Tag Archives: Deficit

Commentary

Ten things Obama did to discourage companies from hiring

Leave a comment

This article was written a week ago on Investors Business Daily, and it is still in the top five!

Below is my favorite of the ten.

Excerpt:

Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 (ObamaCare).

According to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, ObamaCare will hike taxes an estimated $15.2 billion, and the middle class will get whacked. We’ve already seen health insurance premiums go up because of costly ObamaCare mandates, which means less money available for spending on other things.

Moreover, employer mandates, taxes and penalties will reduce funds available for private-sector hiring. The mandates, taxes and penalties kick in when an employer has more than 50 employees, and they apply to all employees, so one effect of the law is to discourage small businesses — which create most American jobs — from hiring more than 50 people.

If a business has 45 employees and it needs to hire eight more people for a total of 53 employees, but it doesn’t offer health insurance or its insurance plan doesn’t satisfy the latest ObamaCare regulations, hiring those eight additional people would entail a $2,000 penalty for each of the 53 employees — a total of $106,000!

Many other provisions are likely to have unintended consequences, as well. The 2.5% excise tax on high-tech companies that produce pacemakers, heart valves, stents, defibrillators and other medical devices that help improve the quality of life or save lives is an estimated $20 billion hit. Anything that increases the cost of doing business is bad for jobs.

A mandate, by the way, is when the government forces all insurance company plans to cover elective things like abortions. When insurance companies have to cover more politically correct lifestlye choices, the premiums that normal people pay go up to cover the weird stuff. Are you a normal person? Did your medical premiums go up, or did you lose medical coverage through your employer? If so, then thank Obama – he needed to make sure that all his favorite special interest groups (e.g. – Planned Parenthood) got their money.

Read the remaining nine here.

Commentary

Paul Ryan takes on Democrat Brad Sherman on the worsening economy

1 Comment

Video is here – from Larry Kudlow’s show on CNBC. (8 minutes)

The Democrat blames Bush and calls for more government spending.

Here he is in Congress making his stand. (4 minutes)

The Veronique he mentions is Veronique de Rugy, whose work I blog about all the time.

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard is calling for Republicans to embrace Ryan’s Road Map for America.

Excerpt:

For Republicans, the Road Map authored by congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the most important proposal in domestic policy since Ronald Reagan embraced supply side economics in the 1980 presidential campaign. It’s not only the freshest, boldest, and most comprehensive Republican thinking, it’s also the most relevant. If Republicans adopt the Road Map as their basic ideological blueprint, it offers them the prospect of a landslide in the midterm election this year, followed by victory in the presidential election in 2012.

For sure, that’s a lot of weight for a policy statement drafted by a 40-year-old House member to bear. But the Road Map is perfectly timed to deal with the crises of the moment: economic stagnation, uncontrolled spending, the deficit and long-term debt, soaring tax rates, health care, the housing problem, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

Yet Republican leaders are wary of endorsing it, and for understandable reasons.

He lays out three reasons why the Republicans should swallow their fears and embrace Ryan’s plan.

Here’s the third reason he lists:

The third reason is the Republican message (or the absence of one). In Pennsylvania, it was “send a message to Nancy Pelosi.” Voters declined. I like the Republican slogan that worked so well in 1946—“Had enough?” But a slogan is not a message. The Road Map is a message. The country is falling apart, we’re going broke, government is on a takeover binge, the economy is wobbling. The Road Map is the solution. That’s a pretty good message.

Those who tremble at the thought of pushing a big idea should remember the campaign of 1980. Reagan, who for years had warned of the evils of government spending and overreach, suddenly became the champion of an across the board, 30 percent cut in tax rates for individuals and business.

That was very risky. The elder George Bush called it “voodoo economics.” Democrats were certain the whopping tax cut would turn the country against Reagan. Quite the opposite occurred. Reagan would have defeated Jimmy Carter without it, but not by the 10 percentage points he actually won by. The tax cut showed Reagan was serious about reviving the economy and not at all a weakling like Carter.

It’s good to be a Republican when we have guys like Paul Ryan. Let’s put him in charge and implement his bold ideas.

