors start spending other people's money, how about they spend their own ???
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Unitary Executive Back In Style: "If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class". – VP Joe Biden

Whatever you say, Joe, but what about those 15 jobs-producing bills the Republican House has already passed that are sitting in the Senate waiting for the Democrats to bring them up ? In addition, why does every Democrat "jobs package" have to end up costing the taxpayers between $450 billion and $1 trillion ? Do Democrats simply not know our national debt is about to pass $15 trillion any day now ? Maybe their entire party has had a brain fart. The Democrats idea of stimulus is to take a bucket of water out of one end of the pool and pour it into the other end. They seem to believe they can fill up the pool this way. It won't ever work, because it CAN'T work. The real answer is to take money out of the government's hands and put it back into the hands of the private sector where it can do some good. The private sector is where growth comes from, not the government.
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And To Think, THIS Is the Guy They Call The Father Of The Democratic Party: "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." – Thomas Jefferson

While I'm quoting Jefferson, who in today's society believes these words ?…

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition". – Thomas Jefferson

Not the political left, I can tell you that for sure.

President Obama talks about closing corporate tax loopholes and taxing companies who move profits offshore. He calls this 'shared sacrifice". This kind of talk makes for a good class warfare political talking point, and Obama repeats this kind of stuff endlessly, but there's much Obama fails to tell us. Some of what Obama conveniently forgets to say was brought up on CBS' 60 Minutes program last night, in a repeat of a report it aired in March. 60 Minutes reported on corporate tax havens:

"Our government is in knots over ways to lower the federal budget deficit. Well, what if we told you we found a pot of money – over $60 billion a year – that could be used to help out?

That bundle is tax money not coming in to the IRS from American corporations. One major way they avoid paying the tax man is by parking their profits overseas. They'll tell you they're forced to do that because the corporate 35 percent tax rate is high in relation to other countries, and indeed it seems the tax code actually encourages companies to move their businesses out of the countryAmerican corporations. One major way they avoid paying the tax man is by parking their profits overseas. They'll tell you they're forced to do that because the corporate 35 percent tax rate is high in relation to other countries, and indeed it seems the tax code actually encourages companies to move their businesses out of the country.

Obama and his fellow liberals would dearly love to get their hands on that $60 billion in overseas corporate tax revenue. No doubt about that. They talk about it all the time. Some Republicans talk about it too. What the liberals generally don't talk about is WHY all those profits move to overseas tax shelters in the first place. One big reason is the USA's sky high corporate tax rates. What Obama also doesn't mention is that if we do his bidding and remove the corporate tax loopholes, while still leaving our corporate tax rates the highest in the world, the only thing we'd be encouraging is for MORE companies to relocate overseas. Talk about counterproductive. I thought the idea was to attract business to our shores, not to drive it away. Obama might as well take out an ad touting the USA as the 'anti-business capital of the world'. When I hear Obama talking about "shared sacrifice", I think about all the jobs and American wealth he wants to sacrifice. We'd certainly all share in that loss.

Another thing Obama fails to mention is what has happened in the past when the government tried to collect overseas corporate taxes:

Congress tried to put a stop to that with a law passed in 2004, mandating that any company that wanted to move offshore would still have to pay the 35 percent. But because of loopholes in the tax code, companies can substantially lower their taxes by moving chunks of their businesses to their foreign subsidiaries.

The result of the 2004 law was that companies moved even more of their operations overseas. Again, talk about counterproductive.

Here's the reality of the situation in the world today:

"We are dealing with a tax system that is a dinosaur," Cisco CEO John Chambers told Stahl.

One CEO who would talk to us was Chambers. Cisco is the giant high tech company headquartered in San Jose, Calif. He says our tax rate is insane. It's forcing companies into these maneuvers, especially when many other industrialized countries including Canada are busy lowering their tax rates in order to lure our companies and our jobs away.

"Every other government in the world has realized that the U.S. has it wrong. They're saying, 'I'm going to have lower taxes, period.' That's what you see all across Western Europe, that's what you see in Asia in the developed countries," Chambers said.

When asked if he's judged as a CEO on issues like taxes, Chambers said, "Absolutely."

He's been expanding Cisco overseas because of growing demand abroad, but also to lower the company's taxes: their average rate over the last three years was just 20 percent.

Economist Martin Sullivan says it's standard operating procedure for companies like Cisco. "U.S. multinationals are shifting their research facilities, shifting their manufacturing facilities, and shifting some regional headquarters into Switzerland and into Ireland. And those are massive numbers of jobs," he told Stahl.

Sullivan says Ireland taxes corporations at just a third of the U.S. rate, so no wonder the outskirts of Dublin look like Silicon Valley. Many well-known companies are all but obliged to go abroad.

"Well, if you have a 35 percent rate in the United States and, for example, a 12.5 percent rate in Ireland, there's a incentive to move your factory to Ireland," he explained.

"Six hundred American companies are in Ireland and they employ 100,000 people," Stahl pointed out. "Those are jobs that aren't here. And they moved to Ireland because of taxes."

"The U.S. Treasury in effect is subsidizing investment in Ireland," Sullivan said.

"Why isn't everybody in Ireland if it's that great?" Stahl asked.

"Almost everybody is in Ireland," Sullivan said. "All the pharmaceutical companies, all the high tech companies. You're stupid if you're not in Ireland," he replied.

"We notice that you have an awful lotta companies in Ireland," Stahl told Cisco's John Chambers.

"Yes we do," he acknowledged.

By Stahl's count, Cisco has eight companies in Ireland.

"We do what makes sense to the shareholders," Chambers said. "We go where there are incentives in countries that say, 'We want you here, we're going to give you tax advantages, and we want you to add jobs here, etc.' We can no longer in America say, 'This is how we do it, therefore you must do it.' We've gotta change, or we're going to be left behind."

That's good for Ireland, but not so good for us. If our biggest problem is jobs (and it is), then why the hell are we continuing policies that drive jobs away ? That isn't shared sacrifice, it's shared stupidity. And how much money are we talking about that is sitting overseas ???:

Chambers told Stahl Cisco has almost $40 billion overseas that could be brought back to the U.S.

The total amount of money U.S. companies have trapped overseas is $1.2 trillion. Chambers is advocating for a one-time tax break to allow them to bring that money home at a rate of, say five percent. That would, he says, stimulate the economy and create jobs.

As Obama leaves on his bus tour to "pivot to jobs" (about the 15th time he's made such a pivot), maybe this time he could try something that actually would work – dropping the corporate tax rate dramatically. Unless, of course, he really doesn't give a damn about the American people he's hurting.

The Democrats in Congress may not be able to do their jobs and produce a budget, but they have finally been embarrassed into producing a plan to address our record deficits. All hail the Democrats ! It's about time, since the Dems control the Executive Branch and the Senate. In other words, the Dems are the majority. The Republicans only control the House.

The first thing I noticed about the Democrat deficit plan was…it doesn't get rid of the deficits. Here's the Washington Post's charitable description of the Democrat effort:

Senate Democrats have drafted a sweeping debt-reduction plan that would slice $4 trillion from projected borrowing over the next decade without touching the expensive health and retirement programs targeted by President Obama.

Sounds great, WaPo…as long as you don't actually think about it. The Democrats "sweeping" plan would cut $4 trillion from President Obama's projected 10-year deficits of $9.5 trillion, leaving us with an accumulation of $5.5 trillion in new deficit spending over the next decade. With interest, that would increase the national debt by another $7.5 trillion or so. That doesn't exactly solve the problem, does it ? Keep in mind that the all-time debt runner-upper champion, prior to Obama, was President Bush II. Bush ran up the debt by around $5 trillion over 8 years. Obama has already run up the debt by $4 trillion in 2 1/2 years, and the Dem "deficit plan" would add another $7.5 trillion to this. Normally, such a plan would be referred to as "going from the frying pan into the fire" rather than being hailed as an achievement, but politics leads people to make silly claims.

Being a Democrat deficit-reduction plan, it's pretty easy to figure out what their major recommendations would be – tax increases and cuts in defense spending.

…Senate Democrats are proposing to stabilize borrowing through sharp cuts at the Pentagon and other government agencies, as well as $2 trillion in new taxes, primarily on families earning more than $1 million year, according to a copy of the plan obtained by The Washington Post.

"stabilize borrowing". LOL. Good one. Do you get the feeling this WaPo article was written by a Democrat ? If not, this next part should convince you:

With debt-reduction talks under way between Obama and congressional leaders, Senate Democrats are unlikely to adopt the blueprint. However, it has gained broad support among those eager to chart a path to solving the nation’s budget problems without making politically painful cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

See, the Democrats aren't going to actually adopt their own deficit reduction plan (because actual leadership by the Dems would create political risk), but the Dem poseurs want to show they can solve our budget problems without dealing with SS or Medicare, according to this WaPo writer. Never mind that the Democrat deficit reduction plan DOESN'T solve the budget problems, and that's precisely BECAUSE it doesn't deal with SS or Medicare, which comprise the majority of the budget.

One Democrat did comment on the plan:

“The very strong feeling was we needed to get this into the conversation, because it provides an alternative view,” said a Senate Democrat familiar with the blueprint, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been publicly released. “What’s striking is how modest the changes need to be to get us back on track.”

Running up $5.5 trillion in new deficits over the next decade will "get us back on track" ? I assume this anonymous Democrat must be a co-sponsor of Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul's (R-TX) bill to allow states to legalize marijuana. He's definitely smoking something. The only way the Dem plan could be considered "on track" is if you believe returning to Bush-level deficits is on track. I do not. We'll only be on track when our budget is back in the black.

The real reason Senate Democrats produced a deficit plan is a political one. They want to counter the current negotiations between President Obama and House Republicans (legislation must originate in the House):

On Friday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) visited the White House to brief Obama and Vice President Biden on the blueprint, which differs significantly from the framework under discussion with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other leaders.

“I explained to the President and Vice President how the Senate Budget Committee Democrats developed a plan that achieves $4 trillion in deficit reduction in a balanced and fair way,” Conrad said in a statement. “It is my hope the plan will help influence the bipartisan negotiations and help them reach a comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction agreement.”

By "balanced deficit reduction", the Democrats mean, 'let's raise taxes". By "fair", they mean raise taxes on the wealthy. They know the Republicans will not agree to raising taxes in such a weak economy, with unemployment at 9.2%. Speaker Of the House John Boehner (R-OH) just said he would accept a smaller debt ceiling deal of $2 trillion in spending cuts rather than raise taxes.

I suppose I shouldn't be too critical of what's going on. At least both the Democrats and Republicans are now proposing ways to reduce deficits and debt, rather than increasing them radically, as both Bush and Obama have done. That is a step in the right direction.

Here are some details of the Democrat plan:

Under the blueprint, the top income tax rate would rise to 39.6 percent for individuals earning more than $500,000 a year and families earning more than $1 million. That group, which constitutes the nation’s richest 1 percent of households, would also pay a 20 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, rather than the 15 percent rate now in effect.

In addition to raising rates for the very wealthiest families, the blueprint proposes to obtain fresh revenue by targeting offshore tax havens and corporate shelters. It would also scale back the array of tax breaks and deductions known as tax expenditures, perhaps by focusing on the wealthiest households, which claim an average of $205,000 in tax breaks each year on average income of $1.1 million.

The blueprint would take nearly $900 billion from the Pentagon over the next decade — the same amount recommended by Obama’s fiscal commission. It would slice more than $350 billion from domestic programs. And it would produce interest savings of nearly $600 billion attributable to reduced borrowing.

Only about $80 billion would be cut from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs, and nothing from Social Security

As usual, the Democrats want to go after corporations and investment capital, but that also goes after job creators and wealth producers, not a great idea right now (when are liberals ever going to learn that you can't be pro-job and anti-business at the same time ?). No wonder White House spokesmen have been saying people don't care about the unemployment rate or GDP growth. They must think we're pretty dumb. I think those White House spokesmen are pretty dumb, because we do care, at least those of us who haven't been brainwashed into believing corporations and investment capital are evil.

Since Republican John Kasich became the Governor of Ohio in January, he has made a lot of enemies. The unions hate him. The press hates him. The education establishment hates him. It goes without saying that Democrats hate him. According to the letters to the editor I read in the Akron Beacon Journal, lots of people hate him. Kasich has slashed government spending, which invariably generates animosity from the slashees. People don't like it when their government subsidization (aka, taxpayer funding) is diminished, or disappears completely. So lots of people are mad at John Kasich. I have heard many people say Kasich is the worst, just terrible.

But Kasich was elected to govern our state, not to win popularity contests. That means he is supposed to solve problems. The two biggest problems Ohio faced when Kasich took office were – 1) a high unemployment rate, and, 2) an $8 billion budget deficit. Before we tar and feather the guy, perhaps we should take a look at how he's done tackling our biggest problems.

