Posted on 08/06/2010 9:22:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- A year and a half into his presidency, more Americans blame Barack Obama for the dismal state of the U.S. economy than George W. Bush. Obama has been traveling the country insisting that a weakening economy and high unemployment are still Bush's fault, but more and more voters are no longer buying that lame excuse, according to a new Rasmussen poll. It shows that 48 percent of Americans now say the president is to blame for the anemic recovery, versus 47 percent who still fault Bush.
With the economic growth rate sinking to a mediocre 2.4 percent, and major states experiencing jobless rates between 9 percent and 14 percent, it is dawning on voters that the Obama administration doesn't have a clue how to get the economy moving again.
The evidence for this can be found in the Democrats' latest plan on Capitol Hill: a $26 billion spending bill to help debt-ridden states pay their bills and keep teachers and other public employees on the payroll. No incentives to boost business investment or job creation. No plan to unlock venture capital for economic expansion and new start-up firms. No new trade initiatives to expand markets abroad for American-made goods and services.
Just more of the same bailouts to strengthen cash-strapped state governments at the expense of the private sector.
There is nothing wrong with the American economy that the right pro-growth incentives cannot fix. But Obama and the Democrats in Congress oppose such incentives, insisting that still more spending is the answer to our economic woes, even though it hasn't worked in the past.
Obama was out on the campaign trail this past week, maintaining that the Republicans and their allies in the business community have been opposing his economic agenda and have not proposed any alternatives. "Not lifting a finger to help," he said.
In fact, the GOP and the business community have been offering a broad range of job-creating proposals that always worked in the past and will work again, but they have been dismissed or ignored by the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress.
I asked a number of business leaders and trade associations what they would do to accelerate growth and create more jobs. All said the administration did not have a workable plan, and all had lots of ideas for how to do it better.
"We have no battle plan, no comprehensive approach for making manufacturing in the U.S. more competitive, more productive, and creating even more high-paying jobs," said John Engler, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. Among the NAM's proposals to put more Americans back to work:
-- Cutting the corporate tax rate to 25 percent or lower will create more than 2 million manufacturing jobs by the end of this decade.
-- Raise the R&D tax credit by 25 percent, which would sharply boost industrial reinvestment and innovation, increasing GDP by $206 billion and creating 270,000 new manufacturing jobs.
FedEx Chairman and CEO Fred Smith also thinks that the combined federal and state corporate tax rate should be cut to 25 percent or less. It is 50 percent higher than the average 26 percent of all other major industrialized countries in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
Smith would "accelerate depreciation of capital purchases more quickly. Every dollar in tax cuts for business depreciation adds about $9 in GDP growth."
Echoing his business colleagues in the global economy, Smith says we must "embrace open trade. The biggest economy in the world is the economy of world trade. After all, 27 percent of our American economy is based on international trade."
The National Association of Wholesalers and Distributors wants to kill the income tax hikes that Obama plans to raise at the end of this year.
"The automatic increases in tax rates on upper income earners, dividends and capital gains are already a huge disincentive to business activity," but the administration's proposals for additional tax increases will only further weaken the economy," the NAWD told me.
Among its two chief targets for repeal: taxes that will be imposed on employers under the health care mandates that will raise health care costs and kill jobs, and "regulatory overkill."
The National Federation of Independent Business, the nation's chief small-business lobby, wants to see estate tax and capital gains tax relief.
"Protecting small business owners from the return of the estate tax next year will provide immediate relief to many family-owned businesses," NFIB said. Small businesses also want to keep capital-gains rates low to promote new reinvestment in their enterprises and protect employers from getting hit by punishing tax increases on the sale of capital investments.
For the 3 million-member Chamber of Commerce, "Uncertainty is the enemy of growth, investment and job creation." Lowering the corporate tax rate would fuel job growth and "infuse our economy with fresh momentum." But curbing the government's rising budget deficits by boosting federal revenues is No. 2 on their wish list. One effective way to do that: "As much as $1.7 trillion in revenue could be generated over 10 years through numerous oil, gas and shale leases on our lands and off our shores."
Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels said it best ..."“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it...."
Faux pas is not the phrase that begins with “F” that I would have used.
“Not lifting a finger to help,” he said.
Maybe he is so insulated by his handlers he doesn’t know what alternatives are being proposed.
If not he is a liar, if so, he looks like a liar.
Ya THINK!!???
But is it the "voter" that this is "dawning on", or the DBM that the voters ain't buyin' his BS anymore??
You're absolutely correct. The reality is that only a small part of this is Bush's fault, and if he were still in office we would already be in a decent recovery. This is the result of a democrat congress using the banks for social engineering, combined with the uncertainty created by Obama and his socialist/communist ideology.
