Raytheon Moving California HQ to Texas

Reblogged from California Briefing:

Looks like Texas has poached at least one California-based company out of the Golden State.

Raytheon, a major defense contractor and manufacturer, announced Thursday that it is moving one of its businesses' headquarters, currently located in El Segundo, California, to McKinney, Texas.

The business, Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems, is worth $6 billion, and is reportedly bringing about 170 jobs to the Lone Star State.

Read more… 92 more words

And California, one of the most self-destructively governed states in the Union, loses another company, its jobs, and its tax revenues. Really, if I didn't live here, it would be fascinating to watch an "economic super-power state" drive itself off the cliff chasing Thelma and Louise. Thank you, Jerry Brown and the legislative Democrats.

Why Are Young Americans Supportive of Obama When His Policies Are So Bad for Them?

Reblogged from International Liberty:

• 

Young people voted for Obama in overwhelming numbers, but the question is why?

As I explain in this interview for Blaze TV, they are being hurt by his policies.

It's not just that youth unemployment is high. Obama's policies also are hurting those who found jobs. Simply stated, these "lucky" folks are getting below-average pay.

I specifically explain that academics have determined that those entering the labor market in a weak economy will suffer a long-run loss of income.

Read more… 522 more words

Ya got me. Talk about voting against one's own interest. Click through to see interesting analysis of how entering the job market in a bad economy sets a young person on an underperforming path for a long time to come.

Quote of the Day: Doing business in Texas vs. California edition

An observation on why Texas might have more appeal to business owners, from John Harrington, owner of Shield Tactical, who recently relocated his company from Orange County, California, to Austin:

In Texas, he said, “it’s an iota of bureaucracy.” In California, “it’s like before you put up your range you have to be worried about whether the noise level is going to bother the 10-headed duckmouse.”

That made me laugh, but it’s also so very true. One company found the regulatory environment here so burdensome, it wrote California a “Dear John” letter.

Oh, and if you think “duckmouse” was a joke, consider that Sacramento would rather let Central Valley farms die of thirst than fight the EPA over a two-inch bait fish.

BTW, the first linked article is a good one on how Texas is working to encourage firearms manufacturers to move to Texas from states that are imposing more and more restrictions. Smart man, that Governor Perry.

via Moe Lane and Rick Wilson

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

More #Obamacare job losses. This thing needs to be killed.

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

And the good news (1) keep rolling in:

Hospital layoffs and the Affordable Heath Care Act

The Affordable Care Act is designed to make health care easier to get, but now, one local hospital says Affordable Health Care is the reason it is laying people off.

Clifton Springs Hospital let almost 60 non-clinical employees go last Friday. Hospital officials says it’s all because they’re trying to get ready for the impact of the new health care act. The act changes the way health insurance is run and the way hospitals are paid.

The Affordable Care Act means many of you will be making more decisions when it comes to your own health care. Health care workers say co-pays and deductibles will be higher, that means things like x-rays and MRI’s will cost you  more. So people will be forced to decide if they really want them. That might mean fewer people in the hospital.

Clifton Springs Hospital is preparing for that now. Last Friday, Clifton Springs Hospital laid off 58-full time employees. The reason is to get ready for the Affordable Care Act that will unfold over the next four years.

Lewis Zulick, Interim CEO of Clifton Springs Hospital, said, “That was something that we realized, especially over the last 6 months or so, that we had to do something to really match up our revenue to our expenses. That really had to do with the kind of volume we were experiencing at the hospital.”

In other words, from reading the article, it’s due to Obamacare’s refusal to allow insurance companies to pay for certain procedures, pushing that cost off on the consumer. It’s not a decision the doctor and patient make together (“Do I need this?”), but one forced on the consumer by government regulation — and that written by supposed “experts,” bureaucrats who know nothing about individual patients and their needs. The hospital anticipates fewer people opting for such procedures, thus leading them to make the logical business decision to lay people off.

Ergo, Obamacare costs jobs.

