UPDATE10/28 : Moodys Agrees that Obama's Uncertainty is why we have no jobs.

ORIGINAL BLOG:
This week an AFL-CIO executive said 'Hey, Jesus Christ couldn't do anything more than President Obama has on the agenda we supported two years ago..."

Well that is of course just more Democrat sillyness. We didn't need Jesus to start the recovery again, we just needed one smart German chancellor named Angela Merkel.

If you read the news stories from 2009, you will find that Merkel worked with her coalition and attacked the recession with spending (yes it can work) but, she followed with a program of tax cuts and planned spending cuts.

Some of the left, like Paul Krugman have pointed out that Germany did some spending just like the US. He has also pointed out that much of the Germany austerity program has not been triggered. They are correct on both counts.  Germany jump started the economy with some quick spending and made it clear the spending was temporary and it would come with tax cuts.  They created an environment where business could bet that things would get better.  This optimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The United States jump started the economy with some quick spending. As much as many Teaparty supporters may hate to hear this, done right it could have worked. However the alliance of Obama, Reid and Pelosi promised more government spending by passing a stimulus with much of its spending out in the future.  They then created enormous uncertainty by forcing through a giant 2200 page bill that not even the creators have read. The "health care" bill made so many changes to our health insurance system, including costs that not even the bill's creators know what is in it.  To add to the chaos they have promised to pass "Cap & Trade" that would charge working industry for CO2 emissions and make many associated with a new Chicago based "CO2 Exchange" very rich.

Finally, congressional democrats chose not to create a budget for 2011, they also chose not even vote on which tax rates would stay the same leaving almost every US tax payer and business due for a giant tax increase in Jan 2011.

Germany did spend, but tied it to a plan that would allow business to trust in the recovery.  The US spent, then planed for more spending, and used their control of Congress and the White House to plan for pushing years of failed agenda they have wanted for years.  Democrats have created years of uncertainty for businesses that are now happy to do what they can with the workforce they have.

This is why President Obama owns this jobless recovery

The Numbers

Lets look at some key charts from: Tradingeconomics.com  Chart Problems have been Figured out and fixed.. had to take image grabs from site as links changed as people played with new charts.


This is the chart of GDP growth Quarter over Quarter.   We see US and German spending spiked GDP, but as soon as core spending trailed off, Germany is seeing real business growth pick up the slack.  In the US we are heading back down again and may be one or two quarters away from a double-dip recession.

Good News:  Since I write this initial Q2 numbers added show GDP fall ("double dip fall") may be leveling off, I hope.

Recovering from Unemployment
Now more importantly to the claim that Obama just needs more time to start getting jobs back.  The US unemployment rate has not moved even as government payrolls have increased.  Why? Because every smart business in the US is streamlining for the coming increased costs of health insurance and the automatic tax increases coming on Jan 1, 2011.




Not Jesus - Just Willing to Accept Advice

We didn't need Obama to be Jesus, we just needed him to work with the GOP and take advice he has ignored from leaders in Europe about creating a plan business can trust.   The irony is if Obama had not gone it alone and taken a 100% progressive economic path, we might see jobs coming back. This of course could have meant he might not be loosing some or all of the congress and he would have created enough political capital to try his agenda in coming years, without trashing our economy to do it.

Hubris and impatience created a bad stimulus, a bad health insurance bill and a jobless recovery balanced on the edge a second recession.

Déjà vu
Finally, it is interesting to note that the New York Times and other media criticized Germany for planning to cut taxes and increasing the deficit.  Now, Germany is already seeing an increase in tax revenue from its smart business friendly policies.

Will They Never Learn?!

Links to Read:
Merkel 2009 Tax Cuts criticized by NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/business/global/14gcon.html
2009 Germany Media also assumes tax rate cuts will increase deficit:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5035680,00.html


Germany 2010 in growth ready for more tax cuts to keep it going while tax revenue is up:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20101023/tpl-uk-germany-taxes-20b2d2f.html

  
This blog is written in the context of thoughts I laid out in my blog “The Poison of Right Meets the Teaparty.”

