Potential Good News

From a reputable source:

President Obama can brag all he wants about how “we’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months” — that’s what he said, as if he had anything at all to do with it except to keep the number from being larger (the reporter’s question which led to his answer concerned “your own policies,” so there’s no alternative interpretation as to the identification of “we”). The fact remains that we’re still 4.6 million jobs below getting back to where we were at peak employment — even before considering population growth during the past four-plus years. At the average monthly job growth of roughly 160,000 during that time, we’ll get back to where we were in late 2014. That’s bad enough, but at the average private-sector job growth of 85,000 seen during the past two months, we won’t get there until early 2017, shortly after the end of the next presidential term, which hopefully won’t be Obama’s. Sadly, given the “Taxmageddon” scheduled to visit us on January 1 and the President’s and his party’s refusal to do anything about it before the election, at least several more miserable months are a virtual lock.

Really now, how can anyone say that the area which is responsible for well over 90% of the 5,000,000-job shortfall and where part-timers are rapidly supplanting full-time employees is “doing fine”? I’ll tell you how: We have a president who has never managed anything bigger than a Senate office budget in his entire life, has no clue as to what’s going on outside of his Beltway/Chicago way bubble, and has only fever swamp-driven higher education, community organizing, legal system and political backgrounds as points of reference. He isn’t merely out of touch; he’s out of reach.

If he wants state and local governments to preserve their jobs or at least minimize layoffs, Obama should be giving them six words of advice: Do what Scott Walker has done. But he won’t do that. As the Wall Street Journal said in its marvelous editorial following Obama’s expressed ignorance which is miles beyond the level of a mere gaffe, “Governments are having to lay off workers to pay for their rising pension and health bills.” States which have faced up to those twin problems like Wisconsin’s Governor Walker have averted thousands of layoffs while preserving services. States like Ohio which tried something similar but saw their efforts subverted by the left-organized labor axis have seen thousands of layoffs. Union bosses would rather see younger members thrown out on the streets than give up even the smallest portion of their oversized, outdated, and unsustainable wages and benefits.

There is potential good news in all of this. Obama, in continuing his tired push for more stimulus to state and local governments which won’t reform themselves while making life miserable for a private sector which he still insists is “doing fine,” appears to be sowing the seeds of his own November defeat — to the point where the non-stop establishment press excuse-making and cover-ups still might not be able to prevent it.

Well said.