One can argue, of course, that some at least of these were unnecessary procedures that drove up insurance costs, and I wouldn’t disagree with you. That’s what’s been called “defensive medicine,” in which doctors will order “just one more test” not so much out of medical need, but to avoid being sued in our litigation-plagued society. Conservative reformers have long complained of needless malpractice suits that drive up costs for everyone.

But the solution is tort reform, dealing with the abuse of the legal systems, not top-down command-and-control rationing and regulation of the insurance and medical industries. (Ironically, uber-progressive California was the first state to introduce major malpractice reform. In 1975, under Jerry Brown!) And certainly government should never come between a doctor and patient in deciding treatment.

Meanwhile…

A global medical technology company has laid off nearly 100 employees at its offices in Tennessee and Massachusetts and is blaming the layoffs on the medical device tax tied to ObamaCare.

London-based Smith & Nephew said Thursday it laid off fewer than 100 employees between the two offices, which operate as the company’s advanced surgical devices unit, according to The Commercial Appeal.

The company specializes in developing orthopedic reconstruction products, has nearly 11,000 employees and operates in over 90 countries, according to its website.

The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, which is expected to raise nearly $30 billion over the next decade. The tax is applied to gross sales revenues.

A tax is a cost of doing business. When you raise costs, the company has three choices: it can eat the lost profits, harming the owners — perhaps a small businessman and his family, or shareholders, which may include employees and pension funds; it can pass the higher cost on to the consumer, running the risk of pricing themselves out of the market; or, they can cut other costs to balance things out. Materials are one cost, but using cheaper materials is one sure way for a medical company to be sued out of business.

But, guess what? Labor is a cost, too!

And so, thanks to the medical device tax in Obamacare, nearly 100 (more) people have lost their jobs.

Eventually, the problems are going to accumulate and annoy and outright harm enough people that they will demand something be done. Democrats and weak-kneed Republicans will want to just tinker with it, promising “fixes.”

But there is no way fix the problems with Obamacare, because Obamacare is the problem. From its most basic concepts to its details, it is one huge, honking, accelerating disaster. However long it takes, it must be repealed, destroyed root and branch. Do to it what Rome did to Carthage.

Sigh. We had our chance in 2012 to take the monster out before he did too much damage. But, we blew it then, and people are suffering for it.

And so we fight on.

via Brian Faughnan and ST.

RELATED: Stephen Green on “How to ruin healthcare in just 2000 easy pages!”  Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for a family of five under Obamacare will cost up to $20,000 per year, per the IRS. That’s almost half the median family income in the US. What was that about “affordable, again?”

Footnote:
(1) For Orwellian definitions of “good,” that is.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obama donor lays off employees because of ObamaCare

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

Nancy Pelosi said we’d have to pass the health-care reform bill in order to find out what’s in it.

Surprise!

Stryker Corporation has announced that it will close its facility in Orchard Park, New York, eliminating 96 jobs next month. It will also counter the medical device tax in Obamacare by eliminating 5% of their global workforce, an estimated 1,170 positions.

Jon Stryker is heir to the Stryker Corporation, one of the largest medical device and equipment manufacturers in the world. Stryker’s grandfather was the surgeon who invented the mobile hospital bed. The company now sells $8.3 billion worth of hospital beds, artificial joints, medical cameras, and medical software every year.

Stryker, a member of the Forbes 400 list, was one of the top five donors to the Obama campaign. Having donated $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC, Stryker also gave $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the Democrat Party.

(…)

Stryker’s corporation is part of an industry that has been a big loser at the hands of Obamacare. Having refused to get on board with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee when the law was being crafted in 2009, the medical device industry was punished with an excise tax of 2.3% of their revenues, regardless of whether they make a profit.

My sympathies to anyone losing their job at Stryker, or elsewhere. Except to those who voted for Obama. All I can say to them is this is what you voted for.

Elections have consequences.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The chart that’s worth a thousand sound bites

Kind of says all you need to know, doesn’t it?

You can enlarge it to get the full effect, but the upshot is that the number of people no longer in the labor force has grown by ten times the number of people who have been added, who’ve found jobs.