In December 2010, the month before Kasich became Governor, Ohio's unemployment rate was 9.6%. In May of this year, after Kasich had been in office just over four months, Ohio's unemployment rate dropped to 8.6%. That's not only lower than the national average of 9.1%, but our unemployment has dropped a full percentage point since Kasich was elected. Last week, Ohio had the largest drop in unemployment applications in the nation.

And that $8 billion budget deficit ? It's gone. Ohio's budget is balanced. Kasich has accomplished in less than six months what other Ohio governors and legislatures spent years trying in vain to accomplish. And he did it without raising taxes.

I'm thinking that if President Obama had accomplished anything remotely close to what Kasich has accomplished, the media would be touting him as the greatest President in the history of our Republic. He'd be Time magazine's man of the year, and on the front cover, he'd be photographed with a halo around his head. I'd probably agree with that assessment…but they are telling us Kasich is a horror. Why ?

It's because of the spending "cuts":

Critics, however, argue his plan makes such drastic reductions in funding to school districts and local governments that teachers and police will be laid off and residents will end up taking a financial hit as local tax increases get passed.

Cities, townships and other local governments will see a drop of more than $1 billion during the next two years through a combination of cuts to state funding and changes to the tax money they get.

While state aid to schools increased by roughly $400 million, it will not be enough to compensate for losses under new tax policies and with the end of a nearly $900 million federal economic stimulus program for Ohio.

Among other changes, the measure prohibits hospitals and other facilities receiving state funds from performing elective abortions. It also provides tax credits for investors in Ohio businesses and expands eligibility for Choose Ohio First college scholarships for residents who attend Ohio colleges and universities

These critics must like the state spending money it doesn't have. These critics sound a lot like Obama in that regard. He also likes spending money he doesn't have. So did President Bush before Obama. Lot of politicians like spending money they don't have, and that's precisely why this nation faces such a disastrous fiscal situation today and in the future.

These critics must prefer living in a debt-driven fiscal fantasyland. These critics only solution is to raise taxes, even though Ohio already ranked as one of the worst business tax climates in the nation before Kasich showed up. That put us at a competitive disadvantage, causing job and populations losses. I don't get it. Living in fantasyland might be fun for awhile, but it isn't reality. We need to compete to keep our jobs and standard of living high. Kasich seems to realize that, even if his critics believe we're living in some kind of utopian commune that doesn't exist (and never did exist, for that matter).

Meanwhile, Kasich is balancing budgets and creating jobs in Ohio. It that's what we're calling horrible these days, perhaps the critics are the ones with the problem.

Recently, the Boeing Corporation announced plans to build a $1 billion commercial jet production plant in South Carolina.

With the national unemployment rate at 9%, and manufacturing jobs leaving America in droves, it's certainly good news that Boeing is building it's new plant right here in the good old USA, eh ?

While it may sound like good news to most of us, the Obama administration objects. Obama's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has sued Boeing to prevent the plant from being built in South Carolina. The NLRB is accusing Boeing of unfair labor practices. The NLRB is accusing Boeing of union-busting. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the NLRB, it is a branch of the federal government whose board members are all appointed by the President. Three of the four current NLRB board members are Democrats. The stated purpose of the NLRB is to protect employee rights, which includes the right of workers to collectively bargain, as outlined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (Note to Democrats in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana – the National Labor Relations Act specifically excluded federal, state, and local government employees from collective bargaining rights. It only applies to private sector workers).

The NLRB demands that Boeing build it's new plant in Washington state instead of South Carolina. The reason is, South Carolina is one of 22 right-to-work states, while Washington is not. In right-to-work states, workers cannot be forced to join a union and pay union dues as a condition of their employment. Needless to say, forced unionism is exactly what the unions want, ergo the complaint against Boeing.

I have a few observations. First of all, aside from the union vs. right-to-work issue, I have a problem when our own government opposes an American company that wants to produce jobs and manufacture products in this country. Isn't job creation supposed to be what we are encouraging ? Second, why should the government have the potential to compel a private corporation to do business in one state over another ? I thought this was supposed to be the land of the free, the UNITED States, not the land of political friends and enemies. Third, there is no statute prohibiting collective bargaining or the creation of unions in right-to-work states. Workers are free to unionize if they wish, or not unionize. It's the worker's choice. I don't see a big problem there, but in the interest of fairness, here is the argument for and against right-to-work laws, via Wikipedia:

For Right-To-Work:

Proponents of right-to-work laws point to the Constitutional right to freedom of association, as well as the common-law principle of private ownership of property. They argue that workers should be free both to join unions and to refrain from joining unions, and for this reason sometimes refer to non-right-to-work states as "forced unionism" states.[2] They contend that it is wrong for unions to be able to agree with employers to include clauses in their union contracts (also known as a union security agreement) which require all employees to either join the union, or pay union dues as a condition of employment.[3] Furthermore, they contend that in certain cases forced union dues are used to support political causes, causes which some union members may oppose.[4]

Against Right-To-Work:

Opponents argue right-to-work laws create a free-rider problem,[8][9] in which non-union employees (who are bound by the terms of the union contract even though they are not members of the union) benefit from collective bargaining without paying union dues.[8][10]

Opponents further argue that because unions are weakened by these laws, wages are lowered[10] and worker safety and health is endangered. For these reasons, they often refer to right-to-work states as "right to work for less" states[11] or "right-to-fire" states, and "non-right-to-work" states as "free collective bargaining" states. They also cite statistics from the United States Department of Labor showing, for example, that, in 2003, states with right-to-work laws in general had a higher rate of workplace fatalities per 100,000 workers.[12]

The Libertarian in me is persuaded by the freedom of assocation argument of the right-to-work supporters, but I also acknowledge the important role private sector unions have played in the past in securing rights and decent wages for American workers. That is no small thing, and it's also Libertarian to allow private sector workers to unionize (or not) as they see fit. In the end, it's that choice that is essential, and in the end, if workers in right-to-work states are being abused, they CAN still unionize. It's up to them. As long as that choice remains in place, I side with the right-to-work people.

Many Republicans, especially those from South Carolina, are taking issue with the NLRB's action against Boeing. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called it "nothing less than a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America." South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham said, "If successful, the NLRB complaint would allow unions to hold a virtual ‘veto' over business decisions. Left to their own devices, the NLRB would routinely punish Right to Work states that value and promote their pro-business climates." South Carolina Senator Jim Demint said, "This is nothing more than a political favor for the unions who are supporting President Obama's re-election campaign. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of hundreds of jobs in South Carolina and thousands of jobs nationwide."

The International Association of Machinists And Aerospace Workers (IAM) union claims Boeing is building it's new plant in South Carolina in retaliation for past union strikes against Boeing. The NLRB, which is supposed to be an independent agency, is clearly acting as a mouthpiece for union grievances. The NLRB's Acting General Counsel, Lafe Solomon, said Boeing was building it's plant in South Carolina "to retaliate for past strikes and chill future strike activity."

Boeing denies the accusation:

“We hold no animus toward union members, and we have never sought to threaten or punish them for exercising their rights, as the NLRB claims,” Boeing CEO Jim McNerney wrote. “To the contrary, union members are part of our company's fabric and key to our success. About 40% of our 155,000 U.S. employees are represented by unions — a ratio unchanged since 2003. Nor are we making a mass exodus to right-to-work states that forbid compulsory union membership. We have a sizable presence in 34 states; half are unionized and half are right-to-work.”

Boeing received about $900 million in tax breaks and other incentives from South Carolina.

For the sake of argument, let's say the IAM is right, and Boeing is moving to South Carolina to get away from the repeated union strikes. You must remember, Boeing is not a public service organization or a charity. It is a company that has to make a profit to stay in business. Therefore, Boeing acts in the business interests of Boeing, and it's not in Boeing's interests to have it's production halted by union strike after union strike, is it ? Thus, the repeated strikes are actually an INCENTIVE for Boeing to relocate elsewhere. I saw this exact same scenario play out in Akron, Ohio in the 1970's with the rubber shops. They moved production to the south to escape the unions, and Akron ended up high and dry, with nothing. Thanks for nothing, unions. You drove our jobs away, and they were good blue collar jobs. Our city was left a lot worse off because of it. That same scenario is turning parts of Detroit, Michigan into a ghost town today. Sometimes the unions end up being their own worst enemy. Personally, I'd rather have an actual job that pays $20 per hour than a non-existent union job that pays $30 per hour, but that's just me. I like to feed my family, and I can't do that in Akron if my job is in Alabama, or China.

To my knowledge, President Obama hasn't said a word about the Boeing situation, which led Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to wonder aloud whether Obama has an "enemies list". I'd phrase it a bit differently. What I think is, Obama has a friend's list, and Republican-voting right-to-work-states like South Carolina aren't on it. After all, our President is already in 2012 fundraising campaign re-election mode. He's looking to raise a billion dollars and reward his friends. Cronies unite !

Before we get around to fixing Ohio, we have to identify Ohio's problems.

1) Ohio has an $8 billion budget shortfall.

Here's how the Cleveland Plain Dealer described the problem last March:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The state of Ohio is steering straight toward a cliff. At the bottom of that cliff is a hole nearly $8 billion deep.

Ohio leaders have less than a year to throw on the brakes and change course before it's time to draft another two-year state budget. And they will have to do it without federal stimulus dollars and other state nest eggs worth almost $8 billion that were used to prop up the current budget.

Ohio took $4 billion in federal stimulus dollars in 2009 to close the budget gap. Obviously, those stimulus dollars were not an actual solution to Ohio's economic problems. They were just a crutch to prop up Ohio temporarily in the hope that Ohio's economic ship would self-correct. Unfortunately, even though those stimulus dollars are gone, the economic problems remain (along with the stimulus debt we still have to pay for).

2) Ohio is losing jobs.

One of the main reasons for Ohio's $8 billion budget deficit is the fact that Ohio has been losing jobs, causing state tax revenue to fall. Here's another excerpt from last March's Plain Dealer article:

Weak economy hits Ohio hard: The national economic downturn has rocked Ohio especially hard, leaving the state in economic tatters with an unemployment rate now hovering at nearly 11 percent — a level not seen since September 1983.

The more than 640,000 Ohioans out of work have punched a massive hole in the state budget, with state income tax collections — which provide about one-third of the revenue for the state's general-revenue fund — having dropped by 18 percent over the last two years.

A year later, and Ohio's unemployment rate is still 9.2%, higher than the national average. Ohio's unemployment rate now is still higher than it was in January 2009.

Beyond the job losses from the recession, Ohio has lost nearly 600,000 jobs over the last decade, making it the 3rd worst state in the nation for job losses. Only Michigan and California were worse. The state with the best job creation record over the last decade was Texas, followed by Arizona.

3) State spending and taxation.

Even though Ohio has been hemorrhaging jobs, state spending has continued to climb. The state of Ohio spent $68.4 billion in 2000. That soared to $106 billion in 2010. This happened at the same time as Ohio's tax revenue base was shrinking from the job losses. And as anyone from Ohio knows, Ohio didn't just start losing jobs recently. Ohio manufacturing jobs have been disappearing for about 35 years. Our tax base has been dwindling for a long time, and as a result, we've seen tax increase after tax increase to keep up with state spending. According to the Tax Foundation, Ohio has gone from one of the nation's best tax climates to one of the worst over the last 30 years, as you can see in this chart:

In the Tax Foundation's 2010 Index, Ohio ranked 47th in the nation—one of the worst business tax climates in the country. All of Ohio's neighbors rank better on this index.
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These are the problems facing Ohio. We have massive budget shortages going forward, job losses, increasing state government spending, and dwindling tax revenues, along with some of the highest state tax rates in the entire country.

What should we do ???

We could increase taxes by $8 billion to cover the budget shortage, but how smart would that be when we already have high tax rates, job losses, and an unfriendly business climate ? Doesn't sound very smart to me at all. Sounds like that would only drive even more jobs away, leading us right back to the same place we are now, only worse. Raising taxes is what we've BEEN doing. As we should all be able to see, THAT HASN'T WORKED. Maybe some people haven't noticed, but Ohio doesn't have the best weather in the country. Having Ohio known as the "shitty weather, high tax" state isn't exactly going to induce people to come here. We NEED taxes to be low in this state, or business can just relocate somewhere else. It's that simple.

We want to attract jobs to Ohio, don't we ? Of course we do. We don't want to drive them away, unless we're suicidal. I hear people say Governor Kasich's SB5 legislation will kill the middle class. To those people, I say, are you freaking kidding me ? We've BEEN killing the middle class for years by losing all our jobs. Kasich is actually trying to get jobs back to this state. However, in the meantime, he has to do something about that $8 billion budget hole. Sorry, but he can't call the magical budget fairy and make that shortage disappear. Cuts have to be made at the same time that we start making Ohio a place businesses will actually want to come to. We are lagging way behind, due to the terrible leadership we've had in the past (both parties). Kasich is trying to change that, but he's taking a beating in the polls for it. Maybe Ohio IS suicidal.

