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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gersh Avery who wrote (75974)	7/21/2012 9:52:50 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 103300

Companies last month added the fewest workers in almost a year, concluding the worst quarter for corporate hiring since the first three months of 2010, according to national figures released July 6. Employment in the three-year economic expansion has been slow to recover in some states that are contending with weaker housing markets or industries. “We see a lack of diversity in some of the economies,” Michael Brown, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N. C., said before the report was released. “That puts them at risk for cyclical swings. Not only do you have economic fundamentals at work, you have demographics at work.” Alabama and New Jersey showed the biggest increases in unemployment. The rate in Alabama climbed to 7.8 percent in June from 7.4 percent the previous month. New Jersey’s unemployment rate jumped to 9.6 percent in June, the highest in almost two years, from 9.2 percent as more people entered the labor force looking for work. Nevada continued to have the nation’s highest unemployment rate, at 11.6 percent. Rhode Island was second, with a rate of 10.9 percent, followed by California at 10.7 percent. North Dakota had the lowest unemployment in the nation, at 2.9 percent, followed by Nebraska at 3.8 percent. States showing the largest decreases in employment were Wisconsin, Tennessee and Maryland. State and local employment data are derived independently from the national statistics, which are typically released on the first Friday of every month. The state figures are subject to larger sampling errors because they come from smaller surveys, making the national figures more reliable, according to the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employers nationwide added 80,000 jobs last month, after 77,000 in May, Labor Department data showed on July 6. Private payrolls climbed 84,000 in June, the weakest in 10 months. The unemployment rate, which held at 8.2 percent in June, has been 8 percent or higher since February 2009. New York’s jobless rate rose to 8.9 percent from 8.6 percent in May. In New York City, unemployment climbed to 10 percent, matching a postrecession peak reached in the six months through February 2010, from 9.7 percent, a report showed July 19.

To: Gersh Avery who wrote (75974)	7/21/2012 9:57:01 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Respond to of 103300

Reagan Boosted Entrepreneurs, Obama Trashes Them By LAWRENCE KUDLOW Does anybody remember, back in the depths of the recession of 1981-82, how President Ronald Reagan kept his chin up and exhorted American businesses to work hard and produce an economic recovery? Reagan had a program of tax cuts, limited domestic spending, deregulation and a strong defense aimed at overturning Soviet communism. He argued in speech after speech that his domestic plan would produce higher economic growth and lower unemployment, and that prosperity would generate the resources to fund a strong national security. Cynics proliferated. But Reagan stayed with it, praising free enterprise and entrepreneurs. And eventually, sunny skies replaced gloomy clouds. "Morning in America" appeared in 1983-84. But here's the key point: When Reagan praised our capitalist system and the businesses inside it, he provided a psychological lift to accompany his fiscal program. That was leadership. Now contrast President Reagan's performance with President Obama's recent attack on business. Instead of exhorting entrepreneurship, Obama demonized it. Here's the money quote: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." That's a put-down to business recovery, not an exhortation. Reagan praised entrepreneurs into recovery. Why must Obama trash them into recession? It's always been a question of the American genius of entrepreneurship that makes the country run. And that's optimism. It's not name-calling or negativism. But it is the reliance on government under Obama that has undermined the morale of our economy. In an interview this week with Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary said the problem with the economy is insufficient government spending. But I would argue that government spending is the problem. A week earlier, I interviewed Alan Greenspan. I asked him about the impact of over $1 trillion in federal spending. He answered, "Well, actually, strangely as it may seem, the data are showing that it's negative." Greenspan said businesses — especially smaller businesses — are essentially on a capital strike. They see large-scale deficits and debt and assume that prohibitive tax rates cannot be far behind. Greenspan also said the U.S. government has borrowed so much money, it has drained scarce capital from the private sector. Nobody wants to build long-term assets, like factories, buildings and houses. Obama does not understand that his government-centered model is doing vastly more harm than good. That's why, three and a half years in, he's got slumping numbers on jobs, retail sales, manufacturing and home sales, and a gross domestic product rate that could be 1% or less. We may be on the front end of another recession without even going through a real recovery. And the center of economic gravity has shifted in the wrong direction. Food stamps are soaring. Social Security disability benefits are rising faster than jobs. And roughly half of U.S. households are receiving federal-transfer-payment assistance. This is a European-style model, not an American one. Then you have some of the dumbest fiscal ideas ever, like the new one from Sen. Patty Murray. She wants all the Bush tax cuts to expire on Dec. 31, 2012 — an event that will surely lead to recession — and then have Congress magically vote for middle-class tax cuts in 2013. This is incredibly foolish (and improbable). But like Obama, Murray has it out for successful earners, investors and small-business owners. In order to tax them, she is more than willing to risk recession. Raising the tax on the upper-two income brackets would slam the 3.5% of small-business owners who generate 53 percent of the small-business income, according to the Joint Tax Committee. And that's where the jobs are. Ernst & Young estimates a job loss of 710,000 if those upper tax brackets are raised. And when you combine all that with scheduled new taxes from ObamaCare, you're looking at substantially higher tax rates than anything Bill Clinton ever had. And of course, Clinton cut the capital gains tax. But today's Democrats want to raise it (along with taxes on dividends and estates). This whole assault on success by left-wing politicians is a staggering reversal from the spirit of Ronald Reagan. You can even go back to FDR: His big-government, tax-the-rich policies failed, but at least he preached that happy days were coming again.