This is a function Obama’s obsession with redistribution over recovery, with “reform” over growth. It is the near-inevitable result of combining Keynesian economics and the Progressive love for statist, technocratic solutions, the delusion that an economy can be directed from above and that a nation can borrow, tax, and spend its way out of economic difficulties. Think I’m nuts? Then ask yourself why the Great Depression lasted seven years longer than it had to. We saw the same hubris then as now, and once again the American people are suffering for it.

So, tell me again, why anyone with a lick of sense would vote to reelect Obama?

via Blue Crab Boulevard

PS: Romney-Ryan 2012, because it’s past time for the non-delusional to be in charge.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

John Stossel Exposes the Fraud of Government Job Training Programs

Reblogged from International Liberty:

There have been lots of studies showing that there's no benefit to job training programs. People who sign up with these government schemes are not more likely to either get jobs or to earn more money.

Heck, even the New York Times was forced to acknowledge that these programs are a costly failure.

To really understand how these programs operate, John Stossel put together an investigative mission.

Read more… 800 more words

It's amazing how willing, even desperate, statists are to put money into programs that are shown not to work, because they cannot conceive of any "solution" that does not originate with government.

Horrible youth jobs numbers

ST and I both earlier referred to the awful August jobs report released today. For a detailed (and dismal) analysis, James Pethokoukis  is a must-read.

But I want to highlight one particular aspect (via Gay Patriot) reported on by Jordan Weissman in The Atlantic: the employment prospects for teens and those just graduating college are just horrific:

After declining for most of the summer, the unemployment rate for workers between the ages of 16 and 19 popped up again, rising from 23.8 percent to 24.6 percent. Among 20-to-24 year olds, it hopped to 13.9 percent from 13.5 percent in July.

After noting that these number don’t reflect layoffs as much as lower-than-expected hiring at the end of summer, he comes up with a  disturbing theory:

There are other subtle and discouraging aspects of this report for the young. One of the only industries to add significant numbers of workers was food services, which accounted for 28,300 of the 95,000 total new jobs. Restaurant and fast food work is usually a bastion for teenage employment. If that sector is growing, and young people still can’t find employment, it may mean that older workers are now out-competing them for low wage jobs.

In other words, skilled workers laid off from higher-paying jobs are now taking the entry-level positions young people use to learn the basic skills of “how to have a job.” And, as time passes and the economy doesn’t pick up (which will be almost assured in an Obama second term), they’ll find themselves competing with teens and college graduates who come after them.

It’s like Paul Ryan said in his RNC nomination acceptance speech:

College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life. 

In 2008, Barack Obama captured two-thirds of the youth vote, a huge amount.

Some reward they got, isn’t it?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Let’s help Joe Biden answer a question, shall we?

Vice President Joe Biden is in Charlotte this week for the Democratic National Convention (1). At a rally, he struggled with the question of whether Americans are better off now than they were four years ago, when he and his boss were elected:

Looks like the heat was giving Joe some trouble, since he couldn’t go into any specifics. Let’s help him out, shall we?

According to that notorious conservative rag, The Washington Post:

From June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent, to $50,964, according to a report by Sentier Research, a firm headed by two former Census Bureau officials.

Incomes have dropped more since the beginning of the recovery than they did during the recession itself, when they declined 2.6 percent, according to the report, which analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The recession, the most severe since the Great Depression, lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.

(…)

Over the past three years, the inflation-adjusted median income of households headed by whites was down 5.2 percent, to $56,255. Households headed by blacks sustained a staggering 11.1 percent drop in median income. Hispanic-led households saw their real income decline by 4.1 percent over the same period, the report said.

Looking at the data by age, the researchers found that income has risen only for workers older than 65 during the recovery, which report co-author and Sentier partner Gordon Green attributes to the cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients.

Households led by the self-employed saw their income drop 9.4 percent, to $66,752, the report said. Households headed by private-sector employees saw wages drop by 4.5 percent, to $63,800, and households led by government workers saw median income decline by 3.5 percent, to $77,998, the report said.

