Obama's un-Labor Day | Examiner Editorial | Opinion | Washington Examiner

Obama's un-Labor Day
By: Examiner Editorial | 09/04/11 8:05 PM

President Obama, signing the stimulus package. Over two years later, the U.S. economy isn't creating jobs. (AP photo)
Friday's job numbers sounded a sharp and discordant note for Americans going into this Labor Day weekend. Amid record government spending, and two years after the economy stopped shrinking in the Great Recession, the United States added zero net jobs for the month of August. The modest job gains for June and July were also revised downward for a total loss of 58,000. Unemployment remains high, and would be even higher if so many Americans weren't giving up on finding work. The employment-to-population ratio - that is, the number of jobs divided by the working-age population -- is still hovering near a multi-decade low, as is the share of Americans who are either working or seeking work. The percentage of Americans who work for a living is beginning to approach levels from before women entered the work force en masse in the 1970s.
As we have noted before, President Obama did not cause the financial crisis, the panic, or the recession that marked the very beginning of his term in office. But over two-and-a-half years into his presidency, Obama has effectively taken ownership of the economy. There is no more room for him to blame his predecessor for the lack of recovery.

Obama is to blame for placing at the top of his agenda job-killing bills that reward his political constituencies -- card-check, Obamacare, and carbon limitation bills, for example -- with a reckless disregard for their potential economic destruction. His stimulus package, an attempt by government to decide what sort of economy and what sort of jobs we will have in the future, has suffered the same fate as now-bankrupt Solyndra, one of its most heavily subsidized companies. Its money is spent, and the jobs it promised never materialized.

Although Obama's surprising decision to withhold new smog regulations is a welcome development, it will only help in the long run if it is the start of something bigger. It's only a tiny step back from the administration's regulatory assault on businesses -- including, for example, the oil and gas and financial services industries.

Under Obama's watch, more and more Americans have become dependent on government, just as the federal government's budget is straining to the breaking point because of stimulus spending. Fully 45.2 million Americans are now on food stamps alone, at a time when there are fewer and fewer Americans working producing the revenue to pay their food bills for them. This can only go on for so long.

When President Obama addresses Congress this week, he will propose a plan for putting Americans back to work. We hope he will pass on more of the same sure-to-fail economic central planning, and instead follow in the footsteps of President Bill Clinton. Having lost Congress after a binge of liberal policy-making, Clinton grudgingly signed welfare reform, cut capital gains taxes, and, along with congressional Republicans, produced the first balanced budget in decades. Such a course today, in addition to helping the nation, may be the only thing that can save Obama from electoral oblivion.