ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW THAN YOU WERE *BEFORE* HOPE AND CHANGE?

While straddling the fence, through the late 60s and 70s, it was candidate Ronald Reagan's question "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" that finally gave me the shove, never to return. As a young single mother, struggling to hold on to a newly purchased home for my children with the interest rate topping out at 21-3/4%, I swore never to vote Democrat again -- ever!

It would behoove us to remember those days. Double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, double digit unemployment, increased poverty rates. In other words, stagflation - continuing inflation together with a decline in business activity and an increase in unemployment. Anything sound familiar? We haven't even brought government run health care into the mix yet.

Since you "never want to waste a crisis", the question today can be asked in much less terms -- "Are you better off that you were one year ago?"

Also, keep in mind that all critical 41st Vote, in the upcoming Jan 19th special election in Massachusetts for Republican Scott Brown, and help out all you can here.

An excellent piece in RedState about our current state of affairs:


Are You Better Off Now Than You Were *Before* Hope And Change?
Posted by haystack, January 9, 2010

I’m not, and neither are 3.4 million of my fellow Americans since this President took office. Just ask the 85,000 Americans that sucked it up this Christmas season and went without…for themselves and their families and friends… in the name of President “I will save the world” Obama. If you’re still not convinced, just ask the 661,000 people that just threw up their hands and walked away from the effort altogether last month…yes-I said THOUSAND.

Our only consolation is that we don’t suffer alone-this is, after all, a global President. Ten percent of our Western brethren in Europe share our fate…misery loves company and all that. So much for Barack Obama and the global economy:

“One step forward, 85,000 steps back,” said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan. About 661,000 people stopped looking for work in the US in December. If they had not done so, the unemployment rate would have gone up to roughly 10.4 per cent.

Analysts said the US economy was still likely to start generating jobs within a few months, but it would take a long time before unemployment began to decline significantly.

The US has now lost 7.2m jobs since the start of the recession, while the eurozone has lost more than 4m, despite extraordinary measures to protect labour markets by the 16 countries that use the euro.

We Americans elected a liberal agenda because it “felt good” and now find ourselves staring at a populace that can’t feed itself or pay its mortgages. We’ve gone numb; our senses dulled by all those wonderful things that Hope and Change™ have actually brought us.

What is Obama’s answer?

Why, the Messiah is offering to spend 5 billion dollars on jobs none of us are actually qualified to apply for. And Congress, not wanting to be outdone, is offering 174 billion MORE dollars from already-empty tax coffers to pay for even more jobs many of us aren’t qualified to apply for. The rest of that money will go to pay for us to remain unemployed:

“The economy is in a rough situation,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press. She said she thinks companies are reluctant to ramp up hiring because they’re waiting to see what new stimulative steps the government might take to provide relief.

On Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama plans to announce more government spending to create green jobs. The White House says Obama will unveil projects that will help develop solar and wind power and energy management technologies. The funding is part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package Congress approved last year.

Obama is also expected to reiterate the administration’s call for an additional $5 billion in spending for clean energy manufacturing. Congress would have to appropriate the additional money.

Congress, meanwhile, is considering a “jobs bill” that would spend $174 billion on unemployment benefits, roads and other infrastructure and provide support for cash-strapped state governments. The House approved the legislation on a party-line in late December. The Senate is expected to take up the measure this month or next.

Even as Obama says the latest round of job losses is a ‘wake up call’ I get the strange feeling he, and the Democrat majority in Congress, are asleep at the wheel (emphasis mine):

“Our progress has been unmistakable,” Obama said as the new year began. “We’ve disrupted terrorist financing, cutting off recruiting chains, inflicted major losses on al-Qaida’s leadership, thwarted plots here in the United States and saved countless American lives.”

Yet every time Obama tries to offer a dose of perspective like that, he faces the reality that people live in the moment.

On terrorism, Americans are less concerned about quiet successes than troubling failures, especially one that evoked harrowing memories of Sept. 11, 2001.

On the economy, people prefer good news now, not updates on how things are gradually getting less bad.

The way Obama sees it, the problems he took on — recession, war, health care, a warming planet — were always too huge and complicated to fix that fast.

This President and his agenda have failed us. He is clearly out of touch with the people he thinks he is saving from themselves. Rather than focusing on a piece of legislation very few of us want, Barack Obama should be focusing on creating jobs. He can do that in a few very simple ways, not the least of which is to get Government OUT of our way rather than right square in our faces at every turn on the road to economic recovery.

He could be giving businesses reason to believe there are tax breaks and pro-US incentives out there to start manufacturing again. He could, along with Congress, extend tax cuts to small business and middle class wage earners. He could pull back regulations that are impeding business expansion rather than deepening them. He could let go of this EPA takeover of the global warming crisis that isn’t, even if only for 12 or 24 months, so that local economies aren’t forced to commit economic suicide in the name of stopping climate change:

In an effort to improve air quality, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laid out stricter smog standards Thursday, putting the Austin area and other parts of Central Texas in jeopardy of violating clean air rules.

If the Austin area can’t meet the new standard, as seems likely, it could face federal penalties that hamper business growth and delay transportation projects.

As officials try to clean up the air, drivers in Central Texas could face lowered speed limits, and gas stations could be forced to sell reformulated gasoline — which leads to fewer emissions but gets 1 to 3 percent fewer miles per gallon. Annual vehicle emissions testing, now required for auto owners in Travis and Williamson counties, could spread to Hays and Bastrop.

For all his efforts to prove that Government is the answer to all our troubles, President Obama is only further proving to us that Government is the cause of them. A recovered economy begins with a busy workforce…not one being paid to sit it out in the comfort of their unheated and foreclosed homes.