The Policy Obama Won't Try: Economic Growth

We're going broke. Obama and his progressive comrades in Congress are spending money like there's no tomorrow, a scenario that they're creating with their policies. Talk about circular logic, if that doesn't have you chasing your own tail, nothing will.

There are many reasons for this. First among them is the fact that Obama has no real experience in the workaday world that most of us inhabit daily. He's never had to perform, never had his decisions questioned, never had anyone to answer to or a boss to please. And neither have most of his economic advisers. Almost all of them come from academia.

Seemingly every bill he's gotten from this Congress damages the ability of the private sector to create jobs and wealth. Obama has constantly criticized business owners, bankers, doctors and anyone else who tries to provide for themselves and others in our free market economy. His hostility towards business was well known to those of us who follow politics prior to his election. Only after nearly two years of his relentless war against prosperity is the business community finally waking up and smelling the cappuccino: President Obama hates business. Period.

The funny thing is, he doesn't hate money itself. As the author of two books, his income last year was around $4M dollars or so. And I don't recall him returning any campaign contributions from anyone. In fact, it's common knowledge that his campaign had the verification settings turned off that prohibit foreign contributions, something that is (or used to be) illegal.

So, pardon me if I see a discrepancy between his words and his actions. Such is the mark of a hypocrite.

Anyway, Daniel Henninger over at the Wall Street Journal online has a great piece today that states the blatantly obvious: it's time for Washington to pursue policies that enable and encourage economic growth. After two years of open hostility towards business, any letup would be quite welcome by the community, and be a major factor in getting the economy back on track.

Reducing taxes would be a good start, but there's much more that needs to be done. The increasing costs of regulations is driving business operations overseas to less restrictive areas. Financial regulations coupled with increasingly stringent environmental rules forces businesses to pass those costs along to the consumer.

Now would be a good time for a moratorium on any new regulations by any governmental agency, followed by a review of all the old ones and eliminating the ones that are counterproductive or don't make sense. It's taken years for us to arrive at this point of government actually acting against the best interests of the nation and its people. It won't be fixed overnight, but a push-start is needed to get the engine of commerce up and running.

President Obama could start to live up to his potential were he to abandon his anti-business policies in favor of freeing up the market to foster growth. However, this move would alienate his base, the radical left who would immediately accuse him of selling out to big business. So don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

If the upcoming mid-term elections turn out as predicted with many corrupt progressives swept out of power (hopefully permanently), I expect to see the economy begin to rebound as businesses hope to see an end to the uncertainty in Washington. Rest assured, if this happens, Obama will be ready at the teleprompter to tell the American people that he is the cause of it all.

That's just the way he is.