The Starving Time

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.