In an obviously preplanned propaganda ploy, President Obama will
leave his Hawaiian vacation "early" returning to Washington to engage in
more fiscal cliff political theater.
When Fox News first reported Obama's travel plans, we were reminded that Obama let it slip last week that he would return this week:
An
administration official tells Fox it is now “likely” the President
flies back to Washington late Wednesday night to deal with the fiscal
cliff.
Last Friday the President told reporters in Washington
“see you next week” before leaving for Hawaii, though it had not been
clear until now what day he would be flying back to DC.
Why
is Obama returning when there are no plans for the President to meet
Congressional leaders upon his return? Obama's early return is just
political theater carefully designed to ensure the Republicans get the
blame for the massive Obama tax hikes his stubborn intransigence is
about to impose upon us.
Obama has once again blown a deal to get $800 billion in additional tax revenue. This time According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama's stubborn insistence on more and more taxes included higher tax rates on more successful taxpayers.
Obama's
insistence on higher tax rates was doomed to failure. As Louisiana
Republican Congressman John Fleming recently explained, the House of
Representatives has never increased income tax rates when it has been controlled by Republicans. Boehner's failed attempt
to pass a higher income tax rate on those earning $1 million proves
this Republican controlled house still not break that 100-year
tradition.
Today, American Crossroads launched a new television ad that takes
President Obama to task for "bad decisions" which have made it difficult
for small businesses to create jobs.
In the ad small
business owners cite increased taxes, rising health care expenses, and
burdensome regulations, to make the case that Obama is destroying small
businesses – the most important job engine of the U.S. economy.
Watch the new ad:
The ad is titled, "Next," but I prefer the "Obama is the problem" tag line that appears at the end of the ad.
Crossroads
is spending $8.3 million to run the new ad in eight battleground
states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada,
Ohio and Virginia.
American Crossroads director of state and
regional media relations Nate Hodson said Obama's excessive regulation
causes uncertainty:
"With Barack Obama calling the
shots in the White House, entrepreneurs feel threatened and admit they
are uncertain of their ability to create jobs. President Obama would
rather make small business owners the enemy than take responsibility for
mismanaging the economy over the last four years."
During Obama's presidency the total cost of regulations has increased 49 percent — from $1.17 trillion to $1.75 trillion.
There is a reason there aren't more jobs. Obama has made a lot of bad decisions.
You are familiar with the Tax Foundation's "Tax Freedom Day" -- the
date by which the average American has earned enough to pay his taxes
for the year. This year Tax Freedom Day finally arrived on April 17th.
To borrow a phrase from President Obama, let me be clear, on average
Americans, must use every penny they earned from January 1st until April
17th to pay their taxes for the year.
One of my favorite
economists, Professor Antony Davies, and his colleague, James R.
Harrigan, suggest we also celebrate what they call "Deficit Day" to
focus Americans' attention on the on fact that we are headed to bankruptcy. They explain it all in an excellent article they published at Real Clear Markets.
"Deficit
Day" is the date by which federal tax revenues run dry and the federal
government begins adding even more debt on top of our exploding $16 Trillion national debt. This year Deficit Day falls on September 10th.
According
to Davies and Harrigan, everything the government spends from now until
the end of the year will be borrowed. They say we haven't seen a
balanced budget since the Eisenhower administration:
Conventional
wisdom holds that the Clinton administration ran surpluses. But this is
a twisting of the facts. It is true that the debt held by the
public-which excludes money the government borrows from the Social
Security trust fund-declined by $433 billion from 1997 to 2001. But,
over those same years, the government borrowed $827 billion from the
Social Security trust fund. In other words, the only way to claim that
the Clinton administration ran surpluses is to admit that the government
has no intention of paying back that $827 billion it borrowed from
Social Security.
You wouldn't believe how broke the U.S. already is.
We simply cannot continue to tax and spend and borrow as we have. I
have previously written that Professor Davies calculates the debt and
unfunded obligations of the federal government to total $64.09 trillion.
An amount greater than the "economic output of the entire planet." That's right, the entire planet.
Today, the national debt is $16,015,769,788,215.80 (as of 8/31/12 -- US Department of the Treasury, TreasuryDirect.gov,
accessed 9/4/12). It was $10,626,877,048,913.08 when Obama became
president. That is an increase of more than a five and one-half trillion
dollars (50 percent) during in the forty-two months of the Obama
presidency.
In honor of this momentous occasion, the
Republican National Committee in conjunction with Romney for President
released a new video titled, "$16 Trillion." You can watch the "$16
Trillion." video here.
$16
trillion is more than the value of all the goods and services produced
in the United States last year. ("Gross Domestic Product," Bureau of
Economic Analysis, BEA.gov, accessed 9/4/12.) $16 trillion is also 25 percent of the world's gross domestic product.
