Slow Learner

Slow Learner


President Obama has been touted by friends and family as the smartest man ever to sit in the White House. Perhaps. Yet he surely is the slowest learner to gain the presidency and probably the most intellectually inflexible. Obama is not only presiding over the most sluggish economic recovery in 80 years, but the economic future looks even worse. In May, a woefully small number of jobs were created, the unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent, and the rate of growth in the first quarter of 2012 was shaved from 2.2 percent to 1.9 percent. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office warned that if Obama leaves his economic program in place, a recession in 2013 is all but certain.


His response? Let’s do more of the same. This means a tidal wave of tax increases would hit the economy. The Bush era tax cuts for incomes over $200,000 ($250,000 for couples) would expire, boosting the top rate to 42 percent, when deduction phaseouts are included. And two Obama-care increases would take effect, a 0.9 percent hike in the Medicare tax and a 2.9 percent surcharge on investment income.

That’s not all. Obama is bristling with plans for “some things we do better together,” his euphemism for jacking up spending on anything he can think of except defense. Government programs, he suggested last week in Chicago, are “what has made this country great.” His 10-year budget would increase the national debt by $6 trillion.