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Black Leaders Open Fire on Obama Over Unemployment
Townhall.com ^ | March 29, 2013 | Donald Lambro

Posted on 03/29/2013 1:06:09 PM PDT by Kaslin

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's failed job policies are facing bitter criticism from African-American leaders who say black unemployment has grown worse under his presidency.

After four years of holding their tongues and remaining quiet in the face of sharply rising black unemployment and record poverty, political leaders from the Congressional Black Caucus to the NAACP have begun to open fire on the White House.

Obama won 96 percent of the black vote in 2008 and about the same percentage in 2012, despite a worsening jobless crisis among African-Americans. At 14 percent for adults and 43.1 percent for 16-to-19-year-old teenagers, blacks still have the highest jobless rate of any minority group in the U.S.

Black leaders in Congress largely kept their complaints to themselves throughout Obama's first term in office and his re-election campaign. But no longer.

The nation's black leadership has become a great deal more vocal lately about severe unemployment, fewer job opportunities, and a weak, lackluster economy. They are especially unhappy with the fact that Obama has placed relatively few black officials in top level positions in his second term administration.

It didn't get that much media attention, but shortly after Obama was inaugurated in January, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous went on nationwide television to condemn Obama's weak job creation record, charging that black Americans "are doing a full point worse" than when Obama became president.

"The country's back to pretty much where it was when this president started," Jealous said on Meet The Press on Jan. 27.

The government's employment numbers maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics support Jealous' latest criticism. The black unemployment rate was 12.7 percent when President George W. Bush finished his second term and Obama took office.

It soared over the first three years of Obama's first term to 16.7 percent by September 2011 (the worst jobless rate for black Americans since 1983). Unemployment among black teenagers exploded to 39.3 percent in July, 2012.

"Statistics show that the African-American community is in bad shape under the Obama administration," the widely read web site "Your Black World" said this week.

Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, let loose with some stinging criticisms of Obama's record on his appointments in his second term.

"The people you have chosen to appoint in this new term have hardly been reflective of this country's diversity," she said in a letter to Obama. "Their ire is compounded by the overwhelming support you've received from the African-America community."

Fudge and other CBC members complain that Obama has not devoted enough attention in his agenda to many of the critical economic issues within the black community, especially rising unemployment.

"I think we are going to hear more voices of opposition coming from all sectors of black leadership, and certainly from the most hard pressed sections of the black population," said Dr. Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, most black leaders do not understand that it is Obama's anti-growth, economic policies that have contributed to the persistently high level of unemployment among all Americans, especially African-Americans.

The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus still believe that Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus plan, largely made up of public works, infrastructure and other government spending, was the smart way to create jobs and boost economic growth. If anything, they wanted him to spend more.

But there were no economic growth incentives in his plan that would boost venture capital investment, the mother's milk of business expansion, new business formation and job creation.

Soon after Obama's stimulus plan became effective and the money began flowing out across the country, a look at the list of recipients revealed that it included hundreds of federal agencies and programs. It expanded government spending, and maybe some of the money trickled down to workers, but it created relatively few permanent jobs.

Once the stimulus funds were spent on roads, bridges and other public workers projects, the jobs ended.

The proof that Obama's Keynesian spending didn't work is in the numbers: high unemployment that is still skirting 8 percent, and it is actually 14 percent if you include workers who want and need full-time employment but are forced to take part-time jobs.

And the economy isn't getting stronger, as we can see in the economic growth numbers that measure the gross domestic product (GDP) that is the sum of everything we produce, sell and export. It grew at a barely-moving pace 0.4 percent in the last three months of 2012, according to the Commerce Department's latest estimate Thursday.

The Federal Reserve says unemployment will remain high this year and next and economic growth will remain weak for at least the next two years.

Now Obama is calling for a $9 an hour minimum wage which the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus has supported in the past and no doubt supports now. But this is a job killer, particularly for small businesses and especially for minorities. It will kill entry-level training jobs and that will drive black employment even higher.

In an interview with the College Fix web site, Antony Davies, an economics professor at Duquesne University, explains why: "When businesses -- especially small businesses -- are faced with increased labor costs due to minimum wage hikes, less valuable jobs are eliminated. After that, the extra workload is doled out to remaining employees."

Or as economist Murray Rothbard writes in his book, The Free Market, "In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period."

Meantime, it is becoming increasingly self-evident that black leaders are getting fed up with the economic results of Obama's presidency. For the first time, they have begun to question and to criticize some of the economic policies that he still defends but that they now know aren't working


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bho44; bhoeconomy; blackcommunity; blackunemployment; economicgrowth; jobsandeconomy; lambro; obama; stimulus; unemployment
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To: bravo whiskey

“black leaders, an oxymoron in 89.6% of the cases. more like black pimps.”

And they seemingly don’t want to have anything to do with the likes of Ben Carson or Allen West. It isn’t about opportunity, it’s about work ethic, and most Blacks have enough of the former but none of the latter.


21 posted on 03/29/2013 1:22:48 PM PDT by vette6387
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To: forgotten man

They’re getting exactly what they deserve.


22 posted on 03/29/2013 1:25:11 PM PDT by Bullish (A genuine President wouldn't allow the Obama's on the White House grounds)
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To: forgotten man

“F*#@em. They got what they asked for.”

Exactly! I hope it hurts, and hurts a lot.


23 posted on 03/29/2013 1:28:37 PM PDT by brownsfan (Behold, the power of government cheese.)
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To: Kaslin

A wise man once said....schadenfreude’s a bitch


24 posted on 03/29/2013 1:28:53 PM PDT by wny
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To: Kaslin

We warned ‘em in 2008 and were called “racist.”

