Floyd Brown, Chief Political Analyst

http://www.capitolhilldaily.com/2013/08/obamanomics-kills-middle-class/#more

With Barack Obama barnstorming the country like it’s October in a presidential election year, I thought we should take a closer look at his latest statements (read: fantasies). The more I hear Obama talk, the more nauseated I become – he’s either the dumbest person ever elevated to the White House, or he’s purposefully trying to destroy the economy.  Either way, he’s causing a tremendous amount of damage to America.

His latest crusade is jobs, specifically well-paying jobs for middle-class workers. Nice of him to notice that, since he was elected president, middle-class incomes have dropped like a rock. The latest data shows real income is now down a full 10%.

On top of our non-recovery, we have a mushrooming regulatory morass. And we’re now poised to fall back into recession without ever really recovering in the first place. Even the boot-licking Obama media is honest enough to call what we’re seeing a “jobless recovery.”

But, ultimately, my question is: How you can have a recovery without jobs?

“As any middle-class family will tell you, we’re not there yet…”

Obama’s latest stop was at an Amazon.com warehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee. During his speech, Obama hawked a “grand bargain” on the economy – corporate tax cuts, more infrastructure spending on grand projects and don’t forget the end of sequestration spending cuts.

Allow me to dig a little deeper here. Obama travels around the country moaning about how the middle class has been sledgehammered by the current economy, and then he proceeds to pitch tax reform for big business. As Rep. Paul Ryan opined, Obama is really pitching a “grand bargain for big business.”

Obama is offering to cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28%. Yet, even this is deceptive because his proposal would actually raise taxes by closing off numerous tax loop holes. You see, his prescription for recovery is remarkably wrongheaded. Even socialists and Keynesians agree that raising taxes when the economy is soft is simply bad policy.

It’s surprising that anyone would buy into Obama’s supposed tax cut proposal. Clearly, our memories are way too short. It was just eight months ago, on January 3, when Obama signed the fiscal cliff bill that increased the top tax rate on individuals and small business owners to 39.6%. That “grand bargain” is already taking $60 billion a year out of the pockets of families and small business owners.

It’s also worth remembering that the president set aside Obamacare’s employer mandate for companies with more than 50 employees – but he refuses to suspend the mandate for everyone else. Essentially, Obama gave big business yet another tax break while unfairly refusing the same for small businesses and individuals.

“The cornerstone of what it means to be middle class in America… A good job with good wages.”

There’s a curious – and major – impediment to income growth in the Obama economy. You see, the majority of new jobs being created are part-time and for low pay. For example, instead of hiring a food server for 40 hours a week, restaurants are hiring two part-time workers at 20 hours a week. Economists agree – this is a result of the burden foisted on businesses that hire full-time workers. So as much as Obama likes to talk about middle class jobs that support families, his policies aren’t actually creating these jobs.

And that’s not all that’s wrong, either. Take infrastructure spending. There are good reasons why we need to improve and upgrade this country. But the president continues to block projects such as the Keystone pipeline (TransCanada Corp (TRP)), which would improve energy independence.  Instead, he wants to pour more tax dollars into green-energy waste pits like Solyndra.

The transformation to a new, high-tech, high-wage economy just can’t happen when government is squeezing every business for more money while implementing a gazillion new regulations.

But the Obama team – divorced from reality in their ivory towers – can’t see it. The same week Obama talked about the shortage of jobs, his new EPA Director, Gina McCarthy, was busy ignoring the fact that EPA regulations are actively killing jobs.  McCarthy pleaded with a crowd at Harvard Law School: “Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs? Please, at least for today.”

We know how to get the economy moving: Shrink government and cut taxes and regulation, and then the economy will flourish. Earth to Obama… Get real.

Your eyes on the Hill,

Floyd Brown