Posted on 02/26/2014 12:26:25 PM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal came up with the perfect name for the Obama economy that you'll be hearing a lot in this year's midterm election campaigns.
"After more than five years under this administration, the Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy," the Republican governor told reporters after a meeting he and his gubernatorial colleagues held with Obama at the White House.
With his anemic economy still unable to produce enough jobs to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work full-time, Obama is offering a old, threadbare idea to raise the nation's minimum hourly wage to over $10. Congress's budget analysts say it could result in the loss of at least a half million jobs, and possibly a million.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that forcing small businesses to raise their hourly wages would result in layoffs to keep their payroll costs down, or cause employers to hire fewer low- wage workers in the future.
In a nation with a workforce of 160 million people, many of whom are jobless or can only find part-time work, this is a poor excuse for an economic recovery program. In fact, it is pathetic.
Making struggling businesses in a weak economy pay higher wages is not a plan to get America growing again.
"I think we can do better than that. I think America can do better than that," Jindal said. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is almost word for word what John F. Kennedy told voters in the 1960 presidential election as he touted his plan for cutting income tax rates for everyone to boost economic growth and job creation.
Surely we can do better than this, but don't hold your breath believing that this do-nothing president will put the American economy back to work anytime soon.
What could we do right now to jump start the engine of a stalled economy? For starters, Jindal suggested that the president could approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline "if he was serious about growing the economy."
That would create thousands of jobs and give the U.S. energy industry a booster shot that would send a signal to the economy that we're serious about boosting the growth rate beyond its anemic 2 percent range.
But Obama has been dithering over this issue for the past two years because he fears his approval will anger his party's radical environmental allies in a critical election year that could put Republicans in charge of the Senate. His reluctance is holding back the economy and stronger job growth in the process.
But that's not the only pro-growth initiative he has been blocking. Congress's tax-writing committees have been at work since 2011 on overhauling our costly, dysfunctional tax code that is also hurting our economy, slowing down job creation, and making us less competitive in global markets.
House Republicans, led by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan, were expected to lay out their plan Wednesday. It would simplify the tax code by slashing its seven tax brackets down to two: 10 percent for lower income workers and 25 percent for the top rate.
The plan would be revenue neutral because it calls for eliminating a number of tax loopholes and exemptions that now litter the tax code.
This is what the co-chairmen of Obama's deficit-cutting commission proposed in his first term in a report that the White House has ignored ever since.
But the idea took hold in Congress where Camp and his Senate Democratic counterpart, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, were working together on a tax reduction bill.
But as their work was bearing fruit, Baucus decided he would retire from the Senate at the end of of his term. Still, it appeared a deal between the two was possible. That is, until Obama suddenly offered Baucus the prestigious post of ambassador to China, getting rid of one of tax reforms' most enthusiastic supporters.
It certainly wasn't because Obama decided that Baucus was head and shoulders the most qualified candidate for the post. Indeed, Baucus said at his nomination hearings that he knew next to nothing about China.
The timing of Obama's offer to Baucus raised eyebrows in and out of Congress since it meant that any possibility of tax reform was dead in the Senate for this year. That's because the chairmanship of Baucus' committee fell to liberal Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon who has since focused on other issues that he considers higher priority.
It's unclear whether House GOP leaders will take up tax reform this year, though they haven't ruled out doing so in the months to come. Congressional reformers think that if Speaker Boehner puts it on a fast track, it would send a powerful political signal to voters that the GOP is serious about a pro-growth initiative that would strengthen our economy and put Americans back to work.
And where's Obama in all of this? The Washington Post wrote Tuesday that "the White House continues to show little interest in a comprehensive tax overhaul."
The newspaper went on to say that "administration officials have dismissed reform of the individual code, saying it would be mathematically impossible to lower the top rate paid by the wealthy, protect the middle class and achieve Democrats' goal of raising fresh cash to shrink chronic budget deficits."
This was to a large extent what critics said of President Kennedy's across-the-board income tax cuts: They would worsen the deficits, endanger middle class programs, and benefit the rich. But in the end, his tax cuts led to business expansion, created jobs and it didn't worsen the deficit. By the end of 1960s, we had a budget surplus.
Obama says he wants to lift the middle class as well as those below the poverty income line, but he's opposed to pro-growth, pro-job policies to do that. Instead, he and his party have become the champions of a jobless, minimum wage economy.
