Obama is Failing IV

Obama is Failing

It’s now more that a month past my first post about President Obama’s First two quarters in office,  and the outlook is not any better. Obama is presiding over an economy with accelerating  job losses when he promised job gains with TARP’s passage. The economy is the key thing worrying the country right now, and his entire party and administration seems oblivious to that fact.

Here’s a graphic map that visualizes job losses through time at Slate, please hit the start button, then the green play button. You will see that job losses accelerated dramatically from November when he was elected through to the present.

Even his most ardent supporters cannot step forward in the face of this and say that he is succeeding in his election promise of saving and creating jobs. If he wants success there he’s got several long rows to hoe and with the course that he has set the outcome will be Congress facing elections with the US poorer and unemployment still high in 2010. This will occur even though the economy has turned and our basic economy is sound.

The contentious cap and trade and health care bills in Congress insure economic restraint through uncertainty if they are passed, and if they fail then they must fail dramatically to end the uncertainty. Both will introduce huge new costs to consumers, businesses, state economies, and local economies. These costs are unknowns which keep bean counters at every business in America awake at night because they can’t make forecasts with any hope of reasonable accuracy.

Bottom line:

  • High energy prices created by Cap and trade legislation will turn the economy down, not up, as President Obama promised.
  • Increased taxation from the Health Care bill will retard rather than progress the economy as Obama promised.

Cap and trade has been called “Cap and Tax” for a reason: one outcome will be increased energy costs for consumers and businesses, and high energy prices  drive all other things in the economy.

Indeed there are good arguments to be made that the rest of the world’s countries implementing cap and trade policies in prior years led to the fragility which tipped us over the brink in the banking and mortgage loan industries. Without high energy prices the past several years the system might have been able to sustain with a lower burden of defaults, and mortgage companies might not have so many “toxic assets” on the books. High energy costs stifle economies worldwide, so why would you intentionally make them higher at a time of severe economic malaise?

The other problematic bill in congress is the Health care bill  – the unknowns are more daunting than the knowns since the bill is a nightmare of cut and paste confusion as Pelosi’s staffers and lobbyists crammed like they were writing a term paper they had blown off all semester to get this before Congress in time. The resultant mess in the lower congress from “rushing to woo” the public is a crazy patchwork quilt of conflicting measures that can be interpreted any way opponents want to. This has been a real boon for grenade throwers like Sarah Palin and others.

The outlook for both bills has seriously worsened since I wrote this post, however I still expect pared down versions of both to pass. You can bet that some Republicans in congress do want some of the energy investments in the “energy bill portion” of Cap and Trade, and you can bet there are some health care reforms that Republicans and Blue Dogs could get behind. If Obama wants a cosmetic win in getting both passed then he’s going to have to give up the Pelosi and Waxman versions and cross the aisle to sanity.

To me that’s a failure since the Dems have a big lock on majority and should be able to get pretty much anything through. The struggles they are having now really demonstrates how truly incompetent their legislators are.

UPDATE: Charles hits the nail on the head about the political sideshow of the “DeathPanel” debate, with fact checking on the provisions provided by ABC. Also note that Rick Moran’s been taking a lot of heat over his stance on this, but he’s right.

UPDATE: Slick Willie Preps the diehards for the deal they will have to make if they want a health care bill.

UPDATE: Middle Class and Independent voters would prefer no Bill instead of House Plan by strong majorties.

Cap and Tax Under Hot Debate

Cap and Tax Under Hot Debate

Update: The bill passed 219-212

The Waxman-Markey Cap and Tax bill is under hot debate on the house floor right now, the bill will introduce a huge hidden energy tax to middle class americans, and do pretty much nothing to stop emissions. It’s turned into a huge patronage deal with massive pollution credits going to Dems in coal states to gain their votes. Here’s Representative Dave Camp, MI speaking on the effects of the bill:

The quickest way to stall the world economy that I know of is to introduce more draconian regs like this. The diesel regulations in Europe directly contributed to the recession we are trying to come out of now.

With the coming regulation of shipping diesel fuels, the future is looking pretty grim.

More from Representative Ryan:

Pelosi Pimps National Energy Tax and Iowa Congressman Braley in Des Moines

That’s how it started off, a plan like the Europeans… but since then it’s turned into a patronage scam of perks and pork as Rep. Henry Waxman trades credits to states whose votes he needs to pass the bill. It’s a monstrosity that we don’t need while the economy is recovering.

Pelosi Pimps National Energy Tax and Iowa Congressman Braley in Des Moines

Nancy Pelosi was expecting a quiet soiree of Democrat fat-cat insiders as she attends a private fundraiser for the Democrat Congressional Committee and Congressman Bruce Braley. Braley was out speaking last night trying to tamp down the upset over her lies about the CIA, but they just won’t go away.

Meanwhile the NRCC robo-called across the district to let voters know about the National energy tax that’s the likely outcome of the Democrat Cap and Trade scheme.

At inception it was a plan like those imposed upon Europeans the past few years, plans which have totally failed to reach goals and that increased use of fossil fuels in Europe while strangling those economies. Some of the economic malaise we are in can be tracked back to Euro cap and tax schemes.

That’s how it started off, a plan like the Europeans… but since then it’s turned into a patronage scam of perks and pork as Rep. Henry Waxman trades credits to states whose votes he needs to pass the bill. It’s a monstrosity that we don’t need while the economy is recovering.

Here’s the audio from one of the robo-calls:

Cap and Tax Shell Game Pushed by Geithner

Cap and Tax Shell Game Pushed by Geithner

This is the worst possible time to be pushing cap and trade – increased prices for energy are not the answer for our economic woes, and a low energy future is not the way to combat pollution. If we want to tackle the problem we should be building clean energy, not penalizing all sources we don’t agree with because bankrupting power companies and decreasing energy supply has dire consequences for the world. Make no mistake about this: it’s the middle class tax hike Obama didn’t tell you about in the election, and it could easily be argued that sustained high energy prices for several years led directly to the mortage debacle which pushed us over the hill into recession.