“Ohio needs to be made competitive again,” Kasich said at a downtown ceremony. “Ohio has been and still remains under siege. So you need to look at Senate Bill 5 and all these other reforms … as an opportunity to set the stage to create a platform for job creation, for entrepreneurship.”

By reducing Ohio’s state and local government expenses, Kasich argued, Senate Bill 5 could make the state more attractive to businesses and economic development investors, “so that we don’t have …everybody moving across the bridge to the other side of the river.”

Whether you agree with Kasich's specific budget cuts or not (the unions don't agree, the Democrats don't agree), cuts do have to be made, and the only areas where meaningful state budget cuts can be made are in pensions, health care, education, or welfare. Those are just the facts. Those areas represent the majority of the state budget.

Liberal groups, as usual, are framing everything in terms of class warfare, saying Kasich is catering to the rich at the expense of the middle class. I say, such rhetoric is not helpful and is in fact extremely counterproductive. There is no warfare. This is as close to a classless society as you will find. There are just varying levels of individual success (and who would want it any other way ? It's called 'opportunity'). Our businesses must be profitable in order to employ workers. That's how it works. That's how the middle class is created in this country and in our state, through the successes of our businesses. It will always be so. All government revenue comes from successful businesses in this country. We must do everything we can to insure they remain successful so they can pay decent salaries to our workers…unless you prefer buying everything from China as you work at your minimum wage job.

You want to fix Ohio ? Here's the only way – attract new businesses to Ohio by making Ohio an attractive place to do business. That means low business and corporate taxes, even if the word 'corporate' does induce a howling Pavlovian response of outrage from mind-controlled liberal robots. Ignore their drooling, because new business means new jobs, which will renew the middle class and increase revenue to the state for government services. THAT is how we pay our teachers, police, and firefighters better, not by taxing the hell out of an increasingly strapped citizenry in a lousy economy. The liberal class warfare rhetoric is for losers. Prosperity is JOB ONE. Somebody should tell the unions that we are ALL struggling now. It's not just them. They should be happy they have decent jobs. A lot of us DON'T. When we return to prosperity, that's when they will too. We're all in this together.

Republicans took away the Democrats 4-year long congressional majority in January 2011. During those 4 years of total Democrat control of Congress, we lost about 6.7 million jobs and ran up like $5 trillion in debt. The numbers are so crazy high that I can't even keep track anymore. Good job, Democrats. If we ever need kamikaze pilots for a future war, we'll call you.

In February 2011, the first full month of GOP House leadership, our country finally had a decent jobs report. 222,000 private sector jobs were created. It takes about 125,000 jobs to keep up with population growth, so we made a real jobs gain, finally. Unemployment dropped to 8.9%.

That must sting, eh Democrats ? I know, I know, it's all a big coincidence. I probably wouldn't even have mentioned the difference between Democrat and Republican job performance if Democrats hadn't repeated their line about the economy losing 700,000 jobs per month under Bush about 100 billion times over the last two years. Democrats have apparently forgotten all about who was running Congress then. It was, as I said, the DEMOCRATS (but maybe they were all wearing Bush masks so we couldn't tell they were Democrats. I'm not sure. The mainstream media seems to think so).

Our economy has added about 1.5 million private sector jobs over the past year, but as I said, population growth accounts for….ALL of those jobs (125,000 x 12 = 1.5 million). We basically broke even over the last year, but now we appear to be entering what economists call a "virtuous cycle". My dear clueless liberal friends, knowing nothing of economics, may ask "what is a virtuous cycle ?" Oh, you won't like the answer, dear libs. It goes against EVERYTHING you mistakenly believe in. Check it out, dudes. You might want to take a bong hit or two in order to steady your nerves first:

The figures suggest the economy has entered a healthier phase typical of what economists call a virtuous cycle: Americans are spending more, which raises corporate profits, which leads to hiring and then more spending and growth.

"Wha…wha…what ???", scream my dear clueless liberal friends in unison. "Corporate profits lead to hiring and then more spending and growth, and then more hiring, and then more spending and growth, and then…??? Wha…wha…what ??? Corporate profits ???? It cannot be !", rage the libs. "We were told that CORPORATE PROFITS ARE EVIL !!!!! We were told this by college professors with ponytails, who wear suit jackets with patches on the elbows and everything. They should know !!! They studied Che, and Trotsky !!! We HATE CORPORATE PROFITS !!!! We start foaming at the mouth if someone even says the word "corporate" in our presence…and now you're trying to tell us corporate profits are GOOD ? What manner of heresy is this ? Did you hear this from Sean Hannity ?"

I know it's a shock, dear clueless liberal friends, but it's true. This country relies on corporate profits for our jobs and our wealth. All the money to fund all those government entitlement programs you like comes directly from corporate profits. I realize Oliver Stone never said so in a Hollywood movie,…but profit is good. Hey, ask Charlie Sheen. He may be a crazy, drug-addled Truther, but he knows a thing or two about profits. How do you think he buys his hookers and blow ? He doesn't use food stamps, you know.

You see, my dear clueless liberal friends, the bad things happen when there are no corporate profits. That's what happened over the last few years. The corporate profits went bye-bye, and so did lots of your jobs. Corporate LOSSES are the real bad guy, my friends. That's why Da King here always promotes policies to keep those corporate profits coming, and it has nothing to do with me being "only for the rich" or against "the little guy". Those are just stupid liberal talking points that don't amount to a cup of warm spit. Those talking points are meant to distract you from the truth, and the truth is, without corporations making profits, the rest doesn't matter, because the government will be broke and the people will be jobless. Job One in this country is to make our businesses profitable. After that, everything else will fall into line. This is not a Republican, Democratic, or Libertarian talking point. It's just a basic fact.

But I digress. What was I talking about ? Oh yeah, last month's unemployment figures. If we keep gaining around 200,000 jobs per month, every month without fail, it will take about…six years to get unemployment back to where it was before the Democrats took over Congress in 2007. That means our virtuous cycle isn't nearly virtuous enough, and these soaring gas prices could stall the recovery just as it appears to be kicking into gear. As my pal the Reverend says, if only the Middle East wasn't located right on top of our oil. How inconvenient. I'd also like to thank liberals once again for killing domestic oil exploration in this country. Instead, they have us putting our food supply in our gas tanks, another brilliant move. Now food prices are rising as well, not to mention the fact that ethanol must be subsidized by the taxpayers because it isn't cost effective.

Sometimes I wonder how we have any jobs left at all after the government gets involved. Then again, the Cuyahoga River doesn't catch on fire anymore, so the government does get a few things right. I'm a Libertarian, but I'm not a fanatic about it. The government has it's uses, as long as you keep it on a leash.

I'm just rambling today, aren't I ? Sorry. I guess I've subjected y'all to enough for now. Have a nice weekend.

The official unemployment rate dropped from 9.4% to 9.0% in January. Here's the good news from the Bureau Of Labor Statistics (BLS):

The unemployment rate (9.0 percent) declined by 0.4 percentage point for the second month in a row. (See table A-1.) The number of unemployed persons decreased by about 600,000 in January to 13.9 million, while the labor force was unchanged.

Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in January (+36,000).

Strike up the band !!! The good times are here again……..hey, wait a minute. If only a paltry 36,000 jobs were created in January, and unemployment fell by 600,000, that leaves 564,000 people who don't have jobs but aren't being counted as unemployed anymore. What happened to those people ?

The answer is, most of them have been unemployed so long that they've run out of unemployment benefits. Unless you're receiving unemployment benefits, you don't count as being unemployed. Many other people have simply given up looking for work. This is reinforced if you look at employment statistics as opposed to unemployment statistics. Looking at employment, you find that only 58.4% of people aged 16 and over are currently employed. This is the lowest January total since 1983. When Obama took office in January 2009, that number was 60.6%. Employment has dropped by 2.2% since Obama became President. Employment in January 2011 is lower than it was in January 2010.

In addition, if you look at the BLS category of people looking for work, that number has increased by nearly 500,000 over the past year, and has increased during both years of Obama's reign. That is NOT a sign of decreasing unemployment. It is a sign of increasing unemployment.

Democrats spin this into "this administration has created or saved millions of jobs". Obama has also introduced the "supported" jobs category in order to further spin the unemployment picture. I can hardly wait for him to introduce an "imagined" jobs category. Oh wait, he's already done that. He calls them "green jobs". We're going to have millions of those too.

Amazingly, some people actually believe these Democrats. I call such people liberals. They aren't very good with math…or economics…or truth. They think the truth is some evil right-wing plot, or something. Lord knows. I can't keep up with their dissembling.

But whatever they think, the truth remains, and the truth is, unemployment is still rising. If you don't believe me, ask the 564,000 non-persons from January who are unemployed but no longer count as being unemployed by the BLS.

Among the reasons cited for the slow January job growth was the weather:

The government noted that severe weather could have affected construction payrolls, which dropped 32,000 last month. There were also large declines in the employment of couriers and messengers.

Hmmm. Maybe we should pump some more CO2 into the atmosphere to get global warming into high gear to create jobs. That would also increase the length of the growing season and maybe ease the pressures of rising food prices. But I guess liberals are more interested in keeping people out of work and starving. That's why they propose legislation like Cap And Trade, a guaranteed job killer and price riser.

As you listen to the media and the White House trumpet it's great successes on the jobs front…now you know the truth.

Hey, maybe it we quit counting ALL the unemployed people…Voila! Problem solved. We could get the unemployment rate to 0%. I'm surprised the Democrats haven't thought of it yet.

When President Obama took office during the depths of the recession, unemployment was 7.6%. Now, two years later, after trillions of dollars of Keynesian-style government spending to stimulate the economy, unemployment stands at 9.7%. Millions of jobs were lost as we simultaneously accumulated trillions of dollars in new debt. That is failure on a colossal level, but, unbelievably, Democrats call their Keynesian policies a success. Even more unbelievably, some liberals are calling for more of these same failed policies, as I noted in my previous post.

And Democrats wonder why they lost the elections in november. My liberal friend the Reverend thinks it has something to do with Fox News. Duh.

We now have a GOP-led House Of Representatives in power pledging to cut government spending and regulation. The GOP has pledged to shrink government, and wants to repeal ObamaCare. We also had a recent tax cut deal struck between President Obama and the GOP, a tax cut deal that liberals absolutely despised. It appears taxes will not be raised, and some will be cut further. Hopefully, the government spendathon will slow. The Keynesian irresponsibility will most likely end here.

In light of these anti-Keynesian new developments, what are economists predicting for 2011 ? Here's a prediction from CNNMoney.com:

After three years of economic pain, a growing number of economists think 2011 will finally bring what everyone's been hoping for: More jobs and a self-sustaining recovery.

"We're looking at some leading indicators on employment, and they're all flashing green lights," said Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm.

Though most economists still expect a painfully high unemployment rate of about 9% at the end of this year, some think that stat masks more important signs of strength.

Economists surveyed by CNNMoney are forecasting an average of 2.5 million jobs added to the U.S. economy this year, which would be the best one-year gain in hiring since the white-hot labor market of 1999.

Of the dozen economists who responded, several of the more bullish are predicting more than 3 million jobs added — about 250,000 jobs a month. Even the most pessimistic of those surveyed, David Wyss of Standard & Poor's, expects 1.8 million jobs to be added this year, roughly double the pace of hiring in 2010.

As I also stated in my previous post, jobs don't come from the government in a free society. Jobs come from the private sector. What the government should do is put policies in place to let the private sector thrive, rather than shackling the private sector as the liberals continually advocate and implement. Free markets with only common sense regulation, as opposed to government intervention and distortion of free markets, have worked pretty well throughout American history. They are how we became the world's economic powerhouse. There's no reason to change it all now, no matter what the failed Keynesians may believe. Why we would listen to them in the first place is beyond me. The number one example of Keynesian policy in all of American history is known as the Great Depression, hardly a shining example of economic success. It was the worst economic period ever. There's no reason to repeat that mistake, even though we already have to some extent. Let's stop now, and do what works instead.

When the new Congress convenes, the GOP-led House is planning to move on several fronts.

1. They are going to try to repeal ObamaCare:

The new Republican-controlled House plans to schedule a vote to repeal the sweeping health care overhaul before President Barack Obama delivers his annual State of the Union address late this month, incoming House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said Sunday.

“We have 242 Republicans,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added, “There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us. You will remember when that vote passed in the House last March, it only passed by seven votes.”

Upton, whose committee will play a key role in the GOP's effort to roll back the law, said that he believes the House may be near the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto.