Utopia Declined
This week it is clear that Obama is clinging to his own “rightness.”  He is so sure of his academic theoretical vision of equality distributed by the educated elite; he refuses to see that more than half of America knows Utopia cannot be paid for with opportunity stolen from our children.

The Choices of Leaders
Not one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence did so to increase their bottom line or lay the foundation for a coming election.  When they signed that document the chances that they would hang for it were very high.  They did so for one reason, they were proclaiming to God and humanity that the future of America, of their children and their neighbors’ children was more important than their personal safety and comfort.

America has reversed direction.  Not only do we have leaders that think the immediate safety and comfort of their supporters is worth borrowing from the future.  We now have leaders that are sure their own personal needs are more important than the future of a nation that includes their supporters.  They now buy personal comfort and power for themselves on promises that not only will burden our children with their excess, but promises timed to collapse after their term in office ends. 

We see the proof of this in a congress that has amassed a fleet of private jets so they not only can avoid flying with the “common folk” but will not be subjected to hopping a ride with our troops.  We have a congress that has failed for the first time ever to accomplish its primary job of creating and approving a budget, but will soon recess to ask for use to send them back to fail some more.

We have a President who claims he doesn’t go to church because it will create inconvenience for others but has no problem shutting down major sections of New Your City and Washington DC to take his wife on a date, this even as the White House hosts world class acts for his personal entertainment.  Entertainment enjoyed while oil spilled into the gulf and millions of Americans are losing their homes.

Intentions
At the very best President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid believe they are smart enough to chart the destiny of 300 million Americans.  They assume they are wise enough to choose the winners and losers across the diverse American map.   At best we have good intentions leading us to the hell of fiscal insolvency.

But history tells us we may have a new pantheon of political elites whose self-esteem is not built on personal accomplishment, but demands the edifices of generational reorganization with their names chiseled on cornerstones quarried from liberty of our children.

Do we have leaders who are comfortable fiddling while America’s future burns?

Strong Words
Yes these are strong words.  Words earned but a congressional leadership who made deals and twisted arms to pass legislation they never read.  Words earned by leaders who demanded a man leave his mother’s graveside to pass a bill in the middle of the night before America could read it.  Words earned by leaders who have confused an election with a coronation.

This week President Obama managed to create some passion.  Passion to blame others for problems he has created or failed to address.  He blamed his supporters for being lethargic, while failing to deliver well on even one promise. 

Utopia Denied
His supporters are not lethargic, they are feeling cheated.  They are cheated by a Gitmo without even the illusion of a plan to close it.  They are cheated by inaction on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” They are cheated by the 50,000 troops in Iraq who still are in harm’s way but have been politically renamed “non-combat”  They are feeling cheated by a healthcare bill that was more about winning than healing.  They feel cheated because they see the political price their progressive movement has paid while the actual vision has moved forward very little.

Conservatives just know the cost of these incomplete promises will be opportunity and choice for generations to come without even the specter of Utopia that some progressives see in their policies

Enough Blame for All
From stump speeches in Wisconsin to his interview in Rolling Stone, we see a President who claims success and will deflect all blame towards his own supporters as easily as he will towards those who oppose his policies.  He has created a tightrope of “rightness” stretched over an America he sees as either lethargic and uncommitted or ignorant and selfish.   He walks above us on the thin idea that if we only understood his intentions we could forgive his results. 

His lack of ability to complete a single promise with overwhelming control of congress will not inspire his base.  His willingness to compromise America’s future for an incomplete vision of an impossible Utopia has created the Teaparty

No More Excuses
Obama, Pelosi and Reid are only the figureheads of a political class that has become more about being right, than constitutional rights.  They are more about personal comfort than economic empowerment.

America has been poisoned from the top down.  Come November not only should we want leaders who will move the country in the right direction, but we need leaders with the humanity to own when they are wrong or the same mistakes will be made with new excuses.