Still No Pro Growth Pro Jobs Policies Coming Out Of Washington
The news reports keep saying that the economy is beginning to improve. You have to take that with a grain of salt though because the economy is still way off of its highs in terms of total output or GDP. One beef I have had with the Obama administration since day one has been its lack of attention on the unemployment rate.
Instead of focusing on putting people back to work, this administration along with the state governments keeps paying people not to work by extending their unemployment benefits. In my opinion, if you are going to extend anyone’s unemployment benefits in this time period, you had better make sure they are doing something productive.
These people could be doing government work while unemployed in the private sector. I mean hell, if the government is going to keep sending them unemployment checks, shouldn’t taxpayers get something in return? What are we getting in return right now? I’ll tell you.
We are getting larger and larger deficits. These deficits cost us taxpayers a crapload of money to pay back. Remember, we pay these deficits back with interest, not just the principle. The government is doing exactly what it has told its citizens not to do. It is overspending. Think about it. The entire housing crisis was caused because people were borrowing too much money. What the hell do you think the government is doing right now?
This debt is going to be a slowly tightening noose around the neck of the American economy for decades. Yes decades. Every year we are going to have to pay the interest on that debt until we pay the debt down. When has the United States ever paid its debt down? First you need a growing economy so you can tax it. For every tax dollar you take out of the economy to pay foreign countries the debt we owe them, it is one less dollar that could have been spent domestically. Doesn’t anyone get this?
After all of the money that has been spent to stop the deceleration of our economy, we still aren’t fundamentally any closer to paying off any of that debt. In fact, taxpayers so far have gotten a zero return on investment. If Obama had used this money to put people back to work as he originally promised, then at least our economic output could have been higher. More people would be working and consumer confidence would be much higher.
What happened to the 4 million new jobs he promised us? How many has he helped create so far?