Regardless of how the repeal vote turns out, the GOP will go after pieces of ObamaCare:

Upton specifically called out the requirement for businesses to complete 1099 tax forms, the individual mandate and the amendment on abortion introduced by Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak. "We will look at these individual pieces to see if we can't have the thing crumble," he said.

This should cause quite a stir. Democrats will fight back:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, appearing on CNN, said “health care reform is going to go down in history as one of the great achievements of this president.”

And Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said repeal is a lost cause for Republicans.

“We cut prescription drug bills for senior citizens by 50 percent,” she told CBS. “We've already made sure that young adults up until they're 26 can be on their parents' insurance. A constituent in my district came up to me a few weeks ago and thanked me for saving her $3,000 a year because she could put her two adult children back on her insurance," she said.

"That's what the Republicans are going to be proposing to repeal this week," Wasserman Schultz added. "It's not going to happen. If it's about jobs and the economy and reducing the deficit, wasting time and money and adding to the deficit by repealing health care reform or on the attempt is irresponsible.”

In order for the Republicans to successfully repeal ObamaCare, I believe they will have to come up with a REPLACEMENT for it, a better idea. If the GOP forgets all about that part of it, they might be doing themselves more harm than good. I'm all for repealing ObamaCare, as long as something better takes it's place. We can't just stick our heads in the sand and pretend spiraling health care costs are not a problem.

2. Rep. Darrell Issa plans to go after wasteful government spending by the Obama administration:

The Republican congressman who is taking over responsibility for congressional oversight called President Obama's administration "one of the most corrupt administrations" on Sunday and predicted that the investigations he is planning over the next two years could result in about $200 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers.

Issa, who as chairman will have subpoena power, said he will seek to ferret out waste across the federal bureaucracy. While he used fiery rhetoric in describing the Obama administration in a series of television interviews Sunday, he said he will focus on wasteful spending, not the prosecution of White House officials.

Asked on "Fox News Sunday" about reports that the White House is staffing up on lawyers to prepare for his oversight hearings, Issa said: "They're going to need more accountants.

"It's more of an accounting function than legal function," Issa said. "It's more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House. And the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we'll be."

Issa said he plans to lead bipartisan investigations on food and drug safety, as well as Medicare fraud.

"We can save $125 billion in simply not giving out money to Medicare recipients that don't exist for procedures that didn't happen," Issa said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "These are real dollars. Ten percent of the deficit goes out in wasted money – money that doesn't get one person health care in Medicare."

On the CNN show, Issa said: "When I look at waste, fraud and abuse in the bureaucracy and in the government, this is like steroids to pump up the muscles of waste."

Here is a list of investigations Issa has planned:

As the replacement for outgoing Democrat Henry Waxman, Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress.

According to an outline of the committee’s hearing topics obtained by POLITICO, the House Oversight and Government Reform is also planning to investigate how regulation impacts job creation, the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis; recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the causes of the market meltdown.

A look at the preliminary hearing schedule illustrates that Issa plans to stay away from hurling subpoenas at the White House.

In investigating the impact of regulation on job creation, the committee plans to ask why the economy hasn’t “created the private sector jobs the president has promised,” and he’s calling in business leaders to explain “about the government regulations that are doing the most harm to job creation efforts.”

“The committee will examine how overregulation has hurt job creation and whether the administration intends to try and abuse the regulatory process to implement regulations that Congress would reject,” according to an outline of committee hearing topics.

Issa also wants to study why the financial crisis commission couldn’t reach consensus last year. He’d like to call Phil Angelides and former Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), the chair and ranking member of the committee, to determine if there was any agreement on the panel in relation to the cause of the meltdown.

Thar's a new sheriff in town, and his name is Darrell Issa.

3. The Republicans might demand budget cuts in exchange for raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling:

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, said if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, the “impact on the economy would be catastrophic.”

“I don’t see why anybody’s playing chicken with the debt ceiling,” Goolsbee said today on ABC’s “This Week” program. “If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”

The government is slated to hit the legal limit on borrowing, $14.3 trillion, early this year. Congress must agree to raise that ceiling or the U.S. could be forced to default on its obligations.

After candidates supported by anti-deficit Tea Party activists were elected on pledges to rein in government spending, some lawmakers have said they would demand budget cuts in exchange for voting to raise the debt ceiling.

The U.S. has a $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit. President Barack Obama’s debt-reduction panel failed last month to agree on its chairmen’s recommendations for ways to reduce the annual deficit to about $400 billion in 2015.

The plan would have increased taxes by $1 trillion by 2020 by scaling back or eliminating hundreds of deductions, exclusions or credits such as those allowing homeowners to write off interest on their mortgage payments. It would also have cut individual and corporate income tax rates.

Goolsbee said he anticipates Obama will find common ground with Republicans on legislation to benefit the economy, citing investment incentives and tax cuts for workers and small businesses, and warned against cutting back on spending needed for economic growth.

“The reason the deficit is big this year is because we’re coming out of the worst recession since 1929,” Goolsbee said. “That’s the reason. The longer-run fiscal challenge facing the country is important.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said failing to raise the debt ceiling “would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large.” Still, he wouldn’t vote to raise it “until a plan is in place” to deal with debt, Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

If the GOP was paying attention to the last election, they definitely SHOULD demand some budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. How else will the runaway freight train of government spending ever slow down ? The federal government has been kicking the fiscal responsibility can down the road for a long, long time now. It has to stop.

There is an editorial in today's Akron Beacon Journal written by Mark K. Cassell, an associate professor of political science at Kent State University, titled 'Guess what? Government really does create jobs, millions of them'. Cassell takes issue with statements made by several Republicans that the government does not create jobs. Here's the professor's first point:

During the past several weeks we've heard Republican candidates like Tom Ganley, John Boehner and Jim Renacci echo a similar refrain: "Government does not create jobs." Leaving aside the irony that the persons making such a claim are in fact hoping for a government job, the truth is that government is the most important job creator we have in this economy. How so?

First, there are the public sector jobs created directly by government spending like the ones Republican candidates are applying for. Where would our economy be without the 3.1 million public school teachers who educate our children or the 2.6 million servicemen and women deployed around the world to protect us or the 13 million local government employees who make sure our neighborhoods are safe, our streets are taken care of and our infrastructure works.

To claim government does not create jobs is not only factually wrong it denigrates the contribution our teachers, soldiers and other public officials make to this great country.

On the face of it, Professor Cassell would seem to be correct. The government DOES seem to create the jobs he mentions here, but that's only how things appear. One must delve a little deeper by asking, where does the money for all those government jobs come from ? After all, someone has to pay the salaries of all those government workers. They don't work for free. The answer is, the salaries of ALL government workers, from the President down to the clerk at the Bureau Of Motor Vehicles, come from taxes levied on the citizens of this country. The American people pay for all those government jobs. The government doesn't "create" those jobs. The American people do, via taxation. Going a bit deeper, we must ask, where do the American people get the money to pay the taxes to create these government jobs ? The answer there is, the American people get their money by working in the private sector, which is where American wealth is really created. Now, some of you may be saying, "wait a minute King, government workers also pay taxes, so they are providing some of that tax revenue to the government as well." I'm sorry, but that is incorrect. Because the entire salaries of government workers are paid for by the American citizens in the first place, the portion of those salaries that government workers pay back to the government in taxes does not contribute anything to government revenue. For example, if a government worker makes $50,000 per year and then pays $15,000 in taxes back to the government, all that really happened is, the private sector paid a net $35,000 in taxes ($50,000 less $15,000) for that government worker's job. Government workers are always a COST rather than a REVENUE. We may as well exempt government workers from paying income taxes and pay them the lower net salary figure. It would be cleaner and require less paperwork and bureaucracy.

Here is Professor Cassell's second point:

Second, tens of millions of jobs created in the private sector occur as a result of public investment. In other words, government creates private sector jobs indirectly. Consider two of our most famous American companies: Google and Microsoft. Where would either of them be without the Internet, which was itself created in 1969 by the Department of Defense?

The Professor used a very bad example by citing the internet as a government job creator. While it is technically true that the first internet apparatus was created by the government, it is not at all true that the government was necessary to create it. It's not like the private sector couldn't figure out how to hook computers together and share information. The explosion of the internet was done almost entirely via the private sector, via the very companies like Google and Microsoft that Professor Cassell seems to mistakenly believe were brought into being by the government. The Professor would have had a better argument had he cited government involvement in getting telephone lines up around the country to facilitate the internet.

Professor Cassell did cite some better examples of government job creation, as follows:

Here in Ohio our public and private universities receive state and federal grants to conduct research that directly create jobs in the private sector such as the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University or the medical school at Case Western University. Or consider the enormous benefits to the private sector that derive from our public infrastructure that enables goods to be shipped or our judicial system that ensures contracts are honored. Without government employees and government investment many private sector jobs would simply not exist.

It is true that our universities receive government grant money (which is really private sector money, as I showed previously), and the research from those grants can lead to breakthroughs which create jobs and economic growth. This is valuable, obviously. What the Professor is actually describing here is known as investment, and it is critical in moving our society forward. While the government can be the mechanism of investment, as can the private sector, the FUNDING for the investment still always comes from private sources. Remember, ALL government funds come from the private sector. There is one exception to this, and I'll get to that in a moment.

Professor Cassell continues:

But the importance of government is not just that it creates jobs it is also the timing of when government plays a role that matters. When unemployment is high and the economy suffers from a recession, private companies are reluctant to invest because demand is down. People are out of work and low on cash so they are not buying goods. It's at these moments when government's role in creating job has shownto be the most important.

It was essential in the 1930s when government civilian and military jobs got us out of the Great Depression, and it's crucial today as we struggle out of the Great Recession. Without public investment and government jobs, private firms would be even more reluctant to invest than they are now. Since the 1930s Democrats and Republicans have understood that a successful capitalist system requires a healthy and effective public sector.

In short, our history suggests that recognizing the importance of government in creating jobs not only honors those who serve this country, but it also makes sound economic sense. To suggest otherwise is, well, un-American.

I wish I could ignore that "un-American" remark, because it's just dumb. Disagreeing with Obama's nearly trillion dollar stimulus failure, which was completely unpaid for, put us nearly a trillion deeper in debt, didn't result in any net job creation or a drop in unemployment, and served only as a temporary patch in the best case, is far from being un-American, unless misguided fiscal irresponsibility is now somehow patriotic.

But this last part from the Professor does bring up the exception I mentioned earlier, which I must break into two parts. First, the government can borrow money to spend, and secondly, the government can print money out of thin air. These are two ways it might seem like the money doesn't come from the private sector, but once again, these are false appearances.

If our government borrows money from, say, China, as we've been doing a lot, that money has to be repaid. Who repays it ? Again, it's Uncle Sam's best friend, the taxpayers, who, again, all come from the private sector.

If the government just prints money out of thin air, backed by nothing (which is known as fiat currency), then surely the taxpayers don't pay for THAT money, right ? No, wrong. If the government arbitrarily puts more dollars into circulation, then ALL dollars are worth less. This is known as inflation, and it largely explains why what you paid $20 for in 1970 costs $100 today. If the government flooded the market with trillions of dollars of newly printed money right now, inflation would occur eventually, thereby robbing the citizens of their savings and raising the prices of consumer goods. All citizens would pay for it.

This brings me to my final point, the skyrocketing federal debt, which is the result of all those government interventions, stimuluses, and good works the Professor described prevously as being so very patriotic. It stands now at around $13.6 trillion. It's rising so fast it's hard to keep up with it. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Bush. You two are some REAL patriots, alright, or at least Professor Cassell must think so. How are we going to deal with this mountain of debt ? Are we going to increase taxes on the private sector by a couple trillion a year to pay it off ? That's what it would take, if not more, seeing as how our future unfunded entitlements are exploding along with the debt. Are there ANY politicians in Washington D.C. willing to stand up and be "patriotic" enough to call for a yearly two trillion dollar tax increase on the citizenry ????????? I haven't seen any yet, and if any do show up, I guaran-darn-tee you they won't be in office very long. The citizens will throw them out quicker than you can say "un-American."

Unless there's a virtual political revolution in this country, which is showing some budding signs of happening, there is only ONE way the government can pay off the debt, and that is to monetize the debt, which the Federal Reserve calls 'quantitative easing.' The government will impoverish us all by by making our dollars worth a whole lot less, which in turn will make our debt worth a whole lot less. Our debtors like China will be furious, and the American citizens will also be furious, but we'll be out of debt. Thanks, big government. Thanks for nothing.

Oh, and by the way, thanks for all those jobs too, which all came from the private sector in the first place.

