Flash! NY Times Gets A Fact Right

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The New York Times rarely does as well. But on Monday last, they did. "No American President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on election day topped 7.2 percent." I would rather see Obama gone for dozens of other reasons, and I pray for the nation that the unemployment rate drops well below 7.2 percent by election day. But I don't think it will.

At least FDR had the famous "all we have to fear is fear itself" to help him get through the Depression, even though he was a major contributor to that sad state of affairs. In addition, the nation had no practical experience with the deleterious effects of massive government interference in the market. Today, we do. And all Obama had to offer was a restored polar ice cap, lowered sea levels leaving New York City on dry ground, and the promise that his programs would assure that unemployment would never exceed 8 percent. The current official unemployment rate is between 9 and 10 percent. Including those who have simply given up and have exhausted their unemployment benefits, that rate is really much closer to 17 or 18 percent.

Each time the current figure has dropped a bit, it has been followed by another wave of new unemployment statistics. As the Times said: "Roughly 9 percent of Americans who want to go to work cannot find an employer. Seventeen months before the next election, it is increasingly clear that President Obama must defy that trend to keep his job."

Instead, Obama continues on his course of job destruction by threatening, taxing, cajoling and ignoring the major source of job creation and entrepeneurship--small business and individual inventiveness. Working in tandem with that plan, Obama's agenda includes massive governmental interference in private enterprise, newly-printed millions for crazy green initiatives, stifling of the rights of any business which is on record as opposing the socialist policies of the Obamists, and destroying creativity in the market by regulating every move a business might make. He toys with disaster by demanding an increase in the national debt ceiling without giving any serious cooperation in reducing the bloated and cancerous federal budget.

The only area of employment which is experiencing no unemployment and a growing number of new hires is the Obama Czar Program. He has created more jobs there than Wal-Mart creates in a year. Worse than that, one new czar's salary could pay for four Wal-Mart entry-level employees. Obama talks about "government investment" when he really means "government spending." The Federal Reserve can pump money into the economy, but to what purpose and to benefit whom? All the incentive and stimulus schemes have failed to stem the tide of unemployment or create an atmosphere where businesses can begin to hire again.

If all the ultra-rich whom Obama demagogues almost daily were to be taxed at 100% of their income, that wouldn't make a dent in the national debt. Yet "eat the rich" is one of Obama's rallying cries. He blames Wall Street and the banks, along with avaricious corporations for the lack of new job creation. Yet his party has been in bed with them for decades, and in fact imposed regulations on those institutions that crippled the flow of the market and resulted in the recent recession. A very bad recession.

Obama is also participating in an economic anomaly first created by Jimmy Carter--stagflation. Not only is the economy stagnant, but because of government interference in the means of production and regulation of wage-producers in the private sector, we are entering an inflationary period. None of this will result in any noticeable decrease in the current unemployment figures, and they will likely last right up to election day, 2012.

Meanwhile, Obama's devotion to international apology tours, what your kids eat for lunch, which race can be discriminatory and which cannot, and a host of other radical ideas to the detriment of serious fiscal action leaves many Americans believing the ship of state has no captain. Even if the unemployment rate dropped to 6.5 or even 6 percent, Obama's arrogance and lack of love for the great American republic would still endanger his re-election chances. But trust me, they won't drop that low.

FDR could get away with high unemployment because the public generally believed that big government programs and lavish public spending could solve the problem. We've since learned better. Ronald Reagan could get away with it because the public genuinely believed he was willing to devote major effort to solving the problem. His total devotion to his beloved nation let people give him a little extra time to accomplish the goal of reducing unemployment. It worked. Who but an empty-headed liberal can believe anything Obama says? Words, but no deeds. Priorities all wrong. And then there's his poorly-disguised contempt for the backbone of the nation--the middle class. A few rounds of golf or hoops are more important than buckling down and working on a genuine solution to unemployment.

Even if the unemployment rate drops to 7% by election day, it's still unlikely that Obama can be re-elected if the Republican candidate doesn't fall flat on his or her face or become the "me too" candidate. People are much more sophisticated than they were in the 1930s, and if the case is made properly, they will understand that a lowered unemployment rate was accomplished in spite of Obama, not because of him.