Thursday, October 20, 2011

COP: Will the Real Culprit Please Stand Up!

Kevin A. Lehmann

I’m sorry to inform the “Occupy Wall Street” gang (OWS) that the corporate icon they are protesting (The New York Stock Exchange) is not the guilty culprit.

The facts are that from 2008 to 2010, the Left controlled the Presidency and a filibuster-proof-Congress for the first time since the 1977 to 1979 days of the Jimmy Carter Administration. The Left used their majority to pass laws to engage in massive stimulus spending and interventionist restructuring of the American economy. As a result of their statist actions; our federal debt grew more in 3 years than it had during our entire 232 years and our credit rating was downgraded; while unemployment rose and will probably go higher.

With a record like Obama’s; it should come as no surprise that the Left has been reduced to hitting the streets in search of anyone that would hear their cry.

After gaining control of government, the Left screamed that the economy was facing a depression and needed the type of large government stimulus spending programs enacted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his filibuster-proof-Congress in 1933. But after three years in office, FDR’s federal spending only hit 10.2% of GDP; whereas current federal spending is estimated to have risen to 25.3% of GDP.

After three years in office; FDR’s stimulus spending helped reduce unemployment 2.6%; versus the 4.3% rise in unemployment we have suffered over the last three years. In fact, from 1940 to 2008 unemployment only exceeded 9% for one year; but unemployment has been over 9% for each of the last three years.

Given GDP growth peaked in the 3rd quarter of 2010 and the fact that it takes at least 150,000 new jobs per month to keep unemployment from rising due to population growth, unemployment appears to be on the verge of skyrocketing!

Furthermore, the most interventionist economic restructuring laws passed by the Left are just now starting to take effect. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (Obamacare) will cause 800,000 job losses in healthcare, and banks recently announced they will cut another 150,000 jobs due to the Dodd–Frank Act (DONK).

In one of the biggest pivots to the Left; their spending and interventionist actions has had the unintended consequence of killing local tax revenues. The deteriorating economic situation caused the loss of 35,000 state and local jobs last month and 267,000 in the last three years. Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for the prestigious Moody’s credit rating service, estimates that state and local government will lose another 400,000 jobs in the year ahead.

Self-appointed economic spokesman for the Left, Paul Krugman, summed up his frustration that America has not appreciated the historic spending and economic restructuring he championed:

“A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate—and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. In the process, it has been easy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is.”

Krugman clearly intends to usurp the young Occupy Wall Street protester’s agenda in attempt to regain credibility with the American people for the Left’s failed agenda:

“A better critique of the protests is the absence of specific policy demands. It would probably be helpful if protesters could agree on at least a few main policy changes they would like to see enacted. But we shouldn’t make too much of the lack of specifics. It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details.”

The arrogance of the Left’s elitists and politicians will not allow them to acknowledge the obvious fact that it was their spending initiatives that have been abysmally destructive to our nation. That, and the Federal Reserve’s penchant for printing fiat money faster than you can say “bankrupt.”

Until next time . . . Wake Up America!

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