Rep. Waxman Botches Unemployment Facts, Claims We're In A Depression

Leave it to Democrat politicians to botch the facts about the economy, as Rep. Waxman here.

Unemployment surged to over 10 percent under Obama, not when he took office as Waxman says. When Obama took office in late January 2009 unemployment was 7.6 percent. It climbed to 10.2 percent for the first time in October 2009, nine months after Obama took office.

As for economic depression, Democrats have been saying all along that Obama's policies prevented a depression from occurring. But they didn't prevent one. Plausibly they ended one!

A depression occurred in fact in 2008 and 2009 when GDP declined two years in a row. For a Democrat to say we're in a depression now is insane, given the fact that GDP stills prints positive and has been doing so since 2010, when the depression ended. The growth is pathetic, but it's still growth.

If Democrats had been smart, they'd have admitted it was a depression right away after the 2008 election and really played that up. It could plausibly have been laid at the feet of President George W. Bush. The Keynesian-like stimulus passed in 2009 under Obama could also have been plausibly credited with ending the depression, since GDP rebounded in 2010.

How come Democrats are so stupid?

Confiscation of Your Retirement Funds is Unthinkable, Right?

Well, not in Europe, where private monies have already been taken by statist spendthrifts in Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, according to this story in The Christian Science Monitor, originally posted at the Polish arm of The Ludwig von Mises Institute (here).

The same people greedy bastards in this country who brought you Obamacare are just as enthusiastic about taking your IRAs, 401Ks and the like, people like Democrat Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.

Political realities right now mean that the plan eyeing your savings will sit in some Democrat's desk until times change, just as Obamacare was really a bill long pre-dating him, sitting in Representative Henry Waxman's top drawer for over a decade until the moment was right.

The difference between liberals and Republicans in America is that liberals have a long term strategy to take over and transform the country, while so-called conservatives keep backing up, drawing new lines in the sand in a strategy of retreat, daring liberals to cross them, which they invariably do. The policies of these conservatives are offensive enough to liberals, but it is conservatives' cowardice which really inspires their contempt.

The failure to install gays in the military and Hillarycare in 1994 took 16 years to redress, but liberalism surely did so with its victories in 2010, overturning DADT and passing Obamacare.

Individual liberty, the foundation of which is in traditional values derived from revealed religion, has been under assault in America since the victory of Abraham Lincoln and the united States became the United States. The war between originalism and "a more perfect union" was decided long ago by force. The contemporary Republican Party will be a conservative party when it finally realizes this, but frankly, it doesn't have the nerve.

Incompetent Democrats Waste Their Opportunities

Democrats are presently suffering from an acute case of Liberal Projection Syndrome. They blame the minority Republicans for what is more true of themselves: inability to pass Democrat legislation into law, even though Democrats have controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House continuously since January 2009. The truth is the Democrats are deeply divided over many issues, so much so that they cannot govern.

It would be comical if it weren't so pathetic. Indeed, for six months between July 2009 and February 2010, Democrats enjoyed a supermajority in the Senate, if you count the two so-called Independents, Joe Lieberman and the Socialist from Vermont as part of their caucus, which they are. The Senate Democrats could have acted on anything without fear of a filibuster during that time and passed whatever the House had sent them, and sent it on in turn to Obama for a signature.

Is it Republicans' fault that Democrats in the House couldn't agree on their healthcare legislation until just before Thanksgiving? Is it Republicans' fault that Senate Democrats couldn't craft their own bill until Christmas? For bills which were said to be waiting for years in Henry Waxman's desk for just such a moment as this, they sure did take a long time to sell among their fellow Democrats.

Is it Republicans' fault that the two Democrat controlled chambers could not reconcile the two bills before the Massachusetts special election in January to fill the seat vacated by Senator Kennedy and which stood vacant only briefly from August 25 to September 25, 2009? Is it Republicans' fault that President Obama after all this time still cannot produce a piece of legislation, a healthcare bill on paper, which his party can pass?

And now there's word from TheHill.com that scores of bills passed and sent up by the House do languish, waiting for Senate action:

Exasperated House Democratic leaders have compiled a list showing that they have passed 290 bills that have stalled in the Senate. The list is the latest sign that Democrats in the lower chamber are frustrated with their Senate counterparts. An aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says the list is put together during each Congress, but that this year’s number is likely the largest ever. However, he said Pelosi blames GOP senators, not Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

If the last year has proven anything, it's that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama resemble none so much as Moe, Larry and Curly for their fecklessness, vulgarity and ineptitude, but without the humor. You might even say their ability to lead has been highly misoverestimated, if you know what I mean.