Where Are the Jobs, President Obama?

Just a few days ago we reached the three year anniversary of President Obama's signing of the huge stimulus spending legislation rammed through by a Democratically controlled Congress in his first month of his administration. We were promised many things for the huge commitment of taxpayer dollars - on of which was all the jobs that would be created. We were even told that unemployment would not surpass 8%, though it did, in fact, hit 10% after that promise.

Look at this chart:

Democrats said their costly plan ($1.2 trillion, including interest) would “save or create” up to 4 million jobs and bring the unemployment rate down to about 6% today. The unemployment rate has not fallen below 8% at any point in the last 36 months. Furthermore, the official unemployment rate does not actually count unemployed people who have given up looking for work.

The above chart shows the “labor force participation rate.” This statistic represents the share of working-age Americans who are either employed or unemployed but looking for work. It is not a pretty picture. Only 63.7% of working-age Americans are currently in the workforce – the lowest in almost 29 years!

To put it another way, 36.3% of working-age Americans do not have a job and are not even looking.

So much for hope and change. What we got instead from this president and his then Democratically controlled Congress was the last gasp of ramped up far left spending and the agenda of government control at any cost. It is a reincarnation of the 1960's liberal spend and tax agenda bankrupt of any real vision for economic recovery other than taking more money from struggling Americans while crying that "the rich" are not paying enough taxes. The fact is, even if President Obama and the Democrats taxed "the rich" at 100% it would still not be enough to eliminate the deficit that they tripled during the three years of the Obama administration.

Many tax increases have been set to rush in after the actual election date in November. Team Obama and the Democrats deliberately did this so as to help the re-election efforts of President Obama. Small business owners, the backbone of our economy, have lived with the dread of approaching rising costs of doing business and have been reluctant to expand their businesses and hire more workers. Who can blame them? Whether it is increased benefits mandates or the rising price of new government regulations put forward, small business owners fear diminished profits for the foreseeable future.

Americans of all walks of life continue to struggle to meet the cost of rising gas prices at the pump, of rising prices at the grocery store, and rising health care costs.  All of this continues due to the folly of Democratic policy decisions. The hope of shovel  ready jobs, where everyone could acquire a job building infrastructure or rebuilding the inner cities was a cruel farce. We've all seen the video of President Obama and his business roundtable advisers laughing about the absence of any such jobs ready for the taking. Easy for them to laugh while the less fortunate weep, I suppose.

While the Democrats laugh and sit on their hands until after the November election, House Republicans have moved forward, continuing to pass job creating legislation that the Democratically controlled Senate refuses to even bring up for debate, let alone vote on. The gridlock that the president likes to rail against - again, for his own re-election prospects -cannot be simply laid at the feet of his loyal opposition. His own party is a willing partner in obstructionism.

Everyone loses in class warfare.