It
gets worse. According to Duquesne University Economics Professor Antony
Davies, the debt and unfunded obligations of the federal government
total $64.09 trillion. An amount greater than the "economic output of the entire planet." That's right, the entire planet.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus took President Obama to task for the 50 percent increase in the national debt during his presidency:
"The
past four years Barack Obama hasn't offered any serious solutions to
get our spending under control and instead he has run 4 straight years
of trillion dollar deficits. President Obama's budget got zero votes in
Congress and we can only expect more of the same inaction in a second
term."
On July 3, 2008, Presidential candidate Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt was "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic."
Obama was referring to the $3.764 trillion that had been added to the
national debt during the seven and one-half years Bush had been
president. Obama of course got his facts wrong when he falsely claimed
President Bush increased the national debt by $4 trillion "by his
lonesome." When Speaker Pelosi took over Congress on January 3, 2007,
the national debt was $8.7 trillion. So the Democrats must get some of
the credit for one of the four trillion dollars candidate Obama tried to
blame on Bush.
FY2009: The federal budget deficit was $1.413 trillion, the highest in U.S. history. ("Monthly Budget Review: November 2011," Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)
FY2011: The federal budget deficit was $1.299 trillion, the second highest in U.S. history. ("Monthly Budget Review: November 2011," Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)
FY2010: The federal budget deficit was $1.294 trillion, the third highest in U.S. history. ("Monthly Budget Review: November 2011," Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)
The
Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit for fiscal year
2012 (which ends on September 30), will total $1.1 trillion, Obama’s
fourth straight trillion dollar deficit. ("An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022," Congressional Budget Office, 8/22/12)
You
shouldn't be shocked by Obama's failure to reduce the deficit in half
by the end of his first term in office. He did warn us there would be "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come."
It could have been even worse. According to the Washington Post's fact checker, every year President Obama has wanted to spend more money than Congress would allow.
In the weekly GOP address, Wisconsin's U.S. Ron Johnson takes the president to task for the failed Obama economic policies:
"We are all disappointed by the failure of President Obama’s economic policies… His budget busting stimulus plan grew government, grew our debt, but failed to grow our economy."
You can watch Senator Johnson's terrific address below:
Senator Johnson starts by noting that it has now been more than three years since Harry Reid’s Democrat-controlled do-nothing Senate passed a budget and points out that Obama has done nothing to encourage the Senate to pass a budget. This week in the Senate, the President's budget lost by a vote of 0 - 99. Last month, it failed in the House by a vote of 0 - 414. And last year, Obama's budget lost by a 0 - 97 vote in the Senate:
"This is a stunning repudiation of his leadership. At a time when America requires sober financial management, President Obama's fiscal plans have been so unserious, that not a single member his own party supported them with their vote.
Without a budget, is it any wonder that America's fiscal house is in total disarray?"
Not only did the Senate reject Obama's "unserious" budget, it also rejected four Republican alternative budgets.
In the second part of the weekly address, Senator Jonson talks about Obama's failed economic policies and how those policies have grown government, grown our debt, but have failed to grow our economy:
"Instead of concentrating on job creation, President Obama has concentrated on growing government and increasing its control over our lives.
[. . .]
The President and members of his Administration are true believers in big government. They point to the 46 million Americans now on food stamps as a metric of success. It is not. It is a metric of failure that highlights how his policies have not put Americans back to work.
Because of his policies, dependence on government has increased, and individual opportunity has declined."
Obama's policies have caused gas prices to more than double, increased the national debt by more than $5 trillion and failed to get unemployment below 8 percent.
Despite his promises to cut the deficit in half by the end of his "first" term, Obama has racked up the largest deficits in U.S. history:
FY2009: The federal budget deficit was $1.413 trillion, the highest in U.S. history. ("Monthly Budget Review: November 2011," Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)
FY2011: The federal budget deficit was $1.299 trillion, the second highest in U.S. history. ("Monthly Budget Review: November 2011," Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)
FY2010: The federal budget deficit was $1.294 trillion, the third highest in U.S. history. ("Monthly Budget Review: November 2011," Congressional Budget Office, 11/7/11)
The CBO projects the deficit at the end of Obama’s first term will be $1.253 trillion, Obama’s fourth straight trillion deficit. ("An Anlysis Of The President’s 2013 Budget," Congressional Budget Office, 3/16/12)
You shouldn't be shocked by Obama's failure to reduce the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. He did warn us there would be "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come."
Senator Johnson ends on an optimistic note calling this the “time to return to the values and principles that made this country great":
"I grew up in an America that valued hard work and celebrated success. America became the economic engine of the world, not because of government, but because millions of Americans had the freedom to pursue their dreams.
