California Conservative

The House GOP has put a great video highlighting how the stimulus bill hasn’t created any jobs. Check this video out but be prepared to laugh a bit:

Despite the latest unemployment report, a report that shows another dramatic jump in unemployment, President Obama continues to put a positive spin on things.

President Barack Obama says he’s confident the economy will turn around in the short term and the nation will prosper in the long term despite another dose of bad unemployment news.

Obama spoke Thursday in the Rose Garden shortly after a meeting with chief executives from energy companies. Earlier, the government reported that employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June.

The unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Obama called that report sobering news. He said that while it is better than the last economic quarter, it is little comfort for those who have lost their jobs. He said it took years to create the economic mess and it will take time to reverse the downward slide.

It’s true that he didn’t cause this recession. Bit by bit, though, people don’t care that he didn’t cause it. He got elected because people wanted him to fix the mess he inherited. Bit by bit, people are noticing that Obama’s solutions have been worthless. They’re noticing that his policies, especially his pork-infested, less-than-stimulating stimulus bill and his bailout of the UAW and his budget, have given Wall Street and Main Street alike reasons to not trust his economic policies.

The Ellie Mae ad is a great touch. Mocking President Obama’s and the congressional Democrats’ policies will highlight their ineptitude and cause a shift in who the American people vote for in 2010. In 2006, the Democrats’ slogan was that we needed “to change direction.” In 2010, a potent argument can be made for changing directions away from the Democrats’ disastrous direction.

Articles like Larry Kudlow’s don’t give people confidence in the economy:

Donald Marron, a former senior economist with the Council of Economic Advisors and the CBO, calls it “a grim jobs report.” Marron, digging deep into the Labor Department Statistics, says the continued decline in hours worked by private-sector employees, now 7 percent over the past year, is especially troublesome. He writes, “The economy is thus losing jobs and, for the jobs that remain, is losing hours worked. That double-whammy is bad news for the economy.”

I would add that along with manufacturing and construction, the service sector continues to shed jobs, with a 244,000 drop in June. Inside that category, the important professional-and-business-services sector lost 118,000 jobs. The wage data is equally disconcerting. Over the past three months, average hourly earnings barely rose at 0.7 percent annually.

The average length of a deep recession is approximately 17-19 months. I’m guessing that, right now, we’re 6 months past that with at least another 6 months to go before bottoming out.

Predictably, here’s Kudlow’s prescription for recovery:

As an old-fashioned supply-side guy who is out of date with contemporary Washington policies, I would add that Obama’s biggest mistake was not cutting marginal tax rates for individuals, businesses, and investors. Instead of the fiscal profligacy that is driving spending and borrowing sky-high, lower tax rates with true incentive-reward effects would have reignited the animal spirits that are sagging so badly.

Until President Obama learns that capitalists need incentives to do things, this economy will stagger along. While I think it’s likely that we’ll have some economic growth along the way, I think it’s far more likely that we won’t have a noticeable, sustained jump in economic growth.

Until that changes, Ellie Mae will have her work cut out for her.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Unemployment, Bailouts, Stimulus, President Obama, Democrats, Change Directions, Election 2010

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Economy, Election 2010, Obama, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.