Posted on 09/08/2011 6:57:43 AM PDT by mdittmar
There is an obvious omission from all the previews of the President’s upcoming speech on jobs: Obamacare.
Obamacare is perhaps the most damaging of the Administration’s policies that are impeding the country’s recovery. At a time when there should be a focus on cutting spending, reducing regulation, and lowering taxes, Obamacare does the complete opposite. It spends more, imposes costly new mandates and regulations, and raises taxes on individuals and businesses. This is no way to get the economy up and running again.
More Spending. While proponents argue that Obamacare reduces the deficit, those assertions are made based on typical Washington smoke-and-mirrors accounting gimmicks. The harsh reality is that Obamacare spends $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years to expand an already struggling Medicaid program ($627 billion) and create a costly new subsidy entitlement ($777 billion).
Costly Mandates and Regulations. Obamacare imposes a penalty on employers with over 50 employees that do not offer government-qualified health insurance. This provision will hurt job creation, especially in the small business sector, where the economic incentive will be to stay under 50 employees. Moreover, since the health care law was written in such haste, many of the specifics await regulatory instructions, including what qualifies as a government-approved plan, leaving businesses with greater economic uncertainty.
Higher Taxes. Obamacare imposes nearly $500 billion in new taxes on individuals and businesses over the next 10 years. They include a 2.3percent excise tax on medical devices, $28 billion in new “fees” on brand name drug manufacturers, a new tax on investment income for couples earning over $250,000 a year, and annual premium taxes on health insurance policies that start at $8 billion in 2014, grow to $14.3 billion in 2018, and will continue to escalate based on premium growth (that is, faster than general inflation) every year thereafter. Raising taxes in this economy is no way to build job growth.
Indeed, a just released economic analysis of the Obamacare excise tax on medical devices concludes, “Under reasonable assumptions, the tax could result in job losses in excess of 43,000.” Furthermore, businesses of all kinds that currently offer their workers health insurance have already begun to calculate the costs of the new health care law, and the future does not look good for these job creators.
Nancy Pelosi was right when she said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” As more individuals and businesses learn about the law, the less there is to like it about it. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics to understand that this health care law is not a prescription for curing an ailing economy.
When it comes to fixing the economy, the President should start with “Do no harm.” But to do that, he would have to admit that Obamacare was a mistake.
Repealing ObamaCare is a “much” (Rev. Alspeak) before any jobs can start coming back. Employers are not stupid.
Obama and the Democrats are doing everything that they can to hold back, control, hamper, regulate and take from businesses and those who start, own and run them. They are doing everything possible to destroy the economy. Then they scream JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.
(I’ve posted this on other threads and will probably post again.)
It is not possible for a Federal “stimulus plan” to create jobs at a time when the same Federal gov’t has imposed a “stifle us” plan, via unaccountable czars and agency policies.
More spending in the face of more regulation, can only result in more debt, with no return on investment, and NO jobs.
Repeal Frank/Dodd. The gov’t is only penalizing lenders for not participating in their ponzi scheme.
Repeal Obamacare. An insurance card is NOT healthcare.
Repeal the new EPA regulations and cut that department’s budget in half.
Get the Fed’s out of the Banking business and the Automobile Industry.
Shut down the Dept. of Education as the Federal gov’t has no positive role in education.
Shut down the Dept. of Energy, ostensibly created 34 years ago to “reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil”.
It has done everything possible to achieve the opposite result.
Cut the Dept. of Agriculture in half. We don’t need to pay farmers to NOT grow crops.
Corn and Sugar don’t need gov’t subsidies.
Absolutely, repeal Obamacare. We elected several republican pols in 2010 to do just that. What happened?
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