Posted on 02/07/2014 6:08:51 AM PST by Kaslin
"Job-lock!"
It's only February, but it's already my favorite word -- or phrase, I guess -- of the year. (Who knows, by December it may be shortened to "joblock.") It's not euphonious or edgy, but it does offer insight into the unreality of the Democrats' predicament.
The Congressional Budget Office issued a politically explosive report this week, finding that Obamacare will reduce the number of hours Americans work by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs. This is different than killing 2.5 million jobs, Obamacare defenders are quick to insist. This will be a shortfall on the demand, not supply, side. In other words, people with health insurance will opt not to work in certain circumstances if they know they won't lose their coverage.
Democrats insist this is a boon. Indeed, many are talking about it as an act of liberation (which reminds me of an 11-year-old headline from The Onion: "IBM Emancipates 8,000 Wage Slaves").
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the CBO report vindicates Obamacare, because "this was one of the goals. To give people life, a healthy life, liberty to pursue their happiness. And that liberty is to not be job-locked, but to follow their passion." Pelosi is particularly invested in this view. She's been mocked for years now for her repeated claims that Obamacare is an entrepreneurial bill because it would let Americans quit their jobs to, among other things, "write poetry."
I know I'm not alone in thinking that it was totally worth seizing a seventh of the U.S. economy, polarizing Washington, throwing millions of Americans' lives into turmoil and forcing millions of others to pay more in premiums and deductibles, while spending $1.2 trillion just so we could liberate the Job-Locked Poets! (Whoever seizes that as the name of your new band: You're welcome.)
Now everyone is taking a bow for freeing Americans from the shackles of employment. "People shouldn't have job-lock," Harry Reid declared this week. "We live in a country where there should be free agency. People can do what they want."
That's an awkward way of touting a law that compels people to buy insurance even if they don't want it, during a "recovery" where millions can't find a job.
Still, it pains me to say Reid has a point. So do other Obamacare supporters when they claim some conservatives are being hypocritical, or at least inconsistent, about the CBO report. Republicans have been arguing for years that the hard linkage between employment and health insurance is a mistake. (It began as an unintended consequence of World War II-era wage freezes.) And Republicans have been offering ways to fix the problem for years. There's no point in suddenly shouting that "job-lock" isn't a problem.
But there are some things worth shouting. First of all, according to the CBO, not every lost hour of work is the amateur poet's gain. Yes, Obamacare lets people keep their health insurance even if they quit their job to master iambic pentameter. But the law also raises the implicit marginal tax on people looking for work; the more you earn, the fewer subsides you get. Thus, for many people, the costs of taking on more or better work will exceed the gains. So at least some people won't feel liberated so much as trapped.
Also, just because Republicans have said that job-lock is a problem doesn't mean they have to support the Democrats' solution. I agree with my daughter that she needs a new hobby, but that doesn't mean I have to buy her a team of lions so she can be a lion tamer.
Rep. Paul Ryan and other opponents of Obamacare have proposed reforms that would have made insurance cheap and portable. Democrats said no because their top priority was never ending the tyranny of job-lockage. Rather, they claimed their top priority was to help some 30 million uninsured Americans.
Which is why the real CBO story should be: "That awkward moment when everyone realizes Obamacare was a huge mistake." The same CBO report projects that by 2024, the number of non-elderly uninsured will be -- drum roll, please -- 31 million Americans.
And that's why all of this talk of Democrats as the Job-Lock Liberators is pathetic and hilarious at the same time. Virtually every promise has been broken, every prediction falsified. And now, at a time when millions want work that doesn't exist, Democrats are claiming victory by trimming the amount of work actually being done.
Hopefully voters will look for ways to liberate these Democrats from the curse of job-lock come November.
End congressional job lock now.
I know I'm not alone in thinking that it was totally worth seizing a seventh of the U.S. economy, polarizing Washington, throwing millions of Americans' lives into turmoil and forcing millions of others to pay more in premiums and deductibles, while spending $1.2 trillion just so we could liberate the Job-Locked Poets! (Whoever seizes that as the name of your new band: You're welcome.)
PFL
Thanks to our 3000 page law telling you exactly what to do, you are now FREE! Free from the toil and drudgery of gainful employment! Free from the shackles of a job and career! Now you can pursue your lifelong dream of sitting on the couch watching Oprah!
Nancy Pelosi wants us to write poetry? OK.
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet.
Nancy Pelosi is an idiot.
It’s some of that modern poetry.
Funny. One of the jobs Universal Knowledge Allah (charged with the recent mugging of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Concert Master and the theft of his $6 million Stradivarius) lists on his Linked In resume is “poet”. I suppose perps like him will have more time to steal violins, now that they no longer have job lock.
Congratulations Ms. Pelosi! You're now FREE to go write poetry!
Exactly
There
On the Horizon
I see
Trouble brewing
Alas
Bitter brew
(Damn..... If I weren’t retired I could end my job-lock)
idjid rhymes better with sweet
“People can do what they want”
yes, I agree, as long as “what they want” to do
doesn’t impose an involuntary burden on their fellow citizen.
Einstein was job-locked in a dull Patent Office job to be able to support himself and his family. At the same time he was writing treatises on Physics and working out complex mathematical problems.
Maybe if weren’t job-locked at the Patent Office he would have been free to write poetry.
Excellent article, but unless I overlooked it, it misses one key point.
While the workforce reductions may be “voluntary” in nature, the costs associated with paying for those who choose to leave the workforce still need to come from somewhere.
Which will be all of those people now seeing their premiums and deductables get jacked up.
I’m guessing that they may not be all that enthusiastic about paying 30% or more per year so that some anonymous poet can go chase his dreams.
They need to save the economic news for the end of the evening news broadcast. They always save that segment for good uplifting stories.
“On the lighter side, the government has just released the latest “liberation from jobs” numbers and this month more than 300,000 lucky Americans have been liberated from dead end jobs and are now (thanks to Obamacare) free to pursue their dreams of being poets, painters, musicians and daytime television critics.”
Meanwhile, I will hope to remain job-locked, so that I can pay my taxes in order to assure that millions have the chance to pursue happiness.
Unemployment equals freedom?
My first washer was a Maytag wringer washer that my husband bought in Germany in the PX
Imagine this infomercial:
“Would you like to make 50, 60, or even $100 an hour writing poetry? It's not only possible, but likely!
Here's how:
The government has just unleashed Obamacare, the most job-freeing bill in existence. No longer will you have to go to a job in bad weather or have a boss tell you what to do.
You will become an entrepreneur according to esteemed politician Nancy Pelosi! Enter the business world, wheeling and dealing in your high priced poems. You can charge anything you like. The government has not yet set a cap on the price of a poem. Could you get $100? $50,000? One MILLION DOLLARS for your poem?! The sky's the limit. You can get what ever the market will bear for your unique and valuable poem.
You can write poems such as these and sell them:
‘The government made Obamacare,
Cuz they care,
I'll make money,
With my poems, honey’
Certainly someone would pay you several THOUSAND DOLLARS for a poem such as this.
Learn:
* iambic pentameter
* The Seuss Method
* Bread Company Jingles
AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
For just $569.99 you can come to our POEM RICHES SEMINAR at the Marriott O’Hare Monday thru Thursday AT 8:00 AM, 10:30 AM, 2:00 PM AND 6:00.
If you don't come to our POEM RICHES SEMINAR, you deserve to be poor!”
nominated for post-of-the-day
I’m feeling “Tax locked” right now.
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