Obama and his many mighty minions are convinced that Americans will believe there’s an economic recovery if they just say it’s coming back often enough. Obama constantly insists that his $862 billion “Stick It to Us” stimulus plan has yet to make its biggest impact and that we’ve “turned the corner” economically speaking. VP Joe Biden always good for a gaffe that’s a laugh called this “The Summer of Recovery. ” Well, that’s only true for people who were chronic workaholics.
Meanwhile, the oft-quoted unemployment number continues to hover at almost 10% while real unemployment is more like 19%. The “official” rate has dropped but mainly because many are giving up what has become a futile search.
In addition to dismal unemployment, housing starts rose 1. 7%, but at a much weaker rate than expected in July, and that figure will more than likely be revised downward. Permits for future home construction plummeted 3. 1% to the lowest level in more than a year. Home sales have dropped 27% much worse than expected, the worst in 15 years.
According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, food stamps recipients hit a record high in May 2010 with 40. 8 million Americans receiving subsidies. That is more than one in eight citizens of this once great nation even though many receivers are probably illegal, i. e. “Undocumented on the dole. ” And, the USDA projects the number of people using food stamps will reach 43. 3 million in 2011.
Now there’s the second quarter GNP growth that has been revised down from a not-so-great 2. 4% to an anemic 1. 6%. Housing starts in June, which were originally reported to have dropped 5%, were revised to a fall of 8. 7%. Interestingly, the numbers are always revised downward, which leads to a conspiracy theory that they are manipulated in an attempt to make Obama look better. The DNC sycophant media dutifully reports the initial better numbers, but the worse revised ones are either barely reported or just sort of forgotten.
Still, the “recovery” what little there’s been has apparently sputtered. Economists have begun to utter that dreadful phrase “double dip,” and unfortunately they aren’t referring to ice cream, which would not have melted away as quickly as the recovery even in this summer’s sweltering heat.
Recently, the UK Guardian reported, “Even the criminals have fallen on hard times in America’s poorest city as the long-term unemployed struggle to keep a grasp on normality. ” The British newspaper continued which even more somber news. Over the past three months alone more than a million Americans have effectively lost hope in finding a job.
They join the already 4. 9 million disparaged unemployed who are likely to grow many millions more as “their jobless status becoming a permanent state of hopelessness. ” Surveys show that with every passing week the unemployed chances of finding a job only get slimmer and dimmer.
It’s amazing to listen to Democrats still complain about Bush taking Clinton’s budget surplus into deficit. But, Clinton didn’t achieve a balanced budget. Congress did because they control spending. The Republican controlled congress under Newt Gingrich briefly achieved this milestone unless pro-regressives want to believe Republicans were just a rubberstamp for Slick Willy. That would be the very Republicans who impeached him.
And while deficits under Bush weren’t good, they were a result in part to two simultaneous wars, both initially supported by Democrats. Yet, Obama in 18 months has super sized the deficits to over $1. 4 trillion, and he is on track to more than double the total debt he inherited in 10 years. It took Obama to make America realize that Bush’s deficits weren’t so bad.
Except for spending trillions on useless stimulus and passing so-called entitlement with trillions of unfunded liabilities with hidden tax increases on the middle class, what are Democrats proposing now to lift America out of this Jimmy Carter like malaise? Why the “The Americans Want to Work Act (S. 3706). ” Leave it to pro-regressives to come up with a bill title to disguise what are basically their same old, failed ideas.
One old idea is extending unemployment insurance another 20 weeks to the already 99 weeks (almost two years) that a layoff worker is eligible in states with 7. 5% or higher unemployment. Republicans have balked at that notion not because they hate the unemployed as the DNC sycophant media tries to portray.
Instead they wanted Democrats to follow their promise of PayGo, cutting spending elsewhere to pay for any new proposed benefits. Not many remember them making that promise that they have yet to follow even once. And as far as unemployment benefits go, they should probably just be extended until Obama exits office because that’s how long before Bush’s tax cuts get extended and ObamaCare’s massive tax increases get repealed. Then, the economy can truly recover.
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