We can reclaim this heritage once again and build a society where hard work is rewarded and every American has the opportunity to succeed"
The full transcript of Senator Johnson's address follows:
"Hi, I’m Ron Johnson, from the great state of Wisconsin. 16 months ago, with no previous political experience, I began serving in Senator Harry Reid’s do-nothing Senate.
It is hard to convey how frustrating it has been.
My background is in accounting and manufacturing in the private sector. Like most Americans, I’m used to getting things done…producing results.
The American people understand that we are facing enormous economic challenges. And they’re looking for solutions, not political games.
They have every right to expect their elected officials to be responsible and accountable. We should be making the tough decisions, taking the hard votes, and developing real solutions to our nation's urgent problems.
But that's not what's happening in the United States Senate.
It has been over three years since the Senate passed a budget. Think about that. Even though families and most businesses produce budgets to help control their finances, the largest financial entity in the world is operating without one.
Why? Because Democrats in the Senate refuse to be held accountable. They either don't have a plan, or they simply do not want their fingerprints on one. Maybe that's because their plans generally rely on taking more money out of the pockets of hardworking American families.
Republicans have proven that we are willing to be held accountable. Since regaining a majority in the House, Republicans have fulfilled our responsibility every year by passing a budget. But so far, those good faith efforts have died in the Democrat-led Senate.
For his part, President Obama has done nothing to encourage the Senate to pass a budget. Just this week in the Senate, the President's budget lost by a vote of 0 - 99. Last month, it failed in the House by a vote of 0 - 414. And last year, his budget lost 0 - 97 in the Senate.
This is a stunning repudiation of his leadership. At a time when America requires sober financial management, President Obama's fiscal plans have been so unserious, that not a single member his own party supported them with their vote.
Without a budget, is it any wonder that America's fiscal house is in total disarray?
President Obama has submitted four budgets, but none of them ever included a plan to save Social Security or Medicare. These are important programs that millions of Americans rely on. Without reform, they will not survive. And yet President Obama offers no solutions.
And because of the exploding debt caused by his failed policies, Americans are suffering every day from a faltering economy, and the prospects for our children and grandchildren are being diminished.
If you’re concerned about the financial future of America, these are not encouraging results.
We all want to see America prosper. We all want every American to have an equal opportunity to build a good life for themselves and their family.
And we are all disappointed by the failure of President Obama’s economic policies.
President Obama promised far more. If we had only known that at this point during his term in office:
-Average gas prices would more than double,
-Our nation’s debt would increase by $5.3 trillion,
-And unemployment would never fall below 8%.
Instead of concentrating on job creation, President Obama has concentrated on growing government and increasing its control over our lives.
His budget busting stimulus plan grew government, grew our debt, but failed to grow our economy.
President Obama then turned his attention to taking over 1/6 of our economy. He promised his healthcare plan would lower family premiums by $2,500 per year, but instead, they have increased by $2,300.
The President and members of his Administration are true believers in big government. They point to the 46 million Americans now on food stamps as a metric of success. It is not. It is a metric of failure that highlights how his policies have not put Americans back to work.
Because of his policies, dependence on government has increased, and individual opportunity has declined.
The social welfare economic model of Europe is collapsing. Countries like Greece have made promises to their citizens that they simply cannot afford. President Obama has put this country on the exact same path.
We can do better than this. America should do better.
It is time to return to the values and principles that made this country great. I grew up in an America that valued hard work and celebrated success. America became the economic engine of the world, not because of government, but because millions of Americans had the freedom to pursue their dreams.
We can reclaim this heritage once again and build a society where hard work is rewarded and every American has the opportunity to succeed.
Republicans are ready, willing, and able to lead this noble effort.
The new ad plays right into the hands of the Republican National Committee's effort to re-brand the 2008 Obama campaign "hope and change" theme with "hype and blame." Worse, after attempting to avert blame by once again talking about the "inherited" recession, and another reminder about getting bin Laden, the ad ends with this admission:
"Instead of losing jobs, we're creating them. Over 4.2 million so far. We're not there yet. It's still too hard for too many. But we're coming back."
This is a huge mistake for Obama. Having said that if he doesn't have this "done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition," admitting that after three years "we are not there yet," is the same as admitting that he is going to be a one term president. Perhaps Obama was paying attention when Romney said, the presidential campaign is "still about the economy…and we’re not stupid."
The new ad will air in the battleground states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida and Colorado. You can watch Obama's "Go" ad here.
The April unemployment report brought attention to the millions of Americans suffering in silence as a result of President Obama's failed economic policies.
The Romney campaign has released a new video "Silence" highlighting the terribly disappointing April unemployment report:
No wonder that during his so-called official start to his reelection campaign, President Obama told Americans not to ask if they are better off than they were four years ago, but how they'll be tomorrow.
