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Time to Admit Obamanomics Has Failed
WashingtonExaminer.com
It's no coincidence that Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council
of Economic Advisers, announced her retirement the day before Friday's brutal
unemployment report. With 131,000 more jobs lost in July, and downward revisions
of 97,000 for the previous two months, it's easy to see why she would start
looking for the exits.
Romer is best known for drafting the February 2009 report "The Job Impact of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," which the White House used as an
ammunition belt in the fight to gain passage of its $862 billion economic
stimulus bill (the actual cost of which exceeds $1 trillion when interest is
included). Romer predicted that following passage of the stimulus bill,
unemployment would plateau below 8 percent last fall and by this month register
at 7 percent. That's not close enough for government work, as unemployment
stands at 9.5 percent today. It would be higher except that hundreds of
thousands of frustrated job seekers have given up looking for new jobs and
dropped out of the labor force.
Predictably, the stimulus bill has proven to be an extraordinary waste of
borrowed money that has failed to create jobs, generate economic growth or do
much of anything other than line the pockets of White House political allies.
That and give $308 million in subsidies to BP before the Gulf oil spill
disaster, and subsidize a study on what happens when monkeys snort coke.
As Romer fades back to her teaching post at Berkeley, Obama is adding to the
economic misery by creating an environment of regulatory uncertainty. The Wall
Street reform law Obama recently signed potentially requires 533 new
regulations, 60 studies and 93 reports, according to the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency has 29 active rulemakings, and
there are 100 new rules on the Labor Department's agenda and 26 at the
Transportation Department.
Add Obama's determination to raise everybody's taxes by allowing the Bush cuts
from 2001 and 2003 to expire Jan. 1, 2011, and it's easy to why banks,
businesses and consumers are hoarding trillions of dollars that could otherwise
spur economic growth. And we haven't even addressed the destructive effect on
economic growth of Obama's nationalization of major portions of the economy,
including the banks, health care and the auto industry.
The economy is stalling, unemployment seems stuck at European levels of
idleness, the federal deficit and the national debt are at historic highs,
public confidence in Congress is at its lowest-ever level and big majorities of
Mainstream Americans say Obama has the country on the wrong path. Obamanomics
has failed miserably and it's time for everybody in this town to admit it so we
can move on.