Reviewing The Year - The Economy

Now that it's a new year and a new Congress, let's review where we are after two years of unchecked liberal Democrat governance rule. I wanted to examine three of the biggest issues over the next few days.

First, the economy. We're in a world of hurt. Things weren't great before, but the accelerator has been floored for the past two years, making things much, much, worse.

Heritage put together a list of the top 10 reasons America won't miss this past Congress, and all of them hit the economy. Here's the short version:

1. Obamacare
2. The Failed Stimulus
3. The 9,000-Earmark Omnibus Bill
4. Mountains of Debt
5. The Government Union Bailout
6. Wall Street 'Reform'
7. The Neighborhood Destabilization Act (Make Home Affordable)
8. Cash for Clunkers
9. New START treaty
10. Cap-and-TradeTax

Under the 'leadership' of Barack Obama and the Democrats, the national debt peaked at over $14,000,000,000,000. Yep, that's fourteen TRILLION dollars. By the way, it only took them seven months to go from 13 to 14. And if you ask them, that's progress!


This was by design - creating misery and economic hardship forces more people to depend upon government for basic necessities, and that means the power of the government increases. Don't kid yourself, these results are what they want. Let's examine a few key visuals. First we revisit the annual deficit over the past few years:


Keep in mind that the Dems have spent more in the past two years than in the first 100 Congresses combined. And oh, by the way, that chart is based on numbers that now appear to be cooked...in reality, the deficit was almost double that - over $2 trillion:



And let's not forget the unemployment and job loss/recovery numbers:


Some recovery, huh? If you could even call it a recovery at all, it falls vastly short of any of the other recoveries of the past sixty years. Do we really think that they can't figure out how to stimulate economic growth like all those other administrations and Congresses from years past? Of course not. They know exactly what will do it...they just want the opposite.

In short, the past two years of Obama-Democrat governance rule have been economically disastrous for America. Americans know it, and that's why they threw out Democrats in historical numbers at the last election.

Some say fireworks are expected right off the bat in the new Congress. Good Lord, I hope so! That's certainly what America voted for last November...but I'll believe it when I see it. The new GOP House is apparently planning to --- GASP! --- read the entire Constitution on their first day in session. That'll probably be the first time most of the Democrats have heard the thing, so it sounds like a good plan to me. It'll be very interesting to see if the Dems fight it. You've gotta know they think it's a complete waste of time, but I can't imagine they'd be so stupid as to provide that kind of fodder for 2012 campaign commercials. Regardless, even if it's just a symbolic gesture, I have to applaud. You just can't go wrong with the Constitution, and the more it makes its presence known, the better. We'll see how long the GOP holds up.

Stay tuned for examinations of Obamacare and energy in the coming days.