Following a meeting with his White House economic team, President Obama gave an address on the economy yesterday. Here's a short summary from MarketWatch:

Congress should act quickly to pass a jobs bill as “too many” Americans are continuing to look for work, President Barack Obama said Monday. “Holding this bill hostage is directly detrimental to our economic growth,” Obama said at the White House about the bill, which expands credit to businesses and cuts certain taxes. Obama added that his economic team is looking at measures including extending middle-class tax cuts and redoubling investments in clean energy as ways of spurring growth and hiring.

Obama's also talked about the jobs bill ten days ago. The bill in question is the Small Business Jobs And Credit Act, which has passed the House, but was blocked in the Senate by Republicans, just as Obama said. Usually when Obama talks about GOP obstruction, it's a partisan tactic that means nothing more than the GOP disagrees with the President. That is not the case this time. I can find no legitimate reason for the Republicans to oppose this bill. The $30 billion in loans to small businesses will be paid for, by small businesses repaying the loans. There are tax cuts for businesses included in the jobs bill. The last I heard, the GOP was supposed to favor tax cuts as a way to stimulate business and the economy (and it's good to finally hear Democrats agree, even though it flies directly in the face of the Dems rhetoric over the last decade).

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell complained that the Democrats were not allowing Republicans to put forth amendments to the bill. The only problem there is, it's not true. Republican amendments have been put forth, and a few were accepted, as you can see at the previous link. Other Republicans argued that this was just more spending in the Dems avalanche of spending. While I agree with the GOP about the irresponsibility of Obama's avalanche of deficit spending, what part of "paid for" don't they understand ? The GOP's objections look like little more than election year stalling, putting the people second to their dreams of victory in the fall. This is a bill the GOP would normally endorse. A pox on them.

If I have any criticism of Obama and the Democrats here, it would be…what took you so long ? Small business creates 60-70% of the jobs in this country. Meaningful assistance like this should have been offered much sooner.

I'm also wondering how the Democrats are going to run against Bush this fall when, inch by inch, they continue to endorse his economic policies, particularly regarding tax cuts. There were tax cuts in Obama's stimulus package. There were tax cuts in a jobs bill the Democrats passed earlier this year, Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, and now the Dems want more tax cuts for business. The Democrats are gradually destroying their own rhetoric about tax cuts not helping the economy. We always knew that was phony baloney. These actions of the Democrats are a de facto admission that they've been full of it all along.

The last remaining bastion of phony Dem tax rhetoric involves the so-called "tax cuts for the rich." The President and a majority of the Democrats in Congress still adhere to the notion of "soak the rich," and they still pretend that won't harm the economy. They are still wrong, and even the liberal New York Times is beginning to point it out, albeit unintentionally. In an article called 'Wealthy Reduce Buying In A Blow To The Recovery,' the Times notes the following:

Especially at this stage of a recovery, businesses and economists want to see people of all incomes spending more, because the demand for goods and services would in turn encourage companies to hire workers. The American consumer accounts for an estimated 60 percent of the country’s economic activity.

But the Top 5 percent in income earners — those households earning $210,000 or more — account for about one-third of consumer outlays, including spending on goods and services, interest payments on consumer debt and cash gifts, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Moody’s Analytics. That means the purchasing decisions of the rich have an outsize effect on economic data.

When you tax more of anything, you get less of it. The class warfare strategy of the Democrats, who have big tax hikes in mind for the wealthy starting in 2011, will harm the economy. If they increase taxes on the wealthy, it will have a large negative effect on consumer spending. The wealthy will spend and invest less. There are no two ways about it, and when you hear the Dems say anything different, they are lying. While 60-70% of our jobs come from small business, 30-40% of them do not. We should be creating conditions for ALL companies to be hiring right now, not just the ones who have favored status within the Democratic party. Plus, lots of those small businesses the Dems claim to favor will be hit by the proposed tax hikes in 2011.

Now is not the time to raise anyone's taxes, even on the wealthy. It's not because we advocate for the rich. Increasing taxes on the rich doesn't really hurt the rich. They're still doing fine. The harm from the "soak the rich" strategy comes from the large negative consumer spending ripple effect caused by those tax increases. That ripple effect crashes downward, harming the non-rich, the working folks. They are the ones who lose their jobs, not the wealthy. I don't know why anyone would want to do that right now, or ever, for that matter.

Housing sales fell 27% last month, the biggest drop in 15 years. The official unemployment rate is 9.5% (the real unemployment rate is over 16%, and may be much higher), and weekly unemployment claims rose to their highest level since last november. This year's federal deficit is expected to be $1.3 trillion, the second trillion+ dollar deficit in a row. The country is over $13.2 trillion in debt, the largest dollar debt in American history by far, and it is growing by leaps and bounds. The CBO calculated that President Obama's budgets will add $9.5 trillion to the debt over a decade, over twice as much as any previous admiistration. Most of the states are broke. We are drowning future generations in staggering debt, and we still have $55 trillion in unfunded future entitlement liabilities to deal with, plus ObamaCare looming on the horizon to drastically increase Medicaid spending. The Democrats are looking to impose the largest tax increase in history at the end of the year, during a very weak economy, the weakest in nearly 30 years. Then Obama wants to impose Cap-And-Trade to drive up everyone's energy bills, to "skyrocket" the price of electricity, as Obama said himself. It's almost as if he intends to ruin us. The Democrats are throwing one overhand right after another into the face of our economic futures.

Everybody agrees Obama's stimulus plan didn't have it's intended effect. The White House claimed the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%, and the Gaffemaster General, VP Joe Biden, said in this "recovery summer," we'd be adding 500,000 jobs per month by now. Clearly, the stimulus didn't come close to those numbers, but borrowing $800 billion to throw around did have some effect. Nobody could spend that much stimulus money with NO result, not even Obama and the Dumbocrats. The problem is, almost all of the stimulus spending only has a temporary effect. When the artificial borrowed stimulus bump runs out at the end of the year, we'll face our ACTUAL economic state (and we'll be another trillion deeper in debt to boot). With economists forecasting flat growth or even a double dip recession THIS year, what will happen when the stimulus funds run out ? Some even think we're in a depression, and point out some comparisons between the Great Depression and now. Not surprisingly, investors are growing wary of the stock market.

The government is running out of avoidance tricks. We can't put interest rates much lower, we can't keep borrowing money to artificially prop us up, and the fed can't print more money to escape reality.

Recovery summer has become recovery bummer, and recovery future is looking more like future shock, when the irresponsibility of these insane fiscal policies (which are actually a lack of fiscal policy) will have to be faced. As they say, "you can run, but you can't hide." We can't hide from our fiscal sins forever. We can only run temporarily, as Obama is doing now. Soon, we'll be out of breath from running, and big bad Mr. Reality will catch up to us. That will be the moment the full weight of our fiscal folly descends down upon us.

All this news led Gaffy Biden to say yesterday,, "no doubt we're heading in the right direction."

Really, Joe ? Then just what in the hell would be the wrong direction ? Mass suicide via poisoned Kool-Aid, or what ? Gaffy must come from the Jim Jones school of economics. Jones wanted to create a socialist paradise on earth too. It didn't work out quite as planned.

Not that I'm pessimistic or anything. I do have a solution – counterfeiting. Print your own money. That will work, and if you get busted, to paraphrase the great economist Thomas Sowell, just tell the feds you weren't counterfeiting, you were engaging in monetary policy. That's what the Federal Reserve calls it when they print money backed by nothing.

Alternately, we could get Congress to start behaving responsibly, but what are the chances of that ?

Word is, BP Obama has capped the oil well and the Gulf oil leak has stopped. Let's all pray that is true. It may have taken BP Obama 86 days to do it, but better late than never. Way to go, BP Obama. And damn Dubya for causing the leak in the first place.

I'd also like to congratulate President Obama for passing the $862 billion stimulus package in February 2009. Without it, the oil spill would have been MUCH worse, and we got the added benefit of the stimulus creating 3.5 million jobs, according to the White House's latest bullshit estimate. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're probably saying to yourself, 'wait a minute. Haven't we actually LOST 2.4 million jobs since the stimulus package passed ?' Yes, we have, but that's only true if you look at the actual job numbers from the Bureau Of Labor Statistics (and I have it on good authority that there may be a Republican obstructionist or two working over at the BLS, if you catch my drift). The White House has a much better way of counting jobs created (or saved !) than looking at the actual numbers. They have this thing called the Keynesian economic multiplier calculator, that says for every $1.00 the government spends, GDP grows by $1.50. I'd explain to you why this is true, but it's waaay too made up techinical. Top economic experts at the White House feed the amount of stimulus money spent into the Keynesian thingy, and it spits out the number of jobs that were created (or saved !). Therefore, you can trust the White House Ministry Of Information far more than your own lying eyes. If that isn't convincing enough, we have President Obama's reassuring 'things could always be worse' speeches. Here's Big Brother in Racine, Wisconsin a couple weeks ago, when the stimulus package had only created (or saved !) 2.8 million jobs, according to Obama. Just think, it has created (or saved !) 700,000 more jobs in the last 14-15 days ! Isn't it wonderful ?!?!:

Mr. Obama said recently in Racine, Wisconsin that the economy "would have been a lot worse" and the unemployment rate would have gone to "12 or 13, or 15 [percent]" if government hadn't spent all of that money.

There you go. It "would have been a lot worse." Disprove that, you right-wingers. You can't, and that's the beauty of Obama's rhetoric. It's entirely theoretical. I don't know why Obama doesn't just say unemployment would have been 50% without the stimulus. That would be even more persuasive, especially when he's just pulling numbers out of his ass. What the hell, go the whole nine yards. Oh, btw, at the time Obama made the above statement in Racine, Racine's unemployment rate was 14.2%, falling on the high end of Obama's "a lot worse" category. That's up from Racine's 10.4% unemployment rate in February 2009 when the stimulus package passed, but I'm sure the Keynesian thingy says it's much lower than that, so not to worry. In fact, overall American unemployment was about 7.5% before the stimulus. Now, it's 9.5%, which translates in Obama-ese to the stimulus being a great success.

Having a calculator of my own, a non-Keynesian model, I did a little cipherin' myself. I took the $862 billion in stimulus money and divided it by the imaginary 3.5 million jobs created (or saved !), and that came out to….$246,285.71 spent per job created (or saved !), even if the 3.5 million jobs did exist. Whee-doggies ! Talk about efficient. Wouldn't we have been better off just giving, like, $50,000 to 3.5 million people ? That only would've cost 1/5th the amount of the stimulus package. Then again, if we'd done that, we wouldn't have all those nifty, Obama-praising highway road signs to look at. Check it out:

Cool, eh ? I hear we've only spent between $5-20 million on those babies, and they have that round Obama-like logo and everything. Just one more small example of how the federal government is such a wise caretaker of our taxpayer dollars.

Update – Since I started writing this blog post, I heard the stimulus has now created (or saved !) 3.6 million imaginary jobs. Wow. The news keeps getting better and better. By next week, we could be up to 4 or 5 million, and by, say, early november, it'll probably be a gazillion.

Today, I ran across an editorial by 2008 Libertarian VP candidate, Wayne Allen Root, called Obama: Bumbling Incompetent…Or Bumbling Marxist ?. In this editorial, Mr. Root lays out a clear step-by-step explanation of how President Obama is going to destroy this country economically. If he is successful, Obama will wreak havoc on the American business sector, cause severe job losses, cause businesses to flee the country, and usher in a second Great Depression as a result. Following are 14 steps Obama wants to take to bring about his reign of terror:

#1) The biggest income tax increase in the history of America will take effect on Jan 1st, 2011. The new tax increase falls almost 100% on small business owners and high-income taxpayers (whose contributions happen to fund Obama’s political opposition). As a result, many more jobs will be lost and more businesses closed.

#2) A dramatic 60% capital gains tax increase (from 15% to 23.8% effective rate, including new universal healthcare taxes) will accompany the big income tax increase above. More jobs will be lost, more businesses closed.

#3) Taxes on dividends will increase from 15% to 39.6%, and then another 3.8% by 2013 for Obama’s new healthcare taxes. Stocks will be crushed and older Americans will be devastated (because they live off dividends, investments, and bank interest). More lives ruined, more jobs lost.

#4) New taxes on income, investments, and even tanning bed users soon take effect to pay for Obamacare. Worse,18,000 new I.R.S. agents will be hired to enforce these taxes (at a cost of billions annually in new government employee salaries, pensions and benefits). More jobs lost.

#5) The pending Cap and Trade legislation threatens dramatic new taxes on anyone who owns a business, owns a home, owns an auto, or buys products manufactured or delivered through the use of energy. Once again, the more you own, the more you'll be taxed. More jobs will be lost, more manufacturing jobs sent overseas, more homes foreclosed.

#6) The pending financial reform bill threatens onerous new rules, regulations and taxes on banks and Wall Street. More jobs will be lost (and more banking and financial jobs sent overseas).