Commentary

First oil rig leaves USA for Egypt following Obama’s talk of drilling ban

2 Comments

From the Houston Chronicle. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Excerpt:

Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately — making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling.

And the Ocean Endeavor’s exodus probably won’t be the last, according to oil industry officials and Gulf Coast leaders who warn that other companies eager to find work for the now-idled rigs are considering moving them outside the U.S.

Devon Energy Corp. had been leasing the Endeavor to drill in the same region of the Gulf as BP’s leaking Macondo well, which has been gushing crude since a lethal blowout April 20.

But Diamond announced Friday it will lease the rig through June 30, 2011, to Cairo-based Burullus Gas Co., which plans to send the Endeavor to Egyptian waters immediately.

Devon is one of three companies that has cited the deep-water drilling ban in trying to ease out of contracts to lease Diamond rigs. Diamond, a drilling company, said it expects to make about $100 million from the deal, including a $31 million early termination fee it recovered from Devon.

Larry Dickerson, CEO of Houston-based Diamond, signaled that other of his company’s rigs could be relocated, too.

“As a result of the uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium, we are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed,” Dickerson said. “We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation.”

I went to sleep in the USA and I woke up in communist Venezuela.

You bash corporations, you lose jobs. Do you know what causes outsourcing of jobs? Attacking businesses with tariffs, regulations, lawsuits, and taxes. Environmental regulations, labor regulations, etc. That’s what causes outsourcing of jobs. If you want businesses to start here, to stay here and to move here from abroad, you create a business climate with low taxes, minimal regulations, and no unions. We should be drilling in ANWAR and building nuclear power plants, not kicking out oil rigs. We needed those jobs.

What about Obamacare?

From Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

“Independent experts have found that the new health law will increase the cost of health insurance and health care services,” the two doctor-senators say, noting the Congressional Budget Office concludes that “premiums for millions of American families in 2016 will be 10%-13% higher than they otherwise would be. This represents a $2,100 increase per family, compared with the status quo.”

Two thousand dollars more? Did something hidden in the 3,000 pages of the ObamaCare bill, which the White House and leading congressional Democrats moved heaven and earth to get passed, make those evil health insurers even greedier?

Or is it greedy Uncle Sam? As the senators point out, “According to an April 2010 memo from the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the medical device and pharmaceutical drug fees and the health insurance excise tax will generally be passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and device prices and higher insurance premiums, with an associated increase in overall national health expenditures.”

Add to that the fact that according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, much of ObamaCare’s new taxes will trickle down and end up being paid for by health care consumers. These include “the $60 billion tax on health plans, the $20 billion tax on medical devices and the $27 billion tax on prescription drugs.” Makes you wonder which party is on the side of the little guy.

Perhaps Obama was hoping that the businesses he is taxing would take the blame for the increases in premiums. That might have flown in the days before the Internet, but it doesn’t fly today. But it gets worse – much worse.

What about deficit-spending?

More from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

Based on current estimates, today’s total federal debt of just over $13 trillion will hit $20 trillion by 2020. Beyond that, the coming retirement tidal wave of 65 million baby boomers will push Social Security and Medicare spending to stratospheric levels. America’s debts will become crippling.

By some estimates, total U.S. commitments for entitlements total $107 trillion over the next 75 years or so. That’s an unpaid tax bill of $912,000 per household, or $351,000 for each child born today.

[…]Today, the federal government alone is spending around 25% of GDP, compared with its long-term average of 18%. If expected massive deficits are closed with taxes rather than spending cuts, it will require a 25%-plus increase in the real size of government.

That won’t be the end of it. Absent serious spending cuts, spending will rise to 32% of GDP by 2030, Congressional Budget Office data show. At current levels, taxes on Americans would have to rise 78% to pay for all that spending. Ready for that?

By the way, when state and local spending are added in, government in a few short years will take up more than half of all U.S. GDP. In short, the U.S. is essentially on the road to becoming just another stagnant, state-run welfare economy.

Suppose you were a young man with a decent salary. Should you make the decision to get married and have children? Children who will owe hundreds of thousands of dollars because Obama had to buy votes using taxpayer money? I guess Democrats don’t want to be bothered with love, marriage and parenting. I guess Democrats just want a check from the government.