United Liberty

With the stock market posting its worst quarterly losses since the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis as it lost more than 12% of its value and the odds of a recession growing greater, President Barack Obama wants Americans to know that they’ve “gotten a little soft”:

President Barack Obama told a Florida TV station yesterday that the United States is facing economic difficulties because it has “gotten a little soft” during the last 20 years.

“This is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and we didnʼt have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades,” Obama said.

The fix is that “we need to get back on track,” he said, while urging Congress to pass his new $447 billion one-year stimulus bill.

Those comparisons between Obama and Jimmy Carter are just going to become more frequent as the comment bears resemblance to a speech the former president made during economic turmoil in the late 70s — hey, there’s a reason voters that were around to experience him still disapprove of him:

News broke last night that President Barack Obama will propose a $3 trillion deficit reduction plan today, which includes $1.5 trillion in tax hikes. The plan comes at the same time he is proposing more than $460 billion in tax hikes to pay for his last stimulus plan:

President Obama will announce a proposal on Monday to tame the nation’s rocketing federal debt, calling for $1.5 trillion in new revenue as part of a plan to find more than $3 trillion in budget savings over a decade, senior administration officials said.

The proposal draws a sharp contrast with Republicans and amounts more to an opening play in the fall debate over the economy than another attempt to find common ground with the opposing party.
[…]
Obama will propose new taxes on the wealthy, a special new tax for millionaires, and eliminating or scaling back a variety of loopholes and deductions, officials say. About half of the tax savings would come from the expiration next year of the George W. Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy.

The tax hike on millionaires is being called the “Buffett Rule.” But as we’ve noted here before, that new tax hike, as populist as though it may be, will cover only a week of federal spending. And in practice, it hasn’t worked:

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) recently appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano to explain why President Barack Obama’s latest stimulus proposal won’t get the economy moving again; highlighting that his 2009 stimulus bill failed, as predicted:

It looks like Americans aren’t buying President Barack Obama’s latest stimulus gimmick — which includes more than $460 billion in tax hikes, according to a new poll from Bloomberg:

By a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, Americans doubt the package of tax cuts and spending proposals intended to jumpstart job creation that Obama submitted to Congress this week will bring down the 9.1 percent jobless rate. That sentiment undermines one of the core arguments the president is making on the job act’s behalf in a nationwide campaign to build public support.

Compounding Obama’s challenge is that 56 percent of independents, whom the president won in 2008 and will need to win in 2012, are skeptical it will work.
[…]
In all of the categories gauging Obama’s performance on economic issues, the president’s disapproval rating among independents is above 50 percent.

That’s not the end of Obama’s troubles. The poll also shows that 62% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy. Only 33% of respondents approve (one has to wonder what world their living in). Overall, Obama’s job approval rating stands at 45%.

Since the bill has a lot of opposition already in Congress, many observers say that it serves only one real purpose; to have another fight between the White House and Republicans over the economy. That may very well be the case, but the numbers are already against Obama on this. Republicans really need only point to the failed 2009 stimulus bill as evidence that Obama is throwing a Hail Mary.

According to a new report from the National Federation for Independent Business, small businesses owners’ confidence in the economy has dropped:

Confidence among U.S. small businesses dropped to a 13-month low in August as fewer companies projected better economic conditions and improving sales, a private survey found.

The National Federation of Independent Business’s optimism index decreased to 88.1, the weakest reading since July 2010 and the sixth-consecutive decline, from 89.9 in July. The number of small-business owners saying they expected the economy will improve six months from now fell to the lowest level since 1980.

“Hope for improvement in the economy faded even further through the month,” William Dunkelberg, the group’s chief economist, said in a statement accompanying the index report. “With such a dim outlook, owners are not going to do a lot of hiring or expanding.”

Small-business owners have grown less confident that conditions will improve as stagnant job growth weighs on consumer sentiment. Households “uncertain about the future” won’t “engage in the spending that would help lead us out of the recession,” Dunkelberg said.

Six of the index’s 10 components decreased. The gauge of expectations for better business conditions six months from now led the decline, falling 11 points to a net minus 26 percent in August. The drop brought business assessment of the economy to the lowest level since the second quarter of 1980, when the measure fell to minus 37, according to Dunkelberg.