#7) The pending new jobs bill threatens gigantic new taxes on every Sub Chapter S corporation in America. More jobs will be lost and more small businesses ruined.

#8) The threat of a gigantic new national sales tax (VAT) on everything manufactured, bought and sold in America looms large. Fewer jobs, reduced consumer spending, more businesses closed forever.

#9) Obama is pushing for the reduction or elimination of tax deductions (such as mortgage or charitable contributions) for high income earners (mostly small business owners). More jobs lost, reduced charitable contributions, and the real estate industry damaged beyond repair.

#10) The threat of bans or restrictions on offshore oil drilling being put permanently into place. More jobs lost (and more jobs sent overseas where drilling is welcomed). As a bonus for Obama, he gets to ruin the Texas economy.

#11) All signs indicate that Obama will soon propose to take the income cap off FICA (Social Security) taxes. If this were to happen, a successful small business owner (if there are any left) could see his or her FICA taxes alone go from an already bloated and burdensome $15,000 per year to an unimaginable $150,000 (or more). In U.S. history, no taxpayer has ever seen a TEN TIMES tax increase in one year. This devastating nightmare will wipe out small business and cause people that Obama calls “rich” to lose their homes and businesses.

#12) A new I.R.S. law (with the passage of Obamacare) requires business owners to file thousands of new I.R.S. forms each year documenting virtually every expenditure made by their business. As a result of this blizzard of new paperwork, small business faces ruin.

#13) Let’s not forget the gigantic tax hikes on the state and local level for income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes and new taxes disguised as “user fees.” Local taxes are already at levels that taxpayers and small businesses can no longer afford to pay.

#14) Finally, Obama refuses to consider lowering the 2nd highest corporate tax rate (40%) in the industrialized world. As a result, more businesses will choose to leave the U.S. (and more jobs will be sent overseas).

If one set out to deliberately ruin the economy of the United States Of America, one couldn't do much better than the plan Obama has devised. This is doubly true during a recessionary period. He is, as Mr. Root suggests, either a bumbling incompetent or a bumbling Marxist. I'd suggest the two explanations are actually one and the same. Obama is a bumbling incompetent Marxist. Mr. Root even offers a pretty good summation of why this is so:

Each of these taxes and proposed taxes is a job killer. Taken together, the Obama regime’s policies are the equivalent of General Sherman’s march to the sea- leaving a tragic path of destruction in its wake. Obama has launched an unprecedented, overwhelming, death-by-tax assault on the groups that fund fiscally conservative causes and candidates: taxpayers and business owners.

There are only two reasonable explanations. Obama is executing a bumbling Marxist scheme to destroy capitalism, expand government to Soviet-like levels, and turn Americans into dependent serfs begging for government to save them, clothe them and feed them. “Bumbling” because the plan never works- eventually Obama will run out of taxpayers to rob, thereby bankrupting his own programs and bringing down his government. Or the other choice is that he is truly the most incompetent bumbling President in modern history. I’ll leave it to you to decide.

Amen. I couldn't have said it better myself. If Obama gets his way, we'll soon be looking back on these recessionary times as the good old days. Obama is a dangerous, incompetent, left-wing fool, who doesn't have a clue about what drives our economy. Hint – it isn't the government. It's all those small business people Obama wants to tax and regulate to death. Be careful what you ask for America, you just might get it. Obama is…One Big Ass Mistake America. We better fix it, and fast. Time is running out.

The official Bureau Of Labor Statistics (BLS) job numbers for June are in. The U.S. lost 125,000 jobs for the month. President Obama said this showed the "economy is heading in the right direction."

Losing jobs is the right direction ? Then what would be the wrong direction ? Me so confused.

In spite of the job losses, the unemployment rate actually fell to 9.5%. How did that happen ? I'll let the Associated Press (AP) tell you:

The jobless rate did come down in June from 9.7 percent the month before. But that was mainly because 652,000 people abandoned their job searches. People who are no longer looking for work aren’t counted as unemployed.

Which means the real unemployment rate is much higher than 9.5%. And many of those who are working are working part-time. Here's the AP again:

All told, 14.6 million people were unemployed in June. An additional 11.2 million have given up their job searches or are working part-time but would prefer full-time work. That adds up to nearly 26 million Americans, and an "underemployment" rate of 16.5 percent.

There is a glimmer of a bright spot in the midst of these numbers. The job losses were mainly due to 225,000 temporary census workers being let go. The private sector actually created 83,000 jobs (I'm going to call these summer jobs for teenagers). However, even an 83,000 increase in private sector jobs means we're falling further behind. Here's the AP a third time:

The 83,000 jobs added by the private sector was a better performance than in May, when private job creation nearly stalled. But it fell far short of what the economy needs — at least 200,000 jobs a month — to bring down the unemployment rate.

It takes around 100,000 jobs created per month just to meet the demand of the new workers entering the workforce.

The AP also pointed out that the effects of the stimulus package will begin wearing off in the second half of the year, meaning whatever artificial bump the stimulus provided to the economy will be gone. We'll find out what shape our economy is really in following that.

Unless Obama decides to borrow even more money we don't have for more artificial stimulus to cover up the problem a bit longer. He's signaling that he wants to do just that. Here's AP one last time:

The fate of the economy will hinge on whether it can stand on its own. President Barack Obama acknowledged the slow pace of the recovery and used the new jobs figures to argue for more stimulus spending and extended unemployment benefits.

"We're not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans," the president said. "We're not headed there fast enough for me, either."

Yikes. How did that old country song by Tennessee Ernie Ford go ?

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

These days, the company store is Uncle Sam. We owe him a bundle, and it just keeps on comin'.

Good thing we're heading in the right direction.

The following chart speaks for itself:

My apologies for the fuzzy focus. I couldn't get the chart sharpened up without making it so small that you'd need a magnifying glass to read it.

From the above, we see nearly 8 million private sector jobs lost since the recession started. We see 2,650,000 private sector jobs lost since Obama's stimulus package was passed. At the same time, government jobs have been increasing, with 400,000 new government jobs being created since the stimulus.

As the private sector shrinks, the public sector grows. The problem with this is, the private sector pays the salaries of the public sector. I've said all along that the stimulus package was a bailout of government. From these numbers, we see something even worse, and far more troubling. The government is taking an increasingly larger slice out of a shrinking private sector pie, which leaves less pie for private sector job creation, wage increases, and business investment. This is not the type of recovery we want. I'd question whether it is even recovery at all. It looks more like an artificial $800 billion stimulus illusion put forth by the Obama administration. Once the curtain is pulled back on this illusion by turning off the stimulus cash spigot, what will we be left with ? It looks like we'll be left with a mountain of debt and a much larger government to pay for, structurally worse off than we were before. No wonder Obama wants more stimulus cash. He wants to delay reality as long as possible, at least until after november.

But the news is not all bad. It looks like in June 2010, 13,000 new private sector jobs were created. That comes out to an anemic 260 jobs per state. Strike up the band.

As for our glorious leaders, Barack Obama is peddling his tepid 'things could always be worse' message, and Joe Biden is saying the 8 million lost jobs will not be recovered. I guess that means Biden thinks the recession will never end.

And we thought the malaise ended with Jimmy Carter. Sorry friends, it's ba-ack. Time to lower those expectations of yours, America.

Reading several recent news stories, it occurred to me that other countries understand what made America great better than we do these days, or at least better than our current leadership does. There are several lessons we need to relearn.

The first lesson comes from a news item I read about how China will soon overtake the United States as the world's leading manufacturer. It is forecasted to happen next year, ending America's 110-year run as the world's leader (which is how we became an economic powerhouse). China has learned from America that producing goods leads to solid economic growth and jobs. America has increasingly become a consumer-based service economy, and lately our leaders are acting like it's the government that produces economic growth and jobs, a falsehood. In a free country like ours, the government, the public sector, actually consumes wealth for the most part. As I mentioned in a recent post, China, as a result of it's market-based reforms, has become the world's largest creditor nation, while we have become the largest debtor nation.

The next lesson comes from, of all places, a former communist country, Russia. Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, sees an opportunity for Russia to take a prominent place in what he calls a new world economic order, which he says will rise out of the ashes of the financial crisis and end the heyday of western, and particularly American, dominance. Listen to what Medvedev is proposing for Russia:

Mr Medvedev laid out a series of new initiatives that aim to boost its attractiveness as an investment destination. “Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

Mr Medvedev said the state would concentrate its efforts on fostering a good business climate. “No matter how many state-owned companies we have, modernization will happen, above all, through private business. And only if there is competition,” he said. “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics. What the government should do is help grow our apple orchard, develop our economic environment.”

Mr Medvedev said he was cutting the list of strategic enterprises five fold in order to reduce the role of the state in the economy and foster more private initiatives.

Russia is proposing pro-growth, private sector, business-friendly policies with less interference from the state to grow it's economy. In America, Obama is proposing quite the opposite – bigger government, anti-business, centralized control, and ever more regulation.

Since when did Russia understand market economics better than the United States Of America ? Why are we letting that happen ?

The final lessons come from our neighbor to the north, Canada, and it comes from another unexpected source, Canada's Liberal Party. First, one must understand that Canada's Liberal Party is actually their center-left party. What we call liberal (left-wing) in America is called the New Democratic Party in Canada. The Canadian Liberal Party is liberal on most social issues, but have made several smart conservative moves on fiscal issues, as pointed out in this Associated Press article.

The first lesson concerns how Canada largely avoided the banking crisis that devastated America and Europe:

The banks are stable because, in part, they're more regulated. As the U.S. and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries over the last 15 years, Canada refused to do so. The banks also aren't as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers.

There was no mortgage meltdown or subprime crisis in Canada. Banks don't package mortgages and sell them to the private market, so they need to be sure their borrowers can pay back the loans.

In Canada's concentrated banking system, five major banks dominate the market and regulators know each of the top bank executives personally.

Notice that even though Canada is dominated by large banks, which we have been calling "too big to fail" in this country, there was no housing meltdown, because Canada doesn't bundle and securitize mortgages like we do. The Canadian banks don't sell their mortgages like we do. Canadian banks HAVE to know their customers can pay back their loans. The survival of the Canadian banks depends on it. That's the way the mortgage market used to work in America as well, until our government changed all the rules and let secondary mortgage entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Wall Street investment firms into the mortgage game, which incentivized our mortgage lenders to hand out loans like penny candy and then sell them. The government actually took these steps in the guise of lessening risk, one of the great ironies of all time.

Speaking of Fannie Mae, it is now primarily owned by the government (the taxpayers), and Fannie, along with other government mortgage entities, are still buying and selling houses like crazy, selling them for pennies on the dollar. The cost to taxpayers is $146 billion and rising. Before it's all said and done, Fannie Mae will be the single largest receiver of taxpayer bailouts.

And the recent financial regulation reform bill EXCLUDED Fannie Mae from it's reform. Great work, Congress. As usual, it was partisan politics over practical reality. The financial reform package leaves the secondary mortgage market TOTALLY in place, despite the ludicrous dog and pony show the Democrats put on to claim they were "ending bailouts forever," and "ending too big to fail." God, they think we're stupid. Fannie Mae is the biggest of the "too big to fail" in the mortgage market. As one realtor said in the article linked above, "we're all working for the government now."

The other lesson from Canada's Liberal Party concerns how it balanced it's budget. This one will make Obamamaniacs roll over in the graves they are digging for our country:

[Canadian] Liberals took office facing a $30 billion deficit. Moody's downgraded Canada's credit rating twice. About 36 percent of the government's revenue went toward servicing debt.

"Our situation was dire. Canada was in a lot of trouble at that point," Martin said. "If we were going to preserve our health care and our education system we had to do it."

As finance minister, he slashed spending. A weak currency and a booming U.S. economy also helped Martin balance the books. In the 1998 budget the government estimated that about 55 percent of the deficit reduction came from economic growth and 35 percent from spending cuts.

"The rest of the world certainly thinks we're the model to follow," said Martin, who was prime minister from 2003 to 2006. "I've been asked by a lot of countries as to how to go about it."

Canada eliminated it's deficit via economic growth policies and spending cuts. Are you listening, Mr. Obama ? Are you listening American liberals ?

Let's summarize the lessons we've learned today from other countries, which happen to be lessons America knew for a long, long time but appear to have forgotten. In order to restore America, we should – cut taxes on investment, cut government spending, enact pro-growth, business-friendly policies, restore our manufacturing sector, stop politicizing the mortgage market to "increase home ownership," and replace it instead with the old way of making mortgage loans, under which banks were highly incentivized to make responsible loans to qualified individuals. We should do everything we can to help the private sector, instead of growing government to the point that it strangles our economy.

That's what we should do, and it also happens to be what I've been advocating on this blog (gosh, I'm so smart. Allow me to pause a moment to pat myself on the back).

