The Incompetent Obama – His Economic Policies Will Be Our Undoing

Flopping Aces ^ | 04-26-12 | Curt

[Starman417]

Illinois offers us a perfect example of what happens when you institute liberal policies, as Obama has done to the entire country:

After trying to tax Illinois to governmental solvency and economic dynamism, Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has been governor since 2009, now says “our rendezvous with reality has arrived.” Actually, Illinois is still reality-averse, so Americans may soon learn the importance of the freedom to fail in a system of competitive federalism.

Illinois was more heavily taxed than the five contiguous states (Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin) even before January 2011, when Quinn got a lame-duck legislature (its successor has fewer Democrats) to raise corporate taxes 30 percent (from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent), giving Illinois one of the highest state corporate taxes and the fourth-highest combination of national and local corporate taxation in the industrialized world. Since 2009, Quinn has spent more than $500 million in corporate welfare to bribe companies not to flee the tax environment he has created.

Quinn raised personal income taxes 67 percent (from 3 percent to 5 percent), adding about $1,040 to the tax burden of a family of four earning $60,000. Illinois’ unemployment rate increased faster than any other state’s in 2011...

And if the most incompetent President in our history is re-elected we will see this kind of thing spread throughout the country. Any government that believes they can tax themselves out of a hole WILL face reality soon.

WSJ:

In the 1980s, the world learned (or so we thought) that the way out of the malaise of the 1970s were reforms that encourage private investment and risk-taking, labor mobility and flexibility, an end to price controls, tax rates that encouraged capital formation, and what the World Bank now broadly calls "the ease of doing business." Amid this crisis, Europe has tried everything except these policies.

If Reagan or Margaret Thatcher are too déclassé for Europeans to invoke, how about Germany? Throughout the 1990s and the first years of the last decade, Germany was Europe's hobbled giant, with consistently subpar growth rates and unemployment that in 2005 hit 11.3%, nearly at the top of the OECD chart.

Then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat, surprised the world, to say nothing of his own voters, by pushing through the labor-market reforms that paved the way for the current relative prosperity. The changes cut welfare benefits and gave employers more flexibility in reaching agreement with their employees on working time and pay.

The Schröder government, and later the coalition under Angela Merkel, also cut federal corporate income taxes to 15% from 45% in 1998. Include state taxes, and the effective corporate rate today is close to 30%, down from 50% or more in the 1990s. These reforms made Germany more competitive, attracted investment and jobs, and paved the way for the country's economic resurgence and an unemployment rate currently at 5.7%.

Mrs. Merkel's government did the world an additional favor in 2009, amid the financial crisis, by rejecting calls from the International Monetary Fund, then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, President Obama, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the same dominant Keynesian consensus to join the global spending party.

"They've already pumped endless amounts of money into the economy," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in 2010 about U.S. policy. "The results are dismal."

The results are indeed dismal, and set to get much worse if their policies of over taxation while printing money to continue spending is continued.

But don't tell that to the left in this country. If someone makes more money than they do then it's just unfair:

[G Larry]

How can you possibly assign “incompetence” to a man who’s life ambition has been the destruction of Capitalism, the Constitution, and the American way of life?

He is directly on plan and is further complimented by his ability to lie about his intentions!

[elephantlips]

Looking at your headline,”The Incompetent Obama – His Economic Policies Will Be Our Undoing,” I was reminded of the picture, “Hunt for Red October.” Toward the end when the Soviet submarine commander sent to kill Sean Connery launches the missile which then comes back on his sub and the first officer says something like, “you egotistical maniac, you’ve killed us.” (explosion.....end)

[SaraJohnson]

I wish Americans would stop assuming Obama is “failing” when he progresses to kill off capitalism in America - the economy. This is what his fundamental change is! He’s a Marxist.

[Howie]