Economic Growth Slows Under Obama

Just a few months ago the Democrats declared they were responsible for the economy and were proud of it. Today we’ve discovered just how bad the economy is. Second quarter economic growth was only 1.3%. Worse, the government downgraded economic growth for the first quarter and last year’s fourth quarter. The government claimed growth at 1.9% during the first quarter, now they say it was only 0.4%. Fourth quarter growth dropped from 3.1% to 2.3%. It makes you wonder how much second quarter growth will be downgraded.

The economy is stagnating  under Obama. Unemployment remains high, job growth remains small. New unemployment claims were just under 400,000 last week. Long term unemployment is soaring, it takes an average of six months to find a job Obama. It wasn’t even six weeks under Bush. The black middle class is eroding as unemployment soars. Meanwhile the college kids who voted for Obama in 2008 don’t have jobs. Unemployment among the young is over 20%.

The Republicans and Democrats are fighting over a meaningless debt ceiling plan so that they don’t have to focus on the real problems this country faces. Government is to big, it spends to much money and taxes are to high. We have the highest corporate tax rates in the world yet we expect corporations to create jobs. How can they create jobs when their profits are funding a massive Federal government? How can we expect corporations to create jobs when Federal regulations funnel corporate money from job creation to compliance?

If you’re General Electric, the Obama administration has been great. GE has essentially traded good media coverage for Obama on NBC for massive tax breaks and regulatory influence. Except that GE isn’t creating jobs here in the US. They’re moving jobs to China. So while GE has great regulatory and tax influence within the Obama administration, they aren’t creating jobs here in the US.

There is one company that wants to create jobs here in the US but the Obama administration isn’t letting them. Boeing wants to build an airplane factory in South Carolina, which is a right to work state. The pro-union Obama administration has nixed the deal and wants the factory built in union Washington state. So for political purposes Obama is denying jobs to red state South Carolina in an attempt to shore up Washington state for the 2012 election. Unfortunately the result is that Boeing doesn’t seem willing to build the plant and thus there are no new jobs thanks to this administration.

The games this administration is playing with Boeing are the perfect example of why the economy is stagnating. You can multiply the Boeing situation by a thousand. The Obama administration is using its regulatory power to protect unions at the expense of jobs and the broader economy. This is why we had 0.4% growth in the first quarter and only 1.3% in the second quarter. Couple this with the massive spending going on in Washington, Obamacare (never discount how much Obamacare is costing us in jobs) and regulatory schemes and it’s no wonder the economy isn’t growing.

The economy is now the responsibility of President Obama. After $800 billion in a wasted Stimulus, Obamacare, and nearly $4 trillion in new debt, the economy is his. It’s falling apart because of Obama’s policies. The economy is his. Just wait unil inflation hits hard.