But instead we have the Obamamaniac in charge, doing the precise opposite, following the failing quasi-socialist European big government entitlement model that has the West collapsing under mountains of debt, as I pointed out in my recent post, Living On Borrowed Time.

It's not too late, America, but our time is running out. If you remember anything as you cast your ballots come november, remember that.

Or, we can send our President back to school for an Economics 101 course, and hope for the best.

Welcome To The Machine - On the same day President Obama invited Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) to the White House to pressure him to switch his vote on health care reform, Obama appointed Matheson's brother, Scott Matheson, to a judgeship on the 10th Circuit Court Of Appeals. I'm sure that was an entirely random, coincidental event with absolutely no underlying political calculations whatsoever…not at all similar to the way things are done in Obama's old stomping grounds…not at all similar to the Chicago way….not at all. This is the most ethical administration ever…especially when they aren't lying about everything.
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Global Warming Kettle Calls Pot Black – "First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody is like — a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there’s all this snow on the ground, this doesn’t mean anything. I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer. But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow." – Barack "The Weatherman" Obama.

The glaring problem with Obama's "everything is climate change now" rhetoric is that Vancouver doesn't usually get much snow in February. The average temperature there in February is 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Not exactly snow weather, and a temp of 55 degrees is just an example of normal weather variation. Exit questions – What if Sarah Palin said something this dumb ? How many months would it be before the media stopped talking about it ?
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Nominee For Idiot Of The Year - The following video shows MSNBC talker Dylan Ratigan "interviewing" a Tea Party representative, and hijacking his own interview by refusing to allow the Tea Party guy to answer the questions put to him. Ratigan instead used the segment as a transparent ploy to parrot the constant MSNBC propaganda point that the Tea Party movement is a racist movement.

This might be a new low in what passes for journalism. Either that, or Ratigan fancies himself the next Keith Olbermann, a dubious aspiration at best.

While I'm on the subject of the Tea Party movement…I keep hearing from liberals that the Tea Parties are chock full of racist signs, and having attended Tea Parties, I haven't seen any. Not one. I have seen a couple signs on the internet that COULD be interpreted as racist (and could also be liberal plants), out of the hundreds of thousands of signs from which to choose at Tea Party events. Can some liberal please show me all these racist Tea Party signs ??? I really want to see what all the fuss is about.
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A Good Day To Die – "Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good." – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) link

I've heard of the bigotry of soft expectations, but this is ridiculous. By Reid's standard, if only 20,000 people lost their jobs next month, that would be, as Tony the Tiger used to say, "GRRREEAAT !"

Time for a new Senate Majority Leader. This one's broken.
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Rules ? We Don't Need No Stinking Rules - From NBC News:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today the American people ought to know more about what she called "total obstruction" by the Republican Party in the Senate. Referring to Sen. Jim Bunning's hold-up of unemployment benefits earlier this week, Pelosi said, "It's not about rules, it's about a decision they've made to obstruct."

Here we have Pelosi admitting that the Pay-Go rules passed by the Democrats a couple weeks ago are basically meaningless. They bypassed them the first time they had the opportunity to enforce them, and then they have the gall to portray the one Senator who called the Dems on their dishonesty an obstructionist. Wow. Words fail me.

Time for a new Congress. This one's broken.
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Obama As The New Bush - Students in Jakarta, Indonesia are protesting President Obama's upcoming visit to that country. Obama previously has been very popular in Indonesia, having spent part of his childhood in Jakarta. From the Associated Press:

Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta's parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to this predominantly Muslim country.

The students carried banners branding Obama as an enemy of Islam and an imperialist in downtown Jakarta as well as in the provincial capitals Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.

They also threw shoes at large pictures of Obama's head. An Iraqi journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.

Protest organizer Ahmad Irhamul Fikri, spokesman for the Coordinating Board for Campus Proselytizing Institute, said bigger rallies will be staged next Friday in more Indonesian cities ahead of Obama's March 20-22 visit.

If there's a bright side here…maybe this will shut up some of the fringe element nuts known as the Birthers, who think Obama is a foreign-born Muslim who wants to establish a Caliphate here in America, or something.

For most of the last year, I thought the Republican party should have been the party of 'no.' Resisting Obama's health care takeover, the stimulus boondoggle, and cap-and-trade….those were definitely times for the GOP to say 'NO'.

But lately, the GOP has been saying 'NO' to things they should be saying 'YES' to, such as the jobs bill and the Congressional deficit reduction committee.

The cornerstone of the $15 billion jobs bill is to give employers tax credits for hiring new workers. How can the GOP be against that, other than to resist the Democrats ? For the last year, Republicans have been rightly calling the stimulus package a failure because of it's enormous cost and because it didn't do enough to help the private sector, but then when the jobs bill comes up to help private sector businesses, including small businesses, the GOP votes against it. The GOPers will say 'we voted against the jobs bill because it's money we don't have, and it will add to the deficit.' That may be true as a standalone policy, but….the GOP voted against the deficit reduction committee !…which could have reduced government spending and voila!, more than offset the cost of the jobs bill. In addition, creating jobs will reduce the deficit by increasing government revenue, which has fallen due to rising unemployment. By voting against both policies, which have traditionally been policies Republicans would embrace, Republicans have in effect voted against their own stated beliefs in tax cuts and deficit reduction.

New Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and four other Republicans broke ranks with the party to help pass the jobs bill. Good for them. As a result of the GOP helping to shoot down the deficit reduction committee, President Obama is forming his own deficit reduction committee, which is a much weaker substitute for a Congressional deficit reduction committee. Congress is where the legislative authority to make budget cuts resides. The President's committee has no such power. It is more of a cosmetic exercise, and the GOP is partly to blame for that.

The GOPers are saying the deficit reduction committee is just a front for the Democrats to justify tax increases, but GOP involvement could have helped insure that it wasn't. If the Dems had only proposed big tax increases and little in the way of spending cuts (as they probably would have), then the GOP could have rightly highlighted that and pointed out that the Democrats were not serious about reducing government spending. Instead, the party of 'no' missed the boat altogether, and the country missed a chance to reduce the deficit, which is our number one long-term problem.

Thanks for nothing, GOP. After a year of complaining about the lack of bipartisanship, you missed two golden opportunities to engage in it. You just became what you've been complaining about.

In fairness to the GOP, it wasn't only Republicans who voted against the Congressional deficit reduction committee. 23 Republicans voted against it, but 23 Democrats also voted against it. The final vote was 53-46, seven votes shy of adopting the committee. There was a lack of seriousness and bipartisanship from both sides of the aisle, and our deficit problem remains unaddressed. Shame, shame. This is why Americans are dissatisfied with both parties, and the political games they play.

I keep thinking I should write a post about my differences with the Republican party, but Democrats keep talking, thereby constantly reminding me why I detest Democrats, so I never quite get around to the Republicans. Here are a few of the latest examples of Demo-speak.

"I am very optimistic about, about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration." –Vice President Joe Biden, Febrary 2010.

Don't that beat all ? Here is Biden crediting the Obama administration for our successes in Iraq. Time for a short history lesson. Biden and Obama both opposed the Bush-era Surge, which transformed the Iraq War from a failing proposition to a winning proposition. And Biden was the one who proposed the colossally stupid three-state solution in Iraq, which would have been a logistical and humanitarian nightmare involving the uprooting and relocation of millions of Iraqis. In addition, the timetable for America's withdrawal from Iraq was setup by the Bush administration, not the Obama administration. To Obama's credit, he did continue the policies of his predecessor Bush in Iraq, policies which were condemned by Democrats for years, policies that Obama himself condemned over and over again on the campaign trail in 2008. Obama also repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he'd end the Iraq War in sixteen months, another promise he will not keep (thankfully).
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"Most small businesses right now, if they've got enough customers to make a profit and they can get the bank loans required to boost their payroll, boost their inventory and sell to those customers, they will do so." –Barack Obama, February 2010.

Here is a comment from a man who has no idea what it means to run a business. FYI Obama – A business doesn't take out bank loans to make payroll. If a business is taking out bank loans to make it's payroll, that is a business soon to be out of business. If a business can't make payroll, it lays people off, it scales back.
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"The idea [to create jobs] is to provide financial support to workers, age 60 to 62, who are currently employed, to opt for a temporary, expanded early retirement benefit under Social Security. The jobs those individuals leave will need to be refilled, even under the current recessionary circumstances. Employers will hire an equal number of unemployed people to take their places. With approximately 4.2 million workers in that age group, we would need only one-quarter of them to elect to take expanded early retirement in order to create 1 million private-sector jobs." – Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), January 24, 2010.

Here, Dennis the Menace is saying a million jobs will be created by moving a million people to early Social Security at age 60. Sigh. I can't stand it. First of all, retiring a million people early to have their jobs taken by other workers DOESN'T CREATE ANY JOBS. It's a wash. A million workers leave the workforce and a million workers replace them. That's ZERO jobs created. Second, the net result of Kucinich's proposal is only that a million more people go on Social Security, adding more unfunded entitlement liability than that program already has. It adds more to the government debt. Why does it seem that the Democrats response to absolutely everything is to have MORE people dependent on the government ? Maybe it's because the Democrats response to everything is to have MORE people dependent on the government (Whoa. I just got that deja vu feeling. Weird). Speaking as someone from northeast Ohio, I sincerely apologize for Dennis Kucinich. We are not all dolts here.
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"It's [called] climate change, where where it's supposed to get warm it gets warmer, and where it's supposed to get cold, it gets colder." – Keith Olbermann, February 2010.

Maybe it's not fair to Democrats to characterize Olbermann as a Democrat. He's more like…a raving left-wing madman. I'm sure Olby doesn't ever vote Republican, however. The above quote is Olbermann of PMS-NBC responding to Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who joked about how the recent record snowfalls don't seem to indicate any global warming taking place. Olby takes the insane liberal loon stance that no matter what happens with the weather…global warming, er, I mean, climate change, is responsible for it. This is pretty convenient for the loons, because it's makes their climate change religion inviolable. Climate change is responsible for EVERYTHING now. Heavy rain ? Climate change. No rain ? Climate change. Hot temperatures ? Climate change. Cold temperatures ? Climate change. Heavy snowfall ? Climate change. No snowfall ? Climate change. On and on it goes. The old flat-earthers look absolutely intelligent by comparison.

On the same subject:

"One of the most disturbing things about the Republican Party over the last couple of decades is that they just don’t believe in science any more. And that is not an approach that is likely to generate any kind of creative thinking…People who use snowstorms as an example of why global warming doesn’t exist don’t understand the science and they don’t care.” – Democrat Howard Dean, February 2010.

See: Olbermann's response that ALL WEATHER PHENOMENON is climate change. How scientific is that ?

For further response to How-weird Dean, I give you Ed Morrissey from HotAir, who responds to Dean better than I could:

"Actually, we do respect science. What we don’t do is adopt belief systems based on hypotheses from so-called scientists that use incomplete and unreliable predictive modeling, include wild conjectures as fact, pass off student dissertations as reliable research, and accept advocacy claims without testing, all while conspiring to hide contradictory evidence and scheme to ruin the careers of those who question them. Science requires that claims get tested, that predictive models that fail get discarded, that data and process remain open for review, and that critical thinking get welcomed instead of demonized.
Now, when Howard Dean wants to discuss scientifically how anyone can represent what the IPCC did as rigorous and reliable science, and how the “science” that predicted unstoppable increases in global temperatures for the last 12 years got it wrong but still remains reliable as a basis on which to enact public policy that massively intrudes on private enterprise, property rights, and energy production, well, I’d bet the GOP would welcome such a forum. But while we’re there, perhaps Dean and the scientific acolytes in the Democratic Party can scientifically explain how a group of cells with a unique, human DNA that divide and multiply within a uterus is somehow not human life.
You know, since we’re being scientific and all." – Ed Morrissey

Yeah. What he said.

Or we can go with the dumb screamy guy who said Republicans don't believe in sicence. You pick.

Here's Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), talking about job losses:

“…misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since [the President] took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover…Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families…According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high."

Pelosi is being pretty hard on President Obama here, isn't she ?

No, not a bit. Pelosi wasn't talking about Obama. The words I quoted above are from August 2003, and San Fran Nan was talking about President Bush's "misguided economic policies." After Bush had been in office 19 months, Pelosi was castigating the President for an unemployment rate of 6.1%, caused mainly by the recession Bush inherited and 9/11. If Bush implemented any "misguided economic policies" that negatively affected unemployment, then Pelosi must be referring to Bush's across-the-board tax cuts for all taxpayers, though that doesn't make any sense. Tax cuts would only assuage rising unemployment, not add to it. Ask Obama, he cut taxes in his stimulus package to assuage rising unemployment.

