While the multiple overseas crises, the surge of illegals
across our southern border and
administration scandals hold our collective
attention, I thought I would take a step back and see how 66 months of
Priest-King’s enlightened leadership have reinvigorated the economy since the
“Great Recession” of 2008-2009. (I put
quotation marks around the phrase since I lived through the double-dip
recessions of 1978-1983 and times were a lot
tougher then, but I digress.) I’ve devoted quite a bit of effort detailing the
failure of his socialist policies in a conventional sense and the success of his socialist policies in
advancing his goals, namely the massive increase in the size, scope and power
of government, the redistribution of the nation’s wealth and the restructuring
of our economy from free-market capitalism to a central planning model, but
after commenting on the Priest-King’s laughable management style and foreign
policy, it’s time to beat the economic horse again.
First, let’s see what improvements have been made. The unemployment rate as of 01 July 2014 was
6.1%, the lowest since September 2008 as the home mortgage meltdown began to
bite and a marked decrease since October 2009 when the rate peaked at 10.0%. The private sector has recorded net job
growth for at least 22 consecutive months and the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached an
all-time high of 17,138.20, an increase of 260% from the rock-bottom mark of
6594.44 in March 2009, so at first blush, it would seem that we are steadily
recovering from the recession but if we look at the big picture, things simply
aren’t as rosy as Priest-King would have us believe. During this so-called
“recovery,” the economy has grown at an average rate of 2.2% per quarter and a
total of 11.1%, but The Wall Street Journal
reports that the average GDP growth of all post-1960 recoveries is 4.1% and a
total of 21.1%, so the recovery that Priest-King has managed is roughly half of
what we would expect. There are 5.6
million fewer jobs available now than there were seven years ago and because of
the stark conditions, the labor force participation rate is 63.7%, the lowest
mark since 1983: People have simply given up trying to find work. Even worse,
if someone is able to find a job, it is more likely to be part-time as employers
try to cope with the steep costs of Obamacare – as of December 2013, the
full-time labor participation rate was 80.9%, a decrease of 1.7% from the
pre-recession level, while the proportion of employees working 34 hours per
week or less has climbed.
Taxes and regulations under Priest-King have strangled
growth. As of 01 January 2013, thirteen new taxes took effect including six
related to Obamacare alone. The social
security payroll tax went up from 4.2% to 6.2%, the top marginal tax rate for
incomes over $450,000 went up from 35% to 39.6%, businesses will no longer be
able to deduct the full cost of capital improvements, the deduction for
corporate expenses related to the Medicare Part B subsidy has been eliminated
and the deduction for individual medical expenses has been reduced, among other
things. Together with 157 new major
regulations that cost $73 billion per year for compliance and we have a U.S.
economy that is being choked into submission, crawling on the floor, unable to
generate the revenue required to repay our $17 trillion in national debt, let
alone create millions of high-paying, full-time jobs.
Contributing to the stratospheric rise in our national debt
is the fact that 49.5% of all workers pay no Federal income taxes at all. (People ridiculed Mitt Romney’s remark that
he’d never be able to convince 47% of the voters to support him because of
their dependence on government, but it turns out Mitt actually underestimated
the figure.) Combine that with 10,000
baby boomers retiring every day and we face $45.9 trillion in obligations over
the next 75 years with no way to pay it.
By 2024, 62% of the non-interest Federal budget will be devoted to
Social Security and Medicare alone, resulting in a burden of $299,000 per
working American which is clearly unsustainable, but we’re not done yet.
Since LBJ declared War on Poverty in 1964, the Federal
government has spent over $17 trillion on means-tested welfare but poverty has
actually increased. One out of seven
Americans relies on food stamps for basic survival, spending on food stamps has
almost doubled from $39.3 billion annually to $75.3 billion and Priest-King,
rather than help the poor transition from assistance to work, has accelerated the
growth of welfare by excising that part of the 1994 Welfare Reform Act that
requires welfare recipients to work in exchange for their benefits. By providing cash bonuses to states that
enroll more welfare cases and covering 80% of the cost of new enrollees, the
Federal government gives the states powerful incentives to sign up more people
to the public trough and undercuts the intent of welfare reform to transition
people from dependency to self-sufficiency.
Adding insult to injury, the expansion of welfare destroys families:
72.8% of black children born in 2009 were illegitimate.
The facts speak for themselves. In exchange for the suffering of 313 million
people and permanent damage to our democracy, we have feeble growth and
below-normal employment. Calling what we
have a “recovery” insults the definition of the word. Priest-King believes that prosperity is only
prosperity when everyone prospers,
that success is only success when everyone
succeeds, that equal results matter more than equal opportunity. If someone is disinclined to work, then it is
the duty of government to provide that person a safe, secure, stable living for
the rest of their life. Free-market
capitalism with its emphasis on risk-taking, initiative, individual
responsibility and self-reliance is anathema to his vision, it must be chained,
shackled, taxed regulated and beaten into submission. With huge tax increases, huge costs for
Obamacare, hundreds of new rules, millions of people giving up on finding a job
and a shrinking, overworked and ragged workforce, it is no surprise that the
economy is gasping, wheezing and limping along.
This is the new normal whether we like it or not. As in the Clinton years when liberal pundits
told us that lying was actually beneficial, Priest-King wants us to believe
that mediocrity is success, that unemployment is being productive and that
destroying the world’s greatest economy is inspired leadership: God save us
from more inspiration. My friends, this
state of affairs threatens our democracy.
The Founders envisioned a nation of self-starters, rugged individualists
who only needed a clear set of rules to move out and make their dreams
reality. They supplied their own drive,
their own resources, their own creativity and they were willing to sweat, they
reached the Pacific Ocean and then the moon, they cured diseases, they won two world wars, invented amazing
technology, fed their friends and enemies alike and built the greatest nation
in the history of the world. The
Founders certainly didn’t anticipate
a nation where 36.3% of working-age adults sit idle, where half the population
pays no taxes yet draws on the public treasury, where we pay people not to work
and punish those who work too well, where the president not only doesn’t stop
such misery but encourages it. Even a
liberal like Thomas Jefferson would be appalled at a society in which sloth is
rewarded and prosperity is flogged in the public square, and would recognize
that when the resources are gone, chaos will surely follow. “He who does not work, neither shall he eat,”
decreed Captain John Smith in the Jamestown colony, quoting Scripture, and by
enforcing this simple credo, he helped save the colony from starvation. I pray to God that we relearn it soon because
Priest-King may be Messiah-in-Chief but he’s no John Smith.