Peter Ferrara, writing in Forbes, see this trend and calls in an accelerating downward spiral:

The problem is that Obama has only greatly accelerated everything Bush did wrong, and reversed everything Bush did right. So Obama’s spending has skyrocketed the federal budget by nearly one-fourth as a percent of GDP in just one term. Moreover, the Obama Fed has abandoned any semblance of control over monetary policy, buying most of the soaring federal debt issued to finance Obama’s record smashing federal deficits with newly printed money (actually created by computer record, a sort of cyberprinting). Of course, the whole point of Obama’s tax policy has been to more than reverse the Bush tax rate cuts, which is now already slated under current law to go into effect on January 1.

That is why it will all only get worse in a second Obama term, as the economy slides back into a double-dip recession in 2013 unless these Obama policies are swiftly reversed. I first began ringing alarm bells about that a year ago with the publication of my Encounter Books Broadside No. 25, Obama and the Crash of 2013. But now even the Washington establishment CBO is pealing the air raid siren as well.

Renewed, double-dip recession would mean unemployment rocketing back into double digits once again, the deficit exploding to over $2 trillion, the highest in world history by far, real wages and incomes declining even more, and poverty soaring further.

Obama has failed the poor as well as the middle class. Last year, the Census Bureau reported more Americans in poverty than ever before in the more than 50 years that Census has been tracking poverty. Now The Huffington Post reports that the poverty rate is on track to rise to the highest level since 1965, before the War on Poverty began. A July 22 story by Hope Yen reports that when the new poverty rates are released in September, “even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.” But a consensus survey of experts across the political spectrum indicates the poverty rate could soar from the current 15.1% to as high as 15.7%. “Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor,” Hope Yen reports.

Be sure to read all of Peter’s article. His conclusions about where we’re headed if we don’t make the right choices in this election are sobering, to put it nicely.

In other words, the Democratic Dream Team inherited a bad situation, made it worse and, if reelected, promise to take it from “bad” to “God-awful.”

No wonder Joe had to plead the heat: answering the question makes the Republicans’ case for them.

Footnotes:
(1) Complete with Official Recycling Nags.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

(Video) Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) on fire on the House floor

Congressman Kelly went to the House floor yesterday to denounce the crushing burden federal regulation imposes on American business and, by the time he was done, he had earned a rare standing ovation from his colleagues and chants of “USA! USA!”

Enjoy, my friends, enjoy.

Preach it, Brother Mike! 

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Who’s the big “outsourcer” in this race? — UPDATED Et tu, Nancy?

The latest Obama campaign strategy in their relentless efforts to get people to talk about anything but Obama’s miserable record on the  economy is to accuse Mitt Romney of “outsourcing” jobs (1) overseas when he ran Bain Capital. Forget the falsity of the charge, Team Obama and their allies in the media are going to play this class warfare tune over and over, hoping that it sticks with enough voters to make a difference.

The RNC is ready with an answer — “Look who’s talking.”

I’d say there’s a tremendous difference between a company making a rational economic decision (2) about where best to locate offices and hire workers, on the one hand, and a government taking billions of taxpayer dollars on the promise to create American jobs and then shipping that money overseas to create anything but American jobs, on the other. Wouldn’t you?

Obama and his people would do well to remember the old saying about people living in glass houses. If they don’t, we’ll be happy to throw the stones.

RELATED: More at Hot Air.

Footnote:
(1) Of course, what they really mean is “offshoring,” but it’s a bit much to expect Democrats to understand basic economics.
(2) In other words, meeting their fiduciary responsibility to their investors. How evil of them.

UPDATE: I wonder if Team Obama will criticize that noted cruel exploiter of outsourced offshored labor… Nancy Pelosi?

According to Pelosi’s 2011 financial disclosure statement, the Democratic House Minority Leader received between $1 million and $5 million in partnership income from ”Matthews International Capital Management LLC,” a group that emphasizes that it has a “A Singular Focus on Investing in Asia.” A quick trip to the company website reveals a featured post extolling the virtues of outsourcing.

“Designed in California, Made in Manila” sounds like an excellent title for a smear ad to be run the by the Barack Obama campaign. Instead, it appears to be Nancy Pelosi’s investment strategy.

Pelosi is also a small investor in the embattled “Moduslink Global,” one of the “outsourcing pioneers” that Mitt Romney has been criticized for associating with while at Bain Capital.

