Morning Bell: At the Mercy of the Obama Tax Hikes

Conn Carroll / October 08, 2010

When will the Obama administration admit their economic stimulus plan, which cost more than the Iraq war, failed? The stimulus has already failed to create the 3.5 million jobs President Barack Obama promised it would. It has already failed to keep unemployment below the 8% the President’s top economists predicted it would. And now, the Department of Labor reported today, a full 15 months after the National Bureau of Economic Research certified that the recession ended, that the U.S. economy lost another 95,000 jobs in September.

Total employment in the United States economy now stands at 130.2 million. This is 7.6 million jobs short of where the President promised the economy would be by December 2010 if Congress adopted his economic policies. 9.6% unemployment. A 7.6 million jobs gap. Unemployment is actually higher now than when the recession ended in June. If this is not the definition of failure, then what is?

By contrast, when the 1980s recession ended in December 1982, unemployment stood at 10.8%. Fifteen months into President Ronald Reagan’s economic recovery, and unemployment had already fallen three full points to 7.8%. Why was the Reagan recovery such a success? And why is the Obama recovery such a failure? Well, for starters, President Reagan did not saddle our children with a brand new $1 trillion entitlement. But more urgently, President Reagan also did not threaten the U.S. economy with the largest tax hike in American history. (more…)