Romney warned ‘em in 2012 and were called “racist.”

Yet they have the temerity to bitch. Screw. them.


25 posted on 03/29/2013 1:31:15 PM PDT by ScottinVA (Gun control: Steady firm grip, target within sights, squeeze the trigger slowly...)
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To: Kaslin

I can't believe that some libtards are still trying to pin it all on Bush... the guy from 5 years ago...

26 posted on 03/29/2013 1:35:11 PM PDT by Bon mots (Abu Ghraib: 47 Times on the front page of the NY Times | Benghazi: 2 Times)
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To: Kaslin

Obama says job growth is not flat. It’s just unleavened in honor of Passover.


27 posted on 03/29/2013 1:35:46 PM PDT by csmusaret (America is more divided today , not because of the problems we face but because of Obama's solutions)
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To: Kaslin
He don't care about you blacks,

He got a buncha new Hispanics to vote for him.

Suckas.

28 posted on 03/29/2013 1:37:16 PM PDT by FroggyTheGremlim (Palin was correct!)
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To: Kaslin

The speedy trial has gone right out the window.


29 posted on 03/29/2013 1:38:33 PM PDT by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: forgotten man

Exactly. They got what they asked for.

They could see his record when they voted for him, and they voted for him anyway.

Now they should just take their Obamaphones and STFU.


30 posted on 03/29/2013 1:40:07 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: Kaslin

You voted him in deal with it,no whining.


31 posted on 03/29/2013 1:49:18 PM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Kaslin

Jesse and Rev Al?


32 posted on 03/29/2013 1:54:19 PM PDT by b4its2late (A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own.)
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To: Kaslin
THEY VOTED FOR "CHANGE" AND NOW THEY ARE NOT HAPPY?



MAYBE THEY SHOULDA BEEN MORE SPECIFIC

33 posted on 03/29/2013 1:59:08 PM PDT by Slyfox (The Key to Marxism is Medicine ~ Vladimir Lenin)
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To: Kaslin
Now that's interesting. The institutionalized racists in Congress calling out the Racist in Chief.
Deal with it you ignorant, blind fools.
34 posted on 03/29/2013 2:00:28 PM PDT by cashless (Obama told us he would side with Muslims if the political winds shifted in an ugly direction. Ready?)
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To: Kaslin

They can cry me a river.


35 posted on 03/29/2013 2:02:45 PM PDT by FreeAtlanta (bahits.com)
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To: RoosterRedux

Blacks should be pissed off at the President. He should have tossed them a few bones but they got squat. Truth is he isn’t back and must have contempt for them—he has sold his soul to white leftists and their beliefs. Marx wasn’t Black. I half expected Obama to at least give them something—but he didn’t do that. Only more pain and hate—using the race card to silence any who oppose him.


36 posted on 03/29/2013 2:11:04 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: Kaslin

But it’s not just black americans....all my Dem family members, friends, and ex co-workers, white or black, are clueless when it comes to understanding the relationship between government and the private sector as far as creating jobs. That’s why they’re Dems...they’re either the ignorati who vote in the elites or the elites who prefer to keep people unemployed and dependent on government.


37 posted on 03/29/2013 2:11:50 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: Kaslin

obama’s not black like them. Ever notice he doesn’t seem to have any “real” black friends? He played golf with Tiger Woods. But he ain’t black either. He’s halfy like obama. Bill Clinton hung out with more black people than obama. He gets elected because he’s black. But he’s not really black nor does he think of himself as black.

Therefore, the blacks in this country are just one more group he used to get elected and re-elected. I won’t say he threw them under the bus. They never got out from under his bus to begin with.


38 posted on 03/29/2013 2:16:05 PM PDT by Terry Mross (This country will fail to exist in my lifetime. And I'm gettin' up there in age.)
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To: forgotten man

You gots that right


39 posted on 03/29/2013 2:40:33 PM PDT by Joe Boucher ((FUBO))
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To: forgotten man

A running thought in my head in the midst of the squalling over Gay Marriage:

I once was in a position to hire & fire at a family owned & run business, which was fairly good sized.

SOOOOO—while I have been self-employed for almost 40 years, I still have the following thoughts:

WHY should I even attempt to hire a black who thinks it’s wonderful to drop out of grade or middle school & not keep getting any education past about 7th grade?

They are lured into criminal activities, such as running drugs, becdause as juveniles, they never get a serious prosecution.

So—now, at age 16 or so, or even 18, they have no education, no skills which are needed in a non-criminal market and they aren’t welcome at home, where their ‘Mommy’ has a passle of kids still to feed. Daddy, of course, is a faint memory of a hot night of ‘clubbing’.

I have the choice of hiring a kid who stayed in school-—got decent grades & perhaps isn’t college material. This kid can think, knows how to show up personally groomed and ready for a full day’s work.

He shows up on time.
He speaks in clear Engligh-—Not EBONICS.
He can READ!
He can WRITE!
He can converse with me or a customer.
He can properly fill out an invoice.
He can make change correctly-—and even COUNT IT OUT to the customer!!!
He better have no visible punctures or metal on his person.
He better have no visible tattoos. I don’t buy the idea that it is ‘art’.

In a time when so many whites are out of work & are willing to act like they might have a future with me, why would I want to even spend time interviewing a Trayvon Martin??? Ot the kid who shot the toddler in the stroller?

Flame away, but life is too short to spend my time in fruitless searches.


40 posted on 03/29/2013 2:47:11 PM PDT by ridesthemiles
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