President Barack Obama made another pitch for his latest latest “stimulus” plan yesterday in the Rose Garden at the White House, once again calling for Congress to pass it quickly. But this lastest gimmick isn’t likely to win much support from Republicans since Obama is planning to pay for his temporary tax cuts with long-term tax hikes:

The prospects for President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan grew dimmer Monday as he unveiled the fine print of how it would be paid for—primarily through tax increases that Republicans said would destroy jobs, not create them.

Mr. Obama proposed limiting itemized deductions for families with taxable income of $250,000 or more a year, ending tax breaks for oil companies and corporate jet owners, and cutting out a tax break for investment-fund managers. The White House says the tax changes would take effect in 2013 and estimates they would raise $467 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.

Republicans in Congress, who had been striking a more conciliatory tone about backing at least parts of the proposal the president unveiled last Thursday, disputed the White House contention that the plan would cause no additional job losses for the struggling economy.

This is just poor policy. These tax cuts and credits are gimmicks that won’t do much, if anything, to create jobs. In fact, the tax hikes will only contribute to the uncertainty that continues to hamper the economy. This a conclusion that even Obama’s former economic advisor, Christina Romer, once noted (emphasis mine):

With President Obama proposing more stimulus spending, Dale Franks posted this chart over at QandO reminding us how well the last stimulus bill worked:

President Barack Obama will send his latest gimmick - the $447 billion stimulus plan - to Congress today in hopes that they will quickly take it up and pass it:

President Obama will again press Congress to pass his American Jobs Act during a Rose Garden event on Monday morning.

A White House official said that the president will send his legislation to Capitol Hill on Monday evening when Congress comes back in session.
[…]
On Monday, Obama will hold an event in the Rose Garden, an official said, where he “will call on Congress to pass the bill, which contains the kinds of proposals to grow the economy and create jobs that have been supported by both parties in the past.”

Republicans will at least consider the bill, but have asked the White House to split the proposals up instead of a single piece of legislation; perhaps a sign that they may like at least some parts of it, including much needed free trade agreements.

However, Republicans are skeptical of more infrastructure spending since the 2009 stimulus bill was such a failure and they are unconvinced that the payroll tax cut and tax breaks for employers are going to do much to boost the economy. The concerns on infrustructure are well-founded, as Veronique de Rugy noted last week. And it may sound unorthodox for the GOP to oppose a tax cut, but an editorial at USA Today explains why it’s a reasoned approach:

If you we’re expecting something different out of Barack Obama than the same talking points and misguided economic policies that have kept the economy limping along these past couple years, you were no doubt disappointed with his campaign speech address to Congress last night.

Despite the failure of the stimulus bill passed in 2009, Obama, whose poll numbers have declined on the economy, is now demanding for Congress to pass a $447 billion spending package of rehashed policies, which he believes will somehow create jobs when they didn’t before:

Addressing a Congress partially controlled by Republicans highly skeptical of much of his program, and a nation weary of waiting for recovery, Obama did not say how many jobs would be created if lawmakers were to pass all elements of his plan. But he cast speedy congressional action as critical to injecting jobs into what has thus far been a jobless recovery.

“This is the American Jobs Act. It will lead to new jobs for construction workers, teachers, veterans, first responders, young people and the long-term unemployed.  It will provide tax credits to companies that hire new workers, tax relief for small business owners, and tax cuts for the middle-class,” Obama told lawmakers. “And here’s the other thing I want the American people to know:  the American Jobs Act will not add to the deficit.  It will be paid for.”

[UPDATE] It’s was reported this morning that Obama’s new stimulus plan could cost more than $400 billion.

Some details of President Barack Obama’s rehashed stimulus gimmick new “jobs package” was reported yesterday in the media. It’s package, which Obama will speak about to a joint session of Congress this evening, is being presented as tax cuts and infrustructure spending, much of what was passed off as economic stimulus in 2009; but as you’ll note, that word is absent from Democrats’ vocabulary:

President Barack Obama, facing waning confidence among Americans in his economic stewardship, plans some $300 billion in tax cuts and government spending as part of a job-creating package, U.S. media reported on Tuesday.

The price tag of the proposed package, to be announced by Obama in a nationally televised speech to Congress on Thursday, would be offset by other cuts that the president would outline, CNN reported, citing Democratic sources.

Bloomberg News said the plan would inject more than $300 billion into the economy next year through tax cuts, spending on infrastructure, and aid to state and local governments.

Obama would offset those short-term costs by calling on Congress to raise tax revenues in a deficit-cutting proposal he will lay out next week, the news agency reported, without citing sources.