Uncertainty is a Wet Blanket on Job Creation

1. Uncertainty over the cost of the health care law (and the thousands of pages of regulations written to implement it).

For instance, six months ago, no one was writing about the huge administrative burden created by a section hidden away within the health care law that forces businesses to issue 1099 tax forms to any company they buy more than $600 of goods or services from in a year. Just to give you some scale, for my small business, this will include more than 1,000 companies. We will need to collect over 1,000 tax identification numbers and prepare and mail over 1,000 tax forms we did not have to prepare before the health care legislation became law. And, our active 17,000 customer accounts that buy over $600 per year will be sending us 1099's that we will need to keep, I suppose, or attach to our corporate tax return.

And, to what end are we going through these new administative burdens? The tax scofflaws are not going to be sending out a blizzard of 1099 forms. Only the companies who follow the law already are going to be doing this. So, what the health care law has done is create administrative work for law abiding corporate citizens who already pay their taxes.

There are other pitfalls that have not been uncovered yet (the bill itself is over 2,000 pages long and the regulations written to enforce it are many times as long already, and growing).

This is not insignificant. And, it is going on in lots of different places in our economy. Just ask any business person.

2. Uncertainty over the regulatory environment. Michael Aronstein used the phrase "regulatory totalitarianism" when talking about what is coming out of Washington these days and it really is very accurate. The rule of law is eroding and being replaced by the rule of bureaucrats.

3. Uncertainty over tax rates. When was the last time it was November and we still did not know what the tax rates were for the following year? That is what this Congress and this President have promised the American people. How easy is it to plan business investment and hiring when you don't know what a major component of your costs will be (36% federal rate on any income you can muster up in this economy). Tax rates matter, Mr. President. The longer they are uncertain, the lower the amount of business investment.

This is one area the current Administration just does not understand. Uncertainty is preventing business investment and job creation. This is what is happening in the real world, Mr. President.

Woldy

Abandon Ship, Gilligan!

Axelrod, Rahm, Larry, Peter . . . the list of Obama aides who have abandoned ship, or have announced plans to abandon ship is growing daily. They must sense that the second two years of Obama's term are not nearly going to be as much fun as the first two years . . . and they want to get while the getting is good.

Hard to read this any other way, in advance of the November Smackdown . . . I mean . . . Elections.

The Dems will see it as a victory if they hold onto the House, even if by a slim majority, but in reality, if they do manage to hold onto the House (not out of the question, anything can happen), it will be by a slim majority and that margin won't be enough to get anything done. Oh, and say goodnight to Nancy, because she is toast either way.

Recovery.gov

Someone asked the source of the data on job creation and the stimulus spending. Check out the above web site, then go to Illinois and put in your zip code. I just put in 60061, where my business is located. February '09 to June '10, there have been $15.6 Million in contracts let and grants given to recipients in this zip code.

Zero point one jobs created . . . personally, I find that hard to believe. What did they do with all that money? I have not noticed any helicopters overhead dropping it from the sky.

We are such suckers . . . PT Barnum was right.

Fast Stimulus Fact

Did you know that $169,000,000 in federal stimulus funding was spent in the 10th Congressional District (where I live) this year? Wow, that's a lot of taxpayer money.

Guess how many full time jobs were created by this incredible sum of money . . .

158

More than $1,000,000 per job. But, its even worse than that. So much of the stimulus was spent resurfacing roads in the 10th District that once the roads are resurfaced and the Government money runs out, those jobs are gone. So, we spent $1,000,000 per job, for a temporary full time job. Stunningly ineffective . . . But the roads are so smooth now . . . at least we've got that going for us.

If you care about fiscal sanity, vote GOP this Fall. Bob Dold in the 10th, Joel Pollak in the 9th.

Woldy

Calling GOP . . . Is Anyone Listening?

Dear GOP Strategy Committee: If you nominate Sarah Palin as your GOP nominee for 2012, millions of Independents (such as myself) will simply not vote. Haven't you figured out why you lost in 2008?

People simply could not stomach the idea of Sarah Palin becoming President. Even the remote chance that McCain might meet an untimely end, pushing Palin into the Presidency, was enough to motivate millions of us to vote for Obama.

Do you really need to learn the same lesson . . . again?

Give 'ole Sarah a nice, cushy job someplace and ask her politely to step aside (or shove her aside, whatever you have to do).

WE (Independents) WON'T VOTE FOR PALIN . . . is that clear enough? And, if you can't get us, you can't win. So . . . pick someone else.

Joe Biden is a jerk . . .

Today, Joe Biden was confronted by a citizen at Kopp's Custard Shop in Milwaukee who dared . . . express an opinion on the fiscal state of the country by asking the Veep to lower our taxes. Biden's reply was a testy "Say something nice for a change instead of being such as smartass . . ."

What a jerk. Seems like any time a citizen says anything real, they get marginalized or discounted by our elected officials. When citizens express an opinion that is other than adulation for our elected officials, they are turned into ogres. This happened with last Summer's Town Hall meetings, when our Congressmen stopped having Town Hall meetings because they did not want to hear from us. And, it is happening to the Tea Party activists. They are labeled as racists or zenophobes by our leaders instead of taken seriously, and listened to, as any citizen should be. Our politicians simply do not want any lip from us.

This is the height of arrogance. And, again, it exhibits the tin ears that this Administration has for feedback from the populace. Whenever there is something said that they don't want to hear, they ignore it, they discount it and they seek a way to try to de-legitimize it. Same pattern, over and over again. (This is especially true with our President, but that's another blog post altogether.)

Once again . . . please vote for the challenger, whatever the party. In practice, this will mean voting GOP a lot of the time, but so be it. We need to remove from office as many incumbents as possible. And, send a very strong message that these people cocooned in Washington work for us . . . not the other way around.

Woldy

Thank you Barney Frank and Chris Dodd

The two legislators who are most culpable for NOT regulating Fannie and Freddie more closely are Barney and Chris. Thankfully, Chris is retiring. Please, citizens of Massachusetts, its time for Barney to retire, too.


June 14 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.

For more on this depressing story, click and paste the whole story.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=an_hcY9YaJas&pos=10