Egg, meet face.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Jobs created in June? Try jobs *lost*

If this is true, then the economic news isn’t just bad for Obama, it’s devastating:

The birth-death model, which approximates the amount of jobs gained through new businesses created too recently to be counted in the formal survey, added 124,000 positions, meaning that without the estimation the total count would have been a loss of 44,000.

So much for that claim of 80,000 jobs created in June and NPR’s pathetic spin.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

US Government: barring convicts from certain jobs is race discrimination

We last met the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) when they asserted that big-rig truck drivers can’t lose their jobs just because they’re alcoholics.

But wait, there’s more! Topping that bit of numskullery, the EEOC has issued guidelines stating that, should a business not hire someone because he or she is a convicted criminal they can be sued for racial discrimination. Under the “disparate impact” theory, not hiring someone who happens to be Black (or Asian, or Hispanic, or…) due to their criminal past can, because minorities make up most convicted felons, be construed as “racism,” even if the hiring employer used “race-neutral” means to make their decision.

But, of course. In the modern world, that makes perfect sense.

Walter Russell Mead describes some evident (1) problems with this:

Via Meadia believes in second chances, but there are plenty of jobs where an employer would have some very practical reasons not to hire an ex-convict. What retailer in its right mind would hire convicted thieves? Shouldn’t a small business owner with many female employees and customers be concerned about hiring a convicted rapist? But according to the EEOC, if you live in an area where more minorities are convicted of crimes, your blanket ban on hiring them is in effect discriminatory.

Of course, if you comply and do hire criminals who then go on to assault or burgle your clients, and they or their insurance companies find out you either knew the employee had been convicted or didn’t do the due diligence, then you are likely to get hit with a big negligence lawsuit. Will the EEOC pay for your lawyer? Or pay any damages you are assessed?

And, as the Times piece notes, most small businesses (the rule applies to anyone with more than 15 employees) don’t actually have the means to keep track of the endless proliferation of idiotic regulations from overzealous bureaucrats without enough adult supervision. This regulation is a gift to trial lawyers everywhere, and a barrier to small business development and growth.

And, naturally, this provides a big incentive for small businesses to not go beyond 14 employees. That’ll help unemployment.

With moronic regulations like these coming out seemingly every day, it’s a wonder anyone opens a small business anymore.

Footnote:
(1) Evident to anyone but an EEOC bureaucrat, apparently.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Records compared: job-creation under Obama vs. his predecessors

The picture says it all:

(Click the graphic for a larger version)

That’s right: under Barack Obama’s presidency, there has been a net 100,000 jobs created. Total. That’s pathetic.

And we should reelect him, why?

via Political Math; be sure to read his analysis.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#war Romney visits Solyndra, hits Obama for cronyism and corruption

I’ll say this, unlike John McCain, Mitt Romney is willing to fight:

Keep it up, Governor. Keep punching. The One has a glass jaw.

RELATED: Past posts on Solyndra. Allahpundit on Romney’s surprise visit to Solyndra and how the Romney campaign is turning the tables on Team Obama. Power Line says “These aren’t your father’s Republicans.”

UPDATE: I wrote this post last night to make sure there was something for the morning. In the meantime, the Romney communications shop was busy turning it into this ad — “Symbol of Failure:”

Less than 24-hour turnaround. Well, done. My only change would have been to insert the blunt word “corruption” along with the more jargony “crony capitalism.” But that’s a quibble.

And it’s timed perfectly to go with today’s lousy jobs report.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The President forgets

Wow. The same day I post a chart showing that one-third of the unemployed in this country have been out of work for over a year and that the rate skyrocketed under Obama, he admits to sometimes forgetting how bad things are:

Now, I can see a man or a woman dealing with day-to-day existence (work, kids, &c.) sometimes forgetting just how bad things got in 2008-09 and just how bad they still are; they have a lot on their plates.

But, Mr. President? Sir? Dude? Umm….

THIS IS YOUR JOB! THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE ON YOUR PLATE, YOU SCHMUCK!!

(Sorry for shouting there.)

