President-elect Barack Obama well understands that if he calls government spending “investment” and bailouts “stimulus” he disguises the fact that our tax dollars are feeding an insatiable pig called big government.
In an announcement based on a report called “The Job Impact Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan” Obama said his economic recovery plan would create or save three to four million new jobs, “nearly 90 percent of them in the private sector”. Part of his plan includes unspecified “Business investment incentives”, and he offered a few generalizations about where SOME of the private sector jobs would be created. Business investment incentives giving businesses sound reason to expand and add new and permanent jobs will hopefully be tax reform and deregulation that encourages rather than discourages growth. However, an incentive might be the Democratic holy grail of a single payer government health care system which would “relieve an employer” of that cost. Obama is not saying what these un-named incentives are, will the new jobs be created by private enterprise or jobs resulting from government spending disguised as investment incentives, only time will tell.
He did get specific regarding 1.5 million new jobs in certain areas. These jobs include 350,000 plus, permanent, new government employees (think of those gold plated benefits). The remaining 1 million plus new jobs will come from government spending huge sums of money on infrastructure, energy and health care and are destined to be temporary. Mr. Obama advocates spending money we don’t have to cause a temporary increase in employment and gain greater government control (read interference) over the “private sector”. The job estimates from that report are stated to have a “substantial margin of error”, according to Market Watch peak unemployment will only be reduced by 1%.
To get popular backing for this plan he promises an increase in food stamps and unemployment insurance, topping that off with more state welfare by “fiscal relief designed to alleviate cuts in healthcare, education and prevent increases in state and local taxes”. All this means more entitlements, more spending and more dependence on the Federal Government, all can be called socialism.
The Federal Government doesn’t “invest” with, or give state and local governments free money, it spends our taxes. Government has already spent our grandchildren’s taxes and is planning to spend even more, the ramifications of this deficit spending can only make matters worse. Foreign countries that hold a massive amount of our national debt are poised to stop buying more as inflation cuts into the real value. Our taxes will surely rise unless government adopts sound fiscal policies and reduces spending below revenue. Obama’s planned “investment” is not the way to a sound fiscal future, government’s allowing natural forces to take hold has been proven to nurture a robust economy. Unless government stops pandering to the anti-free market socialists and allow industry the freedom to prosper while letting mismanaged and non-competitive companies fail, our taxes will continue rise and inflation will spiral out of control. Government interference and blind adherence to mandated constraints on private enterprise will continue to erode our competitive edge, which in turn will continue to reduce employment and ultimately lower the taxes collected, leaving the individual taxpayer to foot the bill.
“Government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have” Gerald Ford