Now, let me give you the statement Pelosi did make about the current job situation, with unemployment at 9.7% (actually waaaay higher) and a Democratic President at the helm who presided over more than 4 million job losses in his first 12 months in office:

"Today's jobs report marks a welcome step in the right direction for our economy and our families: the unemployment rate is going down. The Recovery Act, which Congress passed one year ago to pull our economy back from the brink of collapse, has already created or saved nearly 2 million jobs so far. Yet our work is far from over. This recession that President Obama inherited has taken the worst toll on our job market since World War II.

Here we have a tale of two Presidents – they both inherited recessions. They both presided over an economy shedding jobs during their first year in office….Notice how Pelosi treats the two Presidents exactly the same, lol. Just kidding. That's the opposite of what Pelosi did. She blamed Bush for recessionary circumstances beyond his control and cast Bush's jobs performance in the worst possible light, while she gave credit to President Obama for recessionary circumstances beyond his control and cast Obama's jobs performance in the best possible light. That's the politicization of jobs.

That's also why I hate most politicians with a passion, and wouldn't trust them to feed my cat while I was out of town, much less trust them to run the country.

It's not only Democrats who politicize jobs, of course. The Republicans are doing their level best to blame job losses on Obama now, and they continually cite Obama's guarantee that unemployment would not rise above 8% if the stimulus package was passed. Okay, so Obama miscalculated. So what ? Who didn't miscalculate the size of this recession ? Almost everyone did, or at least everyone who had it in their power to do something about it. In any case, it's not like Obama was elected President due to his expertise in economics. He was elected due to his soarting rhetoric, not his record of achievement. He didn't have a record of achievement. He's learning on the job right now. That's OUR fault, not his.

I don't blame the job losses on President Obama. It's unfair to do so, any more than it was to blame the 2001-2002 job losses on Bush. If I have any criticism of Obama on jobs, it would probably be his obsession with health care reform in his first year when there were more pressing economic matters. Also, the uncertainty surrounding the future of health care makes the private sector unsure and hesitant. Business people like to know what their costs and risks are prior to making financial commitments, and Obama has introduced a significant amount of uncertainty into the private sector. We don't know what health care will cost. We don't know what energy will cost. We don't know where taxes will be. We don't know what regulations will be put into place. He's subsidizing one company and not another. And lately, since the Massachusetts election, Obama's policies seem like a patchwork quilt of confusion. He's trying to be a liberal, a moderate, and a conservative all at the same time. It almost seems like he's campaigning instead of leading. All his promises come with expiration dates, and a lot of his rhetoric seems tied to the previous day's news cycle, never a good sign for a President. Obama has added more uncertainty to already extremely uncertain times. Then he wonders why banks are hesitant to loan money, after the banks just got devastated from making questionable loans. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see why they are hesitant now.

But the job losses ? No, those are not Obama's fault, just as the majority of the decrease in the job losses have little to do with Obama either, though he'd like you to believe otherwise. They have more to do with the overall stabilization of the economy. We hit bottom (for now), that's all. You can credit TARP and other bailouts and rescue efforts for stabilizing the financial system and the economy, and you can credit the stimulus package for stopping an even worse hemorrhaging of jobs if you wish, even though we can't measure it. I'm sure over $350 billion spent in stimulus so far had some effect, even if it didn't "save or create 2 million jobs" as the President claims. In fact, if we have to give someone the most credit for stopping the financial collapse and therefore saving jobs, it's probably the Fed, who committed $6.4 trillion to the financial rescue effort. Yes, you heard that number correctly. That's $6.4 TRILLION. If you want to get really depressed, go to this CNN Money link for a list of all the financial rescue efforts. In total, THE GOVERNMENT HAS COMMITTED OVER $11 TRILLION. Thus, using the word "credit" to talk about job loss reductions is a mixed blessing at best. The government cures are almost as bad as the disease, maybe worse.

Not that there's anything to worry about.

Republican Scott Brown's improbable Senate victory in the bluest of all blue states, Massachusetts, has sent the Democrats reeling. Their reflective navel-gazing has begun. I look at this as a wakeup call for the Democratic party. Will they now "get" it, or will they remain in denial ? Will they continue pushing policies the American people do not want ? If so, they will continue to isolate themselves, and they will continue to lose, as they have in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia this year.

It's too soon to make that call, but early indications are not promising. This morning I heard Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, say the Dems just need to "retool their message." Wrong. That's not it. The people understand the message of the Democrats all too well. That's not the problem. The problem is, the people don't agree with the Democrats message. I heard MS-NBC's Norah O'Donnell blame the loss on Coakley not taking the campaign seriously enough. That's waaay wrong. Nobody takes a Senate seat lightly, and Martha Coakley certainly didn't. O'Donnell then said Coakley lost due to anti-incumbent sentiment. That's a pretty bizarre statement, considering Coakley wasn't the incumbent.

The excuses will continue, but Coakley lost because the American people are turning against all the divisiveness, the catering to special interests, the corruption, the partisan business as usual, and the wasteful big government arrogance of Washington D.C. Scott Brown tapped into America's dissatisfaction, and the silent majority (independents) went with him, overcoming the Democrats 3-1 voter advantage over Republicans in Massachusetts. Nowhere is the dissatisfaction of the American people more evident than in the Tea Party protest movement (which the Democratic party has arrogantly denigrated to the nth degree), and Scott Brown got that support, by saying things like this, from his victory speech:

Most of all, I will remember that while the honor is mine, this Senate seat belongs to no one person and no political party – and as I have said before, and you said loud and clear today, it is the people’s seat…When I first started running, I asked for a lot of help, because I knew it was going to be me against the machine. I was wrong, it was all of us against the machine… I go to Washington as the representative of no faction or interest, answering only to my conscience and to the people.

I certainly hope Scott Brown means it when he says he will represent no faction or interest, but rather the American people. We shall see. He's certainly right that it is all of us against the machine. This government is, after all, supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. It's not supposed to be for Goldman Sachs, the health insurance companies, the lawyers, the unions, or any other particular special interest. We are all in this together. We should pursue policies that are responsible for the nation as a whole. That means, first – national security. Second – fiscal responsibility.

Brown also tapped into the disagreement the American people have with some of the policies of the Democrats, and to this, the Democrats SHOULD take heed (and the Republicans too, for that matter):

In every corner of our state, I met with people, looked them in the eye, shook their hand, and asked them for their vote. I didn’t worry about their party affiliation, and they didn’t worry about mine. It was simply shared conviction that brought us all together.

One thing is clear, voters do not want the trillion-dollar health care bill that is being forced on the American people.

This bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, hurt Medicare, destroy jobs, and run our nation deeper into debt. It is not in the interest of our state or country – we can do better.

When in Washington, I will work in the Senate with Democrats and Republicans to reform health care in an open and honest way. No more closed-door meetings or back room deals by an out of touch party leadership. No more hiding costs, concealing taxes, collaborating with special interests, and leaving more trillions in debt for our children to pay.

In health care, we need to start fresh, work together, and do the job right. Once again, we can do better.

I will work in the Senate to put government back on the side of people who create jobs, and the millions of people who need jobs – and as President John F. Kennedy taught us, that starts with an across the board tax cut for individuals and businesses that will create jobs and stimulate the economy. It's that simple!

I will work in the Senate to defend our nation’s interests and to keep our military second to none. As a lieutenant colonel and 30-year member of the Army National Guard, I will keep faith with all who serve, and get our veterans all the benefits they deserve.

And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation – they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country. What I've heard again and again on the campaign trail, is that our political leaders have grown aloof from the people, impatient with dissent, and comfortable in the back room making deals. And we can do better.

They thought you were on board with all of their ambitions. They thought they owned your vote. They thought they couldn’t lose. But tonight, you and you and you have set them straight.

Dissent is the lifeblood of any democracy, which the Democrats should pause to consider before they viciously and falsely attack the Tea Party movement, and last night in Massachusetts, dissent won. Big time.

This morning on the Blog Of Mass Destruction, my friend the Reverend, a liberal by anyone's standard, reminded me that Thomas Jefferson was the founder of the Democratic party……..as if the current Democratic party bears any resemblance whatsoever to the one Jefferson represented. It certainly does not, and I'll leave you with the following Jefferson quote to explain exactly why not:

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government." – Thomas Jefferson

Does that sound like any current Democrat you know ? Not by a country mile. The current Democrats see almost no bounds for the government (except maybe in granting terrorists the full civil rights of American citizenship). They want the government to intrude on everything and everyone. THAT is the problem, and that is the Massachusetts and Tea Party message.

We hope the Democrats are listening.

This column is dedicated to the folks who believe ObamaCare, with it's alleged 31 million more people being covered by health insurance, and with it's 2,500 pages of myriad rules, regulations, and taxes being implemented on business and the citizenry by Congress…..will somehow make health care LESS expensive. To all such folks, I bestow upon you the Reality Deniers Of The Year award.

The ObamaCare debacle is so massive and will ravage such a huge slice of our economy that I should have bestowed the Reality Deniers Of The Decade award on the aforementioned people, especially when the previous decade ended only a few days ago, right ?

Except the previous decade didn't end a few days ago, no matter how often we hear the news media say it did. That's something we believe that just isn't so. Because there was no year zero on our calendar, the first year A.D. was year one. That means means a new decade doesn't start until year 11. Our next decade starts on january 1, 2011, not 2010.

That's a small thing, but columnist Walter Williams mentioned it in his latest article, in which he tackled another thing we believe is true but just isn't so. I've even bought into this false belief myself, more than I should have. The belief is that America doesn't make anything anymore, that we've lost our manufacturing sector. This belief comes from all the losses of manufacturing jobs in this country over the last thiry years. The job loss is true, but much of that loss is due to technological advances in industry that make manufacturing less labor intensive. From the Williams piece:

According to the Federal Reserve, the dollar value of U.S. manufacturing output in November was $2.72 trillion (in 2000 dollars). Today's manufacturing worker is so productive that the value of his average output is $234,220. Output per worker is three times as high as it was in 1980 and twice as high as it was in 1990. For the year 2008, the Federal Reserve estimates that the value of U.S. manufacturing output was about $3.7 trillion (in 2008 dollars). If the U.S. manufacturing sector were a separate economy, with its own GDP, it would be tied with Germany as the world's fourth richest economy. The GDPs are: U.S. ($14.2 trillion), Japan ($4.9 trillion), China ($4.3 trillion), U.S. manufacturing ($3.7 trillion), Germany ($3.7 trillion), France ($2.9 trillion) and the United Kingdom ($2.7 trillion).

With a manufacturing sector that produces more revenue than the entire GDP of all but two other countries, it sure seems we still make things here in the U.S., lots of things. It just doesn't take as many people to make them. Are we to roll back our technological advances just so we can employ more people ? I don't think so. Such a move WOULD sound the death knell for our manufacturing sector. Just as advances in the agricultural industry over the last century made farming far less labor intensive, so it is with manufacturing today. We could go the China route and pay manufacturing workers slave wages to produce cheap goods, but that isn't a desirable solution either. What we must do is adapt to a changing world. That is always going to be what we have to do to succeed. Instead of saying 'America doesn't make anything anymore,' it would be more accurate to say 'America doesn't make everything anymore.'

The next belief some hold that just isn't true is about the Guantanamo Bay prison. Even President Obama believes closing Gitmo will lessen the fervor of terrorists to attack us. Obama says Gitmo is a key recruiting tool of the jihadist movement. This is absolute nonsense. In order to share Obama's feeling, you have to believe that the simple act of moving the terrorists from Cuba to Illinois will somehow make the terrorists respond, "okay, things are alright now." This is absurdity taken to the nth degree. We'll still be holding the terrorists in prison, it'll just be in a different place. The idea that this will somehow appease the Islamic jihadists is inane. Do you really think they care WHERE Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his like-minded brethren are being held by the U.S. ??? It's the fact WE ARE HOLDING THEM that they care about. The fact we are fighting them in the first place is what they care about. The closing of Gitmo will have zero effect on the recruitment of jihadists. ZERO. ZILCH. NADA. Of course, we could always release more terrorists to Yemen or some other country sympathetic to the jihadists, as we've been doing, in the hopes it will appease the terrorists. That WOULD have an effect on terrorist recruitment. It would go UP by the number of terrorists we released, and it already has. Our lax policies have already resulted in over 70 terrorists going back to the jihadist fight against us. Brilliant policy, eh ? Let's try to appease ruthless murdering religious extremists who wish to establish dominance over the entire world. I'm certain that will work (NOT).

My final belief that just isn't so is about enacting more government entitlements in a country already $12 trillion in debt, that can't pay for all the unfunded entitlements already in existence, and with a government that invariably robs us blind, as it has with Social Security. That is completely insane thinking, but liberals think it's the right way to go, because they somehow believe it's "compassionate." (to bankrupt the entire nation).

But you've all heard me rant on about that enough already, so I'll spare you the details this time. Peace out.