It Could Be Worse (Honest)
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010For the past couple weeks, President Obama’s defense of the failed stimulus bill has essentially been “It could’ve been worse.” Initially, I rejected that storyline but I’ve reconsidered. This WSJ article got me thinking, which ultimately led to my rethinking my position.
The one possibility the President and Congressional Democrats won’t entertain is that their own spending and taxing and regulating and labor union favoritism have become the main hindrance to job creation. Since February 2009, the jobless rate has climbed to 9.5% from 8.1%, and private industry has shed two million jobs. The overall economy has been expanding for at least a year, but employers still don’t seem confident enough to add new workers. The economists who sold us the stimulus say it’s a mystery. But maybe employers are afraid to hire because they don’t know what costs government will impose on them next.
This paragraph reminded me that things could be much worse. Think of what would’ve happened had President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had jammed Cap and Trade and Card Check down our throats, too.
Had this Democrat-dominated congress passed that legislation and had this Democratic president signed that legislation into law, the economy would’ve tanked by now. Had the Democrats passed these items, it isn’t a stretch to think that unemployment might be hitting 12 percent by now. (more…)