| The Obama Tax Hikes, Another Step Toward a European Welfare State Last night, the Senate voted 61-39 in favor of a $26 billion bailout for states and government unions financed in part by an $11 billion tax hike that will kill American jobs at U.S. companies that compete overseas. Worse, before that final vote was taken, the Senate also defeated two amendments by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), both by 58-42 votes, that would have prevented the largest tax hike in American history. And earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News that the only thing wrong with President Barack Obama's first $862 billion economic stimulus was that it didn't borrow and spend enough.
The message to the U.S. economy's job creators from this Administration and Congress is clear: You can expect higher spending, higher taxes and higher deficits for years to come. The verdict on this approach is in. Today the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor and Statistics released its monthly jobs report showing the economy shed 131,000 jobs in July as 143,000 temporary census workers lost their government jobs. With the private sector only managing to add 71,000 jobs and averaging only 51,000 jobs over the past three months, the private economy appears stuck in first gear. Despite the job losses, the nation's unemployment rate didn't budge from 9.5% because another 181,000 discouraged workers left the workforce. All told the U.S. economy has now lost 2.4 million jobs since President Barack Obama signed his stimulus bill, and his administration is 7.6 million jobs short of what he promised the American economy would support by 2010. |