Honest to Pete. When economic hard times hit, it is the job of the government to figure a way out of the mess. (Hint for Barack: spend less, tax less, regulate less. Listen to Warren Harding. ) That is what you are paid to do, sir.

We have a 15-trillion dollar (and growing) debt, we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend, our out of control entitlements are going to eat us alive, our real unemployment rate is 14.5%, fewer people are in the work force than at any time in the last 30 years, companies are not hiring (hence those long-term unemployed) because they have no faith in your unicorns and rainbows plan for the future, and… and……

And you forget?

Let me help you remember. Here’s a list of the ten worst states for unemployment (1):

42	SOUTH CAROLINA	8.9
43	FLORIDA	9.0
43	GEORGIA	9.0
43	MISSISSIPPI	9.0
43	NEW JERSEY	9.0
47	NORTH CAROLINA	9.7
48	DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA	9.8
49	CALIFORNIA	11.0
50	RHODE ISLAND	11.1
51	NEVADA	12.0

Does that jog your memory?

Oh, wait. Never mind. I’m being unfair. (2) You have much more important things on your mind, such as your next tee-time and palling around with the Hollywood glitterati. Silly me. No wonder you have trouble remembering people who have lost their their jobs, their savings, their homes, their hope. (“Hope.” Does that sound familiar to you? I forget…)

November can’t come fast enough.

via The PJ Tatler

PS: Yeah, I’m being a partisan hack and bagging on him for making a passing comment and using a common rhetorical device (“We’re all guilty…”). So what? President Amateur richly deserves it.

PPS: Romney 2012.

Footnotes:
(1) Well, nine and D.C. And these figures don’t count “labor force participation,” meaning the real rates would be higher if those who’ve stopped looking for work were counted.
(2) And probably racist, too. Naturally.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The Obama campaign destroyed with one graphic

The Democrats are desperate to have this election focus on anything other than the rotten economy and Barack Obama’s miserable stewardship of it. Hence the flurry of “squirrels” we’re supposed to be distracted by: the fake “war on women;” Romney’s dog; same-sex marriage; and, oh, by the way, did you know Obama killed Osama? The troops are doing it “on my behalf.”

Anyway, the next time some Obamaton tries to convince you the election is about “social issues,” show them this, courtesy of The Pew Trusts (PDF):

Obama’s record: people unemployed for more than a year.

(Click for a larger version.)

That’s the equivalent of a two-by-four to the head of a stubborn mule.

Or an Obama supporter.

via James Pethokoukis

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

White House: “It’s a good thing people are leaving the workforce!”

That’s what they said.

No, really:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained that the number of people dropping out of the work force, which artificially depresses the unemployment rate, can be regarded as an “economic positive.”

“A lot of that is due to younger people getting more of an education, which is an economic positive,” Carney responded when asked what would happen when people “inevitably” raise the unemployment rating with their return to the work force. He also noted that “an aging population” going into retirement has contributed to the number of people dropping out of the work force.

Head, meet wall.

If people are staying in school longer, it’s because there are fewer and fewer jobs available on graduation, so they stay in school hoping for an eventual turnaround. Oh, and many of them accumulating debt in the process. Is that an “economic positive,” Jay?

But beyond that, people are dropping out of the work force not because they’ve decided to enjoy their “golden years, but because of discouragement, because they’ve been out of work so long, they don’t think they have a good chance of finding a decent job.

Honestly, this administration shovels the you-know-what so fast, you need hip-waders reading one of their press releases.

SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE WHITE HOUSE DARKNESS:

1. Is the unemployment rate 8.3%, 8.9%, 9.9% or 11.9%?
2. Why the official 8.3 percent unemployment rate is a phony number—and what it means for Obama’s reelection
3. Record 1.2 Million People Fall Out Of Labor Force In One Month, Labor Force Participation Rate Tumbles To Fresh 30 Year Low
4. GOP: Jobless rate above 8% for three years, worst since the Great Depression
5. Was Today’s Jobs News Good?

via David Freddoso

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Mean House Republicans make Obama and Reid cry

And they did it while pursuing intelligent, job-creating energy policy:

Defiant Republicans pushed legislation through the House Tuesday night that would keep alive Social Security payroll tax cuts for some 160 million Americans at President Barack Obama’s request — but also would require construction of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that has sparked a White House veto threat.

