Thursday, September 02, 2010

And still Obama wants to raise taxes!

Higher taxes hurt everyone. It particularly hurts the little guy. But that's what FDR did too during the Great Depression of the 1930s-1940s. His little tax increments, like on entertainment or candy, hurt the poorest the most. Now Obama wants to kill investment. Folks, the richest can always go elsewhere with their money--like India or Europe whose economies are growing much faster than ours as they pull back from socialism.

Obama has no intention of turning the economy around. Many panelists on these TV talk shows, cable or broadcast, right and/or left, just don't get it. They keep making hopeful suggestions. But his plan is working--more people than ever are dependent on the federal government.

    More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA Today shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.

    The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit, says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.

    In other areas:

    ◦More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50 percent during the economic downturn, according to government data through May; the program has grown steadily for three years.

    ◦Close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance (nearly four times the number from 2007); benefits have been extended by Congress eight times beyond the basic 26-week program, enabling the long-term unemployed to get up to 99 weeks of benefits; caseloads peaked at nearly 12 million in January.

    ◦More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18 percent increase during the recession.

    As caseloads for all the programs have soared, so have costs, says USA Today:

      ◦The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36 percent in two years, to $273 billion.

      ◦Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion.

      ◦The food stamps program has risen 80 percent, to $70 billion.

      ◦Welfare is up 24 percent, to $22 billion.

Stats from Texas Insider which apparently (not clear) got them from USAToday.

You don't have to have a degree in economics to see that in a free, market economy, government programs slow down recovery. It adds costs to hiring and expansion, it competes with private employers and industries, and encourages people to stay home and wait til something better comes along, thus extending the slow down. The blueprint for government expansion while depressing the economy was laid out during FDR's reign. Obama's right on the plan.

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