Good morning folks,
The optics of President Obama disbanding his Jobs Council in the midst of his stagnation+ recovery are poor to say the least - even if the council never actually, ya know, did anything. When the White House formed the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in 2011, the unemployment rate was 9%. Mission Accomplished? Hardly. Two years later, In January 2013, the rate is 7.9% and over 12 million people are still searchinging for work.
The Council on Jobs and Competitiveness was formed just two months after Repbulicans won control of the House of Representaties, an electoral rebuke of President Obama halfway through his first term. Many saw the Council as the President’s response to criicism that he failed to focus on creating jobs and fixing the economy, instead forcing ideological pursuits like the Affordable Care Act through Congress. He seems poised to repeat the same pattern.
This week, we learned that consumer confidence tumbled to its lowerst point in more than a year, more small businesses are cutting workers instead of hhiring them, and our gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, a huge deceleration. Despite these realities, despite the fact that fixing the economy and creating jobs remains Americans top concern, President Obama delivered a State of the Union addressbasically ignored the topic. Jobs? Meh.
Conservatives must keep our eye on the ball and talk about what people care about - creating jobs, growing the economy, getting people working again and getting investors investing again. In divided government, how? House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp told the Wall Street Journal that “we are going to pass a tax reform bill out of the House Ways and Means Committee this year. Reform could create one million jobs.” Sounds like a great place for conservatives to get back on offense with an aspirational, populist, growth oriented message that is simply common sense to most Americans.
Seize the day,
Brad Dayspring
@BDayspring
Mark Bednar
@MarkBednar
Tweet Tweet
@RachelHoat “RIP Mayor Ed Koch. Mayor Bloomberg statement: ‘He was our most tireless, fearless and guileless civic crusader.’”
@GlennThrush “Note to other pols — including current resident of 1600 — Koch held 3-4 presses A WEEK and never pre screened questions”
@PolitickerNJ Menendez flees media hoard http://ow.ly/hkte2
@PounderFile The Number Of Unemployed Workers Is 12,332,000.
@Politico “Romney campaign gave $90K to Red Cross after Sandy: http://politi.co/VzzOJU”
@Donald_Driver80 “After 14 years in the NFL, I have decided to retire. It’s been an amazing journey, thank you for all of your love and support! #Packer4Life”
@MorningMoneyBen “Not the ideal WH news day: Jobs council disbands sparking mockery of its uselessness; Hagel shoots air ball on Hill”
On The Radar
Economic Growth
More U.S. Small Businesses Cutting Workers Than Hiring. “More U.S. small-business owners say they let employees go than hired them on average over the past 12 months, for a net hiring index of -10 in January, according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index. This is similar to the -12 recorded in November, the -9 of a year ago, and the -12 of January 2011, but up from the low of -27 in January 2010.”
President Obama is a Drag on GDP. “Given all the factors that go into GDP growth, psychological or otherwise, isn’t it relevant that we have a president who is anti-business? Of course it is. He doesn’t hide that he’s anti-business and that he promotes higher taxes and higher costs. This reality will manifest itself in some meaningful way over the next four years.”
The Role For Business In Fixing Our Budget. “Last year, a group of CEOs came together to form the bipartisan organization Fix the Debt. I joined this effort because businesses were chastised for being too silent during the partisan debate on the federal debt ceiling in 2011. This group, following the prescription of the Simpson-Bowles commission, supports a balanced approach to lowering the deficit, including raising revenue, reforming entitlement programs and reducing spending. While business’s voice is louder than before, politicians are more interested in using us for media posturing than in leveraging our collective resources to help America.”
Immigration
The Easy Problem. “Increased immigration would boost the U.S. economy. Immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start new businesses than native-born Americans, according to a research summary by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney of The Hamilton Project. They are more likely to earn patents. A quarter of new high-tech companies with more than $1 million in sales were also founded by the foreign-born.”
Moderate Dems Coy On Immigration Debate. “While much of the attention for the success or failure of bipartisan immigration reform is centered on the reaction of Senate and House conservatives, quite a few Senate Democrats are content to play the waiting game even as President Barack Obama barnstorms for legislation.”
Chuck Schumer believes Senator Obama Helped Kill Immigration reform in 2007. Obama in 2007 backed an amendment to sunset a guest worker program that was an essential part of an immigration deal crafted by Republicans and former Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Kennedy opposed the amendment, but Obama — who was then running for president —supported the measure and it was approved by one vote, 49-48. The immigration bill then stalled, and the Senate coalition failed to regain enough momentum to push it to final passage. Memories of the 2007 “poison pill” amendment are coloring perceptions of this year’s immigration debate… Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday blamed the guest worker amendment, sponsored by then-Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), for killing the 2007 bill.
Immigration: Getting It Right. “Immigration reform is coming. Let’s get it right. What counts as getting it wrong? The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, signed by Ronald Reagan. It granted amnesty to the then 3 million illegal immigrants and promised border enforcement.Amnesty came. Enforcement never did. Reagan was swindled.”
Health Care
IRS Says Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family: The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan. “The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.
Tick, Tock: Administration Misses Some Health Law Deadlines. “The Obama administration is late in implementing several provisions of the federal health overhaul intended to improve access to care and lower costs. The programs, slated to take effect Jan. 1, were supposed to increase fees to primary care doctors who treat Medicaid patients, give states more federal funding if they eliminate Medicaid co-pays for preventive services and experiment with changes to how doctors and hospitals are paid by Medicare.”
A Doctor’s Struggle With Numbers. “Oncologists are notoriously bad at predicting survival, and none of us wants to be known as “the doctor who told me I would be dead by now,” the doctor who made a prediction of imminent demise, sending a family into a terrifying tailspin of goodbyes, only to be proven wrong and subsequently mocked for years to come. One of my patients, upon being told by another doctor that she had two months to live, held Christmas in April so she could spend one last holiday with her grandchildren. She survived to see two more Christmases.”
X-Factor
Hagel’s Misreading Of How To Treat An Ally. “Chuck Hagel likes Ike. That much has been apparent for some time. But thanks to David Ignatius’s Jan. 27 op-ed column, “Reviving Eisenhower’s doctrine,” we now know what he likes best: Eisenhower’s management of the Suez crisis. For Hagel, it is more than a shining example of past American leadership. It is a guide for future presidential behavior.”
This & That
The Last Word - Ed Koch. RIP.
Meet The World’s Most Idiotic Teacher, Carly McKinney
The DOJ Considers That Bud Light To Be Premium Beer
Amazing Talking Parrot Named Einstein]
The Daily Shep From Dylan Byers
Bad Medicine: Soldier admits shooting man trying to cure hiccups