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Today in Washington – July 22, 2010

So much for President Obama’s promises of economic stimulus.  The New York Times reports that moments after the President signed a new law to expand regulation over the financial sector, one business group complained that the new law will discourage job growth.

The Business Roundtable complained in a statement that the law “takes our country in the wrong direction” and may discourage investment and job growth, echoing concerns made by the United States Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations.

I wonder how many jobs the President destroyed or failed to create with this new law?  The House is voting on two postponed suspension bills, an extension of unemployment benefits (H.R. 4213), and the “Multiple Peril Insurance Act.”  The Senate is scheduled to vote on H.J. Res. 83, a joint resolution approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, and S.Res. 591, a resolution recognizing and honoring the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  After those votes the Senate will resume consideration of the “Small Business Jobs” bill.

The Obama Tax Increases of 2011 are on the verge of being implemented, because this Administration has not pushed to extend the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.

Conn Carroll of The Foundry reports today that there are two phases to President Obama’s transformation of America.  Phase one is to increase government spending.

The American people are already well aware of President Barack Obama’s historic expansion of government spending: his $862 billion economic stimulus that has completely failed to keep unemployment below 8% as promised; his still-expanding health care law which the Congressional Budget Office now admits will cost more than $1 trillion; and an Obama budget that increases government spending by $12,000 per household. But all that spending is just the first half of President Obama’s game plan.

The massive expansion of the size and scope of the federal government is well under way.  ObamaCare, financial regulatory reform and the Stimulus are part of a plan to expand spending and the power of the federal government over the economy.

Phase two is a massive increase on taxes.

The second half of Obama’s attempted transformation began last night when the Senate rejected Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) effort to end the Death Tax. This year is actually the first year since 1916 that Americans do not have to pay any federal taxes when a family member dies. But thanks to the way Congress had to pass the legislation that phased out the Death Tax in 2001, it is set to go from zero percent to 55 percent at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2010. The Death Tax is but one of many government taxes on capital and entrepreneurship, and its reinstatement will be yet another job killer from the Obama administration. It rewards estate tax lawyers, insurance companies and big businesses at the expense of small family-owned enterprises. According to a study by the American Family Business Foundation, a full repeal of the death tax, like the one rejected by the Senate last night, would create 1.5 million jobs. Before the vote, Sen. DeMint described the tax as an “unfair, immoral double tax on property and assets that folks have already paid taxes on throughout their lives.” He added: “The Obama death tax is just the latest example of this administration’s assault on small businesses.”

Ironically, the DeMint Amendment was rejected to a so called “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010.”  Only 43 Senators voted with Senator DeMint to help small business.  The elites in Washington, D.C. really don’t get it.

Carroll reports that “according to The Tax Foundation, a family of four with two earners making $85,000 a year would pay about $1,800 more in federal income taxes in 2011.”  It is hard to believe that the Obama Administration is really committed to keeping taxes low on middle America when the Administration has done nothing to support the idea of a permanent full repeal of the death tax.

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COMMENTS

  • Ausonius

    On page C1 and continued on C8 there is an article about Ford pulling out of plans to issue new bonds backed by packages of auto loans because the ratings firms in America have been almost terrorized by the Dodd-Frank Bill.

    Ratings firms for bonds can now be held legaly liable for the quality of their ratings.

    From the article:

    “The result has been a shutdown of the market for asset-backed securities, a $1.4 TRILLION market that only recently clawed its way back to health…”

    (My emphasis on “trillion”)

    Later one reads that even “third parties” like lawyers and accountants, who provide opinions on a deal, must make their opinions public.

    The article does not explicitly say so, but the implication of Dodd-Frank is that even lowly accountants who write a memo on Bond X could be in jeopardy of litigation (or prosecution?) by voicing their opinions.

    Welcome to the Orwellian “Unintended” Consequences of Dodd-Frank! Welcome to the NewSpeak Method of Stimulating Private Businesses to start financing new projects!!!

    I once taught at a school where curious traditions were present, e.g. when going to an assembly in the theater, students on the second floor were sent downstairs to the ground floor, and the first-floor students went upstairs to the balconies, causing absolutely mass chaos in the halls and delaying any assembly by over 10 minutes.

    I dared to ask why and was called a troublemaker who had better keep his mouth shut and not question authority. (It seems that 20 years earlier, a prank of some sort had been played, and the solution to prevent it from ever happening again was to endure this chaos in the halls!)

    So for the actions of a few, the 99% honest majority must now endure the chaos of Dodd-Frank and be under suspicion as possible troublemakers who had better keep their mouths shut and not question authority!

  • romeg

    How many jobs has Obama lost?

    If wealth creation = Job creation and if wealth destruction = job loss/destruction then look at the decline in the values of equities since it became clear that Obamanation Phase II or FinReg would be signed into law.

    Listen to the comments of Ben Bernanke as he projects “unusually high uncertainty”.

    The markets HATE uncertainty and this administration and its handmaidens in Congress have swamped the economy with a tsunami of uncertainty for the next decade and beyond.

    As to HOW MANY jobs it has destroyed, we cannot know but we can be absolutely assured that it has happened and will continue for the foreseeable future.