Jobs and the Economy

Unemployment Rates Increase or Remain Stagnant in 38 States: According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, state and local unemployment rates rose in more than half of the country, while rates remained stagnantly high in a dozen other states under the failed economic policies of President Obama. After nearly four years of failed policies, unemployment rates increased in 26 states in August. While Americans suffer through the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, the Senate decided to leave town without taking action on 39 House-passed jobs bills and President Obama continues to call for a small business tax increase that would destroy more than 700,000 jobs. 

Spending

Federal Debt Reaching New Heights: In its updated budget and economic forecast, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that federal debt held by the public (as opposed to the total national debt which includes inter-governmental holdings) will reach 73 percent of GDP by the end of FY 2012, twice the 36 percent of GDP that it measured at the end of 2007 and the highest level since 1950. Despite House Republican’s successful efforts to reduce discretionary spending in consecutive years for the first time in a generation, the president’s failed policies continue to increase mandatory spending, even as he raids $700 billion from Medicare to pay for his new health care law’s entitlement expansion.

Medicare

ObamaCare Mandate Tax Even Worse than Anticipated: According to CBO’s recently released analysis, about 6 million people will pay a penalty for not buying government-approved health insurance in 2016, 2 million more than projected by CBO in 2010. According to the analysis, nearly 80 percent of the 6 million earn up to or less $200,000 a year. CBO also estimates that in 2016, more than half of the taxpayers who will be forced to pay the new mandate tax will have incomes less than 300 percent of poverty in 2016 ($36,000 for an individual; $73,800 for a family of four in 2016) and will pay roughly $1.6 billion in new taxes as a result of the health care law’s individual mandate tax, a direct contradiction to President Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.