Editor: The National Bureau of Economic Research committee has announced that the “Great Recession” ended back in June of 2009. I’m going to pause for a moment while you laugh, cry or react any way you see fit. The obvious fact is this, the recession is not over! Since that September statement, unemployment has continued to rise, the housing market remains sluggish and the national debt has surpassed three trillion dollars.
Our government’s answer to this is to borrow funds we don’t have, throw money at the situation and hope for the best. It did so in the form of the Stimulus Package of 2009. It said at the time that this package would prevent unemployment from rising above eight percent, but it is ten percent and still climbing. Businesses both large and small did what most businesses do during times of recession, they downsized They became smaller, more efficient with fewer people. In this recession, however, these same, leaner businesses have no plans to hire back the people they laid off because they are taking a wait and see approach for the upcoming year. They are all faced with higher taxes, a weaker market and the uncertain effects from a number of bills recently passed, most notably the more than 2,000 page Health Care Bill that is so complicated that even lawyers can’t understand its implication because they say it’s written in vague and broad terms.
The main focus of the Obama administration is the Health Care Bill, not jobs. While the economy continued to falter and unemployment claims continued to rise, the administration put everything it had into passing this bill, which has a beginning sticker price of one trillion dollars. The Stimulus Package cost upwards of $800 billion, the Corporate Reform Act, $200 billion, not to mention the bank bailouts of a few years ago.
Question: Where is all this money coming from? Answer: Borrowing from China and printing massive amounts of cash without backing it with anything. The ramifications are not hard to figure out: we are in for a major downturn in the economy. The Congressional Budget Office itself said that these debts are not sustainable.
The media, however, continues to use phrases like “ the recovery is slowing” or “the jobless recovery.” Recovery means to improve. The only entities that have improved are corporations that received bailout money, unions, which is where a lot of the stimulus money went to, and government itself, which has grown to record levels. These debts simply won’t disappear. They must be dealt with – but how?
The answer isn’t hard to figure, either. First and foremost: stop spending money we don’t have and reduce the immense size of government.
Second: re-empower the free market. Help businesses both large and small by getting government out of the way. Lessen the massive restrictions that businesses have to deal with including environmental laws tied to global warming. India and China have no such laws and as a result their economies are thriving and outpacing our own. If we use a common sense approach, we can achieve a balance of a clean environment and have a strong and robust economy. If we do not make these changes we are heading for a modern day depression and ultimate collapse of our economy. If that happens there will be no turning back, there will be no one to come to our rescue and no one to bail us out. We will be subject to whatever power happens to take us over and in plain English this will mean the end of the United States as we know it today.
Dan de la Torre
Sonoma
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