Only 115,000 jobs were added in April, far fewer than the 180,000 economists were expecting. The reason the unemployment rate declined slightly to 8.1 percent and the broader "U-6" measure remained at 14.5 percent is because 342,000 more people gave up looking for work and quit the labor force.
The unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for 39 straight months.
Only 115,000 jobs were created in April, which is the smallest monthly jobs gain in five months. Hiring has now slowed in three straight months.
The labor force participation rate declined in April to 63.6 percent, which is its lowest level since 1981.
If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.6% today—the unemployment rate would be 11.1%.
When President Obama pushed through his $800-billion stimulus bill, his administration claimed unemployment would drop to 5.9 percent by April 2012.
22.8 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, or are only marginally attached to the workforce.
The Republican National Committee and Romney campaign are out to re-brand the 2008 Obama campaign "hope and change" theme with "hype and blame."
The re-branding effort will focus on Virginia and Ohio, where President Obama will hold campaign events on Saturday. In addition to an advertising campaign, Republicans will sell "hype and blame" bumper stickers.
In a conference call detailing the strategy with reporters this morning, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus accused Obama of running from his record while campaigning on the taxpayers' dime:
"The candidate of 'hope and change' has become the president of 'hype and blame.' He once promised to hold himself accountable. He said he was going to be different. He said he was going to be transparent. Now he spends his time making excuses for all of his failures. He promised to keep unemployment under 8% with his stimulus package, now we've had 38 straight months of unemployment above 8%. So what does the president do? Well, he blames everyone and everything except the man in the mirror, from ATMs to the Japanese earthquake to Congress to oil speculators, airport kiosks.
Candidate Obama promised to save or create millions of jobs. He promised Virginians he would put two million Americans to work rebuilding American infrastructure. And he promised Ohioans he would create five million green energy jobs.
Despite refocusing on jobs again and again, more than three years later Obama's promised jobs are nowhere to be found. Even though Obamacrats promised if Congress passed Obama's so-called stimulus, unemployment would peak at eight percent, the unemployment rate has remained above eight percent for a record 38 straight months.
Chairman Priebus is correct. Obama offers excuse after excuse rather take responsibility for his policy failures.
Opposition to Obama's latest stimulus boondoggle his so-called "jobs bill."
OBAMA: "If it turns out that there are Republicans who are opposed to this bill, they need to explain to me, but more importantly to their constituencies and the American people, why they're opposed, and what would they do."
THE FACTS: Republicans their objections to Obama's latest stimulus plan. In a memorandum to House Republicans Sept. 16, House Speaker John Boehner and members of the GOP leadership said they could find common ground with Obama on the extension of certain business tax breaks, waiving a payment withholding provision for federal contractors, incentives for hiring veterans, and job training measures in connection with unemployment insurance.
They objected to new spending on public works programs, suggesting instead that Congress and the president work out those priorities in a highway spending bill. And they raised concerns about Obama's payroll tax cuts for workers and small businesses, arguing that the benefits of a one-year tax cut would be short-lived. The memo also pointed out that reducing payroll taxes, which pay for Social Security, temporarily forces Social Security to tap the government's general fund. And it opposed additional spending to prevent layoffs of teachers, police officers and other public workers.
OBAMA: "Every idea that we've put forward are ones that traditionally have been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike."
THE FACTS: Obama proposes to pay for his jobs bill by raising taxes, something traditionally opposed by Republicans and, in the form Obama proposed it, even some Democrats. Senate Democrats were also to Obama's approach, which relied largely on limiting deductions that can be taken by individuals making over $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000, that they're eliminating it and proposing a new tax on millionaires instead.
According to the Associated Press, in claiming bipartisan support for the components of his stimulus, the president appears to be referring just to what the plan would do, not how it's paid for, but that's a crucial distinction Obama doesn't make.
On Regulation Rollbacks
OBAMA: "The answer we're getting right now is: Well, we're going to roll back all these Obama regulations... Does anybody really think that that is going to create jobs right now and meet the challenges of a global economy?"
THE FACTS: Well, yes, some think it will. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce last month submitted a jobs proposal to Obama that included a call to ease regulations on businesses. It specifically called for streamlining environmental reviews on major construction projects and to delay the issuance of some potentially burdensome regulations until the economy and employment have improved. In the letter, Chamber President Thomas Donohue also called on Congress to pass legislation that would require congressional approval of major regulations.
The good folks at American Crossroads have produced another great video. This one, "Democrats Anonymous" offers for Democrats fed up with the Obama Regime's job-killing policies, ridiculous proclamations and demands for more and more tax revenue.
Now Democrats afflicted with doubts about Obama's radical agenda can get help and no longer have to suffer alone and in silence.
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