What a contrast in economic policymaking. Kennedy defended his tax cuts for all incomes by saying, "A rising tide lifts all boats," while Obama and the Democrats say raising the minimum wage is the best we can do.
is it racist to say this is Obama’s minimum wage economy?
we have been told by the liberals that it is racist to call Obama the food stamp president. I wonder if it is also racist to call him the minimum wage president.
When you can’t make ends meet with one paycheck get a second job, or a third if necessary.
That’s what previous generations did.
Or did the federal government recently make it illegal for people to hold a second or third job?
The fact is most simplifications just make it more complex because you end up grandfathering the prior incentives in the tax code.
Even if you eliminated all taxes, you still can't compete with chinese labor wages. RESTORE THE IMPORT TARIFFS. That will bring American industry back.
The fact is most simplifications just make it more complex because you end up grandfathering the prior incentives in the tax code.
Even if you eliminated all taxes, you still can't compete with chinese labor wages. RESTORE THE IMPORT TARIFFS. That will bring American industry back.
That is not enough. Simple trade tariffs to eliminate the advantages of extreme wage differences would suffice on goods made by foreign companies. But American based Corporations that have shipped their countryman's jobs overseas to take advantage of slave-wages should be hit with punitive and confiscatory tariffs until they move back to the US or they go out of business.
Driving companies out of business is not the goal.
Neither is providing an incentive for them to leave the U.S. for good.
Nor is punishing them for playing by the rules that were set up.
If they didn't off-shore and their competitor did, they would soon be out of business. So don't blame the companies. Blame the government for lowering the tariffs in the first place.
Driving companies out of business is not the goal.
Neither is providing an incentive for them to leave the U.S. for good.
Nor is punishing them for playing by the rules that were set up.
If they didn't off-shore and their competitor did, they would soon be out of business. So don't blame the companies. Blame the government for lowering the tariffs in the first place.
Obama -is- the minmum wage President.
Think of it for a moment.
Minimum wage, yet hardest hit with the taxes. Why? The human on minimum wage does not make enough to have deductions, capital gains offsets, funds to place in sheltered IRA’s of any kind, or any so-called loopholes.
“But Obama has been dithering over this issue for the past two years because he fears his approval will anger his party’s radical environmental allies in a critical election year that could put Republicans in charge of the Senate. His reluctance is holding back the economy and stronger job growth in the process.”
I doubt that it ever crossed Obama’s mind to “cross the party’s radical environmental allies”. After all, he’s the most radical guy in any room full of Democrat politicians. He IS a radical environmentalist.
We are way beyond mere economic theory here. Considering what the ruin that they have wrought in this country its time for revenge.
More like the fedguv has made it painfully difficult to get ONE job, to say nothing of two or three.
Some talking head on Fox was arguing that the minimum wage going to 10 an hour would decrease foodstamps. Hardly.
A 40 hour work week at $10 an hour equals $20,000 a year, still eligible for foodstamps.
A middle class wage is $40,000 a year now. The only way to get there is NOT education. It is acquiring a marketable skill or trade or license or rating.
You can take history, geography, sociology, art, music appreciation, the writings of Dylan Thomas, topics in math, geology, economics, and come out with all that stuff, and you’re still lacking a marketable skill.
Teach your children well.
Whatever we call him doesn’t matter. They don’t like to hear the truth
Disagree. All other things being equal, as your income rises your food stamp amount decreases.
If your 18 year old moves out of the household your food stamp amount decreases.
If you lose your job your food stamp amount increses.
If you get another job your food stamp amount decreases.
Etc.
I see this all the time in my voluteeer job as a triage interviewer at a food/clothing bank.
"After more than five years under this administration, the Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy," the Republican governor told reporters after a meeting he and his gubernatorial colleagues held with Obama at the White House.
Zing!
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t going to resign.
Clever!
You have not removed anyone from eligibility for foodstamps with a 40 hour work week meaning a 20,000 annual income at $10 and hour. First, we know that minimum wagers don’t get 40 hour work weeks, so we’re going down there. Next, if even one child, then that eligibility is even firmer. Finally, with the entire young population either unemployed or minimally employed, the number of eligible goes up. Are they eligible for different levels of help? Your experience says they are, and I honor that experience.
At the same time, an eligible family of 7 receives an average of $800 worth of assistance each month. The max for the same family is about $1200.
Give me the $800. I can feed a family 7 on $800. a month and they will eat very, very well.
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