Passage, on a largely party-line vote of 234-193, sent the measure toward its certain demise in the Democratic-controlled Senate, triggering the final partisan showdown of a remarkably quarrelsome year of divided government.

The legislation “extends the payroll tax relief, extends and reforms unemployment insurance and protects Social Security — without job-killing tax hikes,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner declared after the measure had cleared.

Referring to the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline, he added, “Our bill includes sensible, bipartisan measures to help the private sector create jobs.”

On a long day of finger pointing, however, House Democrats accused Republicans of protecting “millionaires and billionaires, ” and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., derided the GOP-backed pipeline provision as “ideological candy” for the tea party-set.

Harry’s just mad that the ball is in his court, now, and the situation is lose-lose for him and his Munificent Sun King. Here’s the background:

The Keystone XL pipeline would cross roughly 1,700 miles from Canada’s tar-sands deposits to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. In addition to giving us access to a reliable supply of oil from a nearby friendly nation, estimates are that the pipeline will create anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 jobs in the US, not to mention the consumer boost from disposable income. While there are environmental concerns, the State Department has declared them to be minimal. Sounds like a great deal, right?

Not if you’re Barack Obama and the Democrats, who need to pander to the environmentalist Left to shore up  their base, it isn’t. Playing to the Green Luddites, Obama delayed a decision on Keystone until, oddly enough, after the election. I guess people who need jobs matter less than donations from the Sierra Club.

Back to the bill just passed.

Obama and the (Social) Democratic leadership had wanted a continuation of the payroll tax cut and an extension of unemployment insurance (which, btw, only worsens unemployment), all paid for by increasing taxes on those evil rich folks. The Republicans, on the other hand, understanding basic economics, wanted instead to pay for the cuts by imposing a federal wage freeze. They also wanted to pass legislation mandating approval for Keystone, since, well, Republicans actually care about people who are out of work and obtaining a reliable source of energy for the US, which would otherwise go to China. (There’s that Smart Power diplomacy, again.)

Obama had threatened to veto any legislation extending the payroll tax cuts if it included authorization for Keystone XL. He gambled that Republicans wouldn’t dare let themselves be seen as allowing a tax increase and a cutoff of unemployment benefits, something he and his allies figured would redound to the Democrats’ benefit.

Well, the Smartest President Ever bet wrong.

Here’s why the Democrats now find themselves in a pickle: the Republicans have passed a bill that

1. Brings reliable energy to the US
2. Creates thousands of real jobs (far more than the Stimulus ever did)
3. Extends unemployment benefits (1) and payroll tax cuts
4. and pays for them with a fiscally responsible wage freeze.

Now Reid has to either kill all that in the Senate (2), which will hand the Republicans a large club to beat Democratic incumbents with in 2012, or he has to pass it and send it to Obama, who will then have had his bluff called and face an ugly choice: tell thousands of unemployed American workers you don’t get a good job and, oh, by the way, the unemployment checks are going to stop, or sign the bill and look weak while ticking off the same environmental groups he had just bent the knee to.

Like I said, “lose -lose” for them. Darn.

Well played, House Republicans. Well played.

via Doug Powers

Footnotes:
(1) Yeah, I just linked to an article showing how unemployment benefits retard job growth, but this is political reality. No party will vote to cut off those benefits in a rotten economy. And that’s why Obama will not veto this bill.
(2) Assuming he can hold his caucus together. Several of those vulnerable Democratic senators might well be tempted to defy their party leader and vote in favor of jobs “back home.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Seriously, Debbie?

According to Congresswoman and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (1), unemployment has not gone up under President Obama.

Huh?

Remember, she was handpicked by President Obama to be the public face of the Democratic Party. Must’ve been for her chutzpah when it comes to telling the Big Lie.

She can’t be that dumb. It must be because she thinks we’re that dumb.

Footnote:
(1) Also a nauseating race-baiter.