I’m sorry, Kaslin, but this article has way too much common sense and reason — not allowed in America anymore! Forget common sense; forget proven principles of capitalism and incentives; forget the lessons of the 20th Century! At least until Nov. 3, 2010. Or maybe make that Nov. 6, 2012.
Ask yourself why the states put the jobs of teachers, police, and firefighters as the first to go. Could it be they don't want to cut all the welfare, building, and payola from their budgets?
and looting.
This, I find, is the difference between having
1: Principles, and
2: intelligence
Those with principles and intelligence consult the lessons of history, observe what worked and what didn’t work, and try to stick to the former.
Those who are idealogically bent on their teenage utopian nonsense reject any such notion as “outdated” or “backwards looking”, “overly simplistic”, or any of a hundred other other insults/encapsulations, all of which reveal their own indolence at actually studying and comprehending something other than or outside of their own entitled and subsidized existence. No, all solutions must conform to the liberal quasi-Marxist gobbledygook they were taught in their college courses that mommy and daddy paid for. Never mind that the purveyors of such nonsense have zero experience in the real world where their fabulous ideas are supposed to work.
This is all assuming that the inflictors of these wonderful ideas are actually trying to improve things in the US. Not that their ideas haven’t been tried before and failed universally. That, ultimately, is the larger question. Probably they are trying to improve things. For themselves. The rest of us can go pound sand.
Right on! If my memory serves me correctly, they put Bernie Madoff in jail for running a ponzi scheme. He was looting money from clients to live a lavish lifestyle. Does this have any parallels to the ponzi scheme being put on the taxpayers now?
SHORT & SWEET... BUT, IT IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF obama’s SKILL...as a finance manager.....He truly is the dumbest person in any room he enters.
It seems like a miracle that our beloved leader was able to convince BP to establish a $20 billion slush (oops, escrow) fund to compensate those hurt by the ongoing oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, he had no constitutional power to force them to do so; so had to resort to Chicago-style negotiating.
But, let us take a closer look at the effect on BP’s finances:
1. BP will establish a $20 billion fund, but will pay only $7 billion into it during 2010.
2. BP is a British corporation, but has a very large operating entity in the US but only about 30% of it’s income is derived from the US.
3. By Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAP), BP must book the entire $20 billion expense in the year accrued. Therefore, they will book a $20 billion expense in 2010, reducing their US tax liability by $7 billion.
4. Our dear leader also convinced this massive corporation to show their concern for the “small people” by withholding dividends to their shareholders for the last 3 quarters of 2010. This reduces their outward cash flow by about $7.5 billion, including approximately 40% of that amount to US citizens. Assuming that the Bush tax cuts will survive through 2010, the US Treasury will lose another $450 million in taxes on that amount. We won’t even discuss the effect on the US economy.
Let us put the results into a table easily understood by the small people (including me):
BP Cash Flow:
o Escrow funding ($7 billion)
o Dividend saving $7.5 billion
o Tax savings $7 billion
o Net favorable cash flow : $7.5 billion
US Treasury Tax Receipts:
o BP Corporate income tax ($7.5 billion)
o BP Shareholders ($0.45 billion)
o Net unfavorable tax receipts ($7.95 billion)
I guess we really should expect this. After all, our dear leader is the most inexperienced man in ANY room he enters.
Now tell me …………………Did the enlightened one “Kick Ass”, or did he get ”Sucker Punched”?
This is just one more reason why a ‘community organizer” should NOT be negotiating anything dealing with money and finances!
Bottom line: The $20 Billion BP is putting up will create a $7.5 Billion positive cash for BP flow this year. But, Obama actually “thinks” he really did something special and “kicked ass’ (in his own words).
In reality, BP executives are laughing at him and ‘kicked his ass”. Oh well….what’s new with this President anyway??? He is in over his head when he starts dealing with “business people”.
Zer0 needs to go on a “shut up and listen” tour.
>> That 47% are still buying into that “it’s Bush’s fault”
They’re probably reluctant to let go of their dislike for Bush, but I doubt the same number actually believe Obama is not culpable for the disastrous economy.
Here’s a thread from earlier today with some interesting maps from the election...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2564605/posts
And some good analysis of the 2008 election. Obama has made a crucial mistake in misreading his election victory. As the article says, he should have moved to the middle and been a president for all of the people. Instead, he has been in constant campaign mode, pandering to the left.
bump
Shoulda, woulda, coulda...it doesn’t matter. He’s not Clinton.
He has an agenda...completely transforming America...and he’s fulfilling it.
Your answer is the reason why I preferred Romney over McCain.
I could see what was coming down the pike, and knew that it would be critical to have someone who understood finance at the top.
But if McCain had been elected, I do believe he would have turned to Romney for advice.
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