Shuimo
09-07-2009, 09:17 AM
What is yr rating of Obama's performance in and solutions to this grim economic downturn?
Do you agree with the author of the following article?
By Elaine Chao • Guest commentary • September 7, 2009
WASHINGTON — On Labor Day, millions of Americans will consult their Rand McNally Road Atlas before hitting the highway. But those seeking the quickest route to Lost Jobs and Delayed Recovery need only to follow the Obama-Pelosi Policy Atlas.
The OPPA-preferred route starts in Protectionism, and tells you to take a hard left at Higher Taxes as you speed on to Higher Spending. Don't miss that head-spinning left at Global Warming or the dizzying spiral of loopy lefts approaching Health Carehttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090907/GPG0602/909070509/1269/GPG06#).
Following this route, you'll find yourself where we are this Labor Day — mired in high unemployment and rising taxes.
The OPPA route is nothing new. It follows the decades-old liberal agenda on trade, health care, global warming and mass unionization. That agenda has never brought prosperity to workers.
Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried — and found wanting — since the Great Depression. Smoot and Hawley ginned up The Tariff Act of 1930 to get America back to work after the Stock Market Crash of '29. Instead, it destroyed trade so effectively that by 1932, American exports to Europe were just a third of what they had been in 1929. Jobs evaporated.
Unfortunately, Obama'shttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090907/GPG0602/909070509/1269/GPG06#) first big initiative — the stimulus bill — contained protectionist "Buy American" provisions that have already triggered retaliation from our biggest trading partner, Canada.
This was followed by protectionist legislation targeting Mexican trucking. Mexico is our third-largest trading partner. Our neighbor to the south promptly retaliated by slapping tariffs on 90 American exports.
The president and Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent the summer trying to ram through health-care "reform" that would slap an additional 8 percent payroll tax on employers who can't afford a government-approved health plan. It's a prescription for pricing workers right out of a job.
How about helping working families meet their household bills? Rising energy costs kill jobs and hit America's poorest the hardest. Yet, OPPA is pushing "global warming" legislation that would drain trillions of dollars out of the private economy and into federal coffers.
The OPPA-recommended route presents awfully bleak vistas: higher taxes, massive deficits pressuring interest rates and inflation, more expensive mandates, punitive bureaucracies, impediments to commerce, forced unionization. All are job killers.
For Labor Day, or any other day, it offers no joyride for the American worker.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090907/GPG0602/909070509/1269/GPG06
Do you agree with the author of the following article?
By Elaine Chao • Guest commentary • September 7, 2009
WASHINGTON — On Labor Day, millions of Americans will consult their Rand McNally Road Atlas before hitting the highway. But those seeking the quickest route to Lost Jobs and Delayed Recovery need only to follow the Obama-Pelosi Policy Atlas.
The OPPA-preferred route starts in Protectionism, and tells you to take a hard left at Higher Taxes as you speed on to Higher Spending. Don't miss that head-spinning left at Global Warming or the dizzying spiral of loopy lefts approaching Health Carehttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090907/GPG0602/909070509/1269/GPG06#).
Following this route, you'll find yourself where we are this Labor Day — mired in high unemployment and rising taxes.
The OPPA route is nothing new. It follows the decades-old liberal agenda on trade, health care, global warming and mass unionization. That agenda has never brought prosperity to workers.
Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried — and found wanting — since the Great Depression. Smoot and Hawley ginned up The Tariff Act of 1930 to get America back to work after the Stock Market Crash of '29. Instead, it destroyed trade so effectively that by 1932, American exports to Europe were just a third of what they had been in 1929. Jobs evaporated.
Unfortunately, Obama'shttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090907/GPG0602/909070509/1269/GPG06#) first big initiative — the stimulus bill — contained protectionist "Buy American" provisions that have already triggered retaliation from our biggest trading partner, Canada.
This was followed by protectionist legislation targeting Mexican trucking. Mexico is our third-largest trading partner. Our neighbor to the south promptly retaliated by slapping tariffs on 90 American exports.
The president and Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent the summer trying to ram through health-care "reform" that would slap an additional 8 percent payroll tax on employers who can't afford a government-approved health plan. It's a prescription for pricing workers right out of a job.
How about helping working families meet their household bills? Rising energy costs kill jobs and hit America's poorest the hardest. Yet, OPPA is pushing "global warming" legislation that would drain trillions of dollars out of the private economy and into federal coffers.
The OPPA-recommended route presents awfully bleak vistas: higher taxes, massive deficits pressuring interest rates and inflation, more expensive mandates, punitive bureaucracies, impediments to commerce, forced unionization. All are job killers.
For Labor Day, or any other day, it offers no joyride for the American worker.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090907/GPG0602/909070509/1269/GPG06