Margaret Thatcher
A Congressional Budget Office study released Tuesday
reported that 2.3 million people will lose their full time jobs as a result of
the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The report said the ACA will lead to a
decrease of total hours worked by 2% by 2017.
That’s not the scary part though, when questioned about this
report, a White house spoke person said it was not a bad thing because many of
those workers will voluntarily work less hours so they can keep their income
low enough to continue to qualify for federal subsidies for their health
insurance.
Today Nancy Pelosi released a statement that people now have
more freedom because they can choose to work
less hours or not even work at all because their health insurance is being
subsidized by the government (using
other tax payers money).
No word from Ms. Pelosi about the freedoms of the people who
ARE working to subsidized those collecting subsidies.
The President and Democrats in congress apparently believe
that a federal incentive to stop supporting yourself and instead rely on someone
else to pay a portion of your health insurance is a good thing.
So now we have a health insurance
law that:
- did not sign up many of the people who were uninsured,
- caused hundreds of thousands of people to lose their health insurance,
- increased the cost of health insurance for millions,
- costs at least three times the amount the President told us it would (according to the most recent government numbers),
and on top of all that, destroyed
full time jobs AND decreased American productivity.
What’s not to love?
Also this week, the National Bureau of Economic Research
reported that extended unemployment benefits have held the unemployment numbers
at least 3% higher than if the benefits were not available. And why not? Everyone is forced to pay into
unemployment through mandated payments, it’s hard to argue with the logic that
if the government is going to hand out money I might was well get some.
The problem is, the government is not handing out its
own money, its handing out our
money – yours and mine, and if it’s handing out a bunch, it’s going to have to
turn around and ask citizens to just replace what has beend handed out.
So is there any mystery why the recovery from this recession
that ended in 2009 is so slow, why unemployment is so high, why so many people
have just given up looking for work? We have government policy after government
policy that rewards not working and through higher taxes punishes working. Much of the work force and most of the
business that are so slow to recover from this recession are the same people
and business that quickly recovered from the last recession.
Yet in 2013, the number of people in the work force is at
the lowest point in 30 years, black participation in the labor force is at the
lowest point ever recorded! Unemployment
is still at record levels, people on food stamps have doubled, people on disability
is up from 4.3 million in 1990 to over 10 million today and the only three
years the % of the population living under the poverty line has stayed above 15
% consistently is the last three years .
This has been the worse recovery in history and there is no end in
sight.
The fact is this President’s economic policies have been a
major factor in the total lack of a recovery and the suffering that goes along
with them. The really sad thing is a majority of the people suffering believed
in the rhetoric and voted for the current president.
The scariest thing of all is I am not sure many of them
learned a lesson,
