Contrary to the success that President Barack Obama and liberals in Congress anticipated when they adopted the so-called economic “stimulus” package, the $862 billion stimulus has failed.
Mr. Obama said it would hold unemployment below 8 percent. Instead, unemployment today is 9.6 percent. And for all the millions of Americans who are counted as officially unemployed, millions more are not counted because they have either given up the search for work or can find only part-time work. So “real” unemployment is far higher than “official” unemployment.
If a private business enacted similar big-spending policies and found itself buckling under massive debt as a result, it would reverse course – if it hoped to survive.
But our federal government has no intention of changing to fiscal responsibility. Whatever “stimulative” effects the huge stimulus bill may have had – beyond just increasing the size of government – those effects are fading rapidly. State and local government agencies that readily seized on stimulus funds provided by Uncle Sam are learning that “gift” won’t necessarily be coming a second time. The stimulus only delayed some hard spending decisions; it did not eliminate them.
But even as one bad government policy fades – with little more than a gigantic debt to show for it – a new proposal is in the works that could cause even more damage.
The president and congressional Democrats are talking about raising taxes.
While there is never a really “good” time to raise taxes, taxing more in the midst of an economic crisis is a horrible idea. Businesses already are hesitant to invest in new personnel, new equipment and so forth. Promising to raise their taxes makes it even less likely they will expand and create jobs.
And yet the president and congressional Democrats are considering raising taxes on small businesses after the beginning of the year. Worse still, there is even talk among some Democrat leaders about raising taxes not only on the so-called “rich,” but on the middle class. U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, has said Congress can’t afford not to raise taxes on the middle class at some point. Middle-class tax cuts are not “totally sacrosanct,” he said. He added, “Raising revenue is part of the deficit solution, too.”
Considering that Rep. Hoyer made those remarks from a position of very high responsibility, do you feel you can “trust” Congress to limit a new tax grab to just “the rich”?
Do you believe that taking more money from the private sector to increase the size of government will lead our country to prosperity?
It hasn’t so far. Why would more of the same yield different results?