Deja Vu at the White House

President Obama is insisting that Congress pass his 447 billion dollar "jobs" bill. This bill will, he argues, help teachers and firemen keep their jobs, build infrastructure, lower unemployment, etc. (not to mention help him look relevant), but this is exactly what we were told the effects of the 800 billion dollar stimulus bill would be two years ago. That one failed to work, it only put us deeper in debt, and now the President wants to go still deeper yet by doing it all again.

He wants us to continue doing the same thing that didn't work before while hoping this time for a different result.

Meanwhile, the American standard of living continues to decline. From Yahoo News we learn that:

The ranks of America's poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in more than two decades.

The Census Bureau's annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of a re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year.

The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, or 46.2 million, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. The official poverty level is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.

Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment.

Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty is the largest on record dating back to when the census began tracking poverty in 1959. Based on percentages, it tied the poverty level in 1993 and was the highest since 1983. The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 16.1 percent to 16.3 percent — or 49.9 million people — after the Census Bureau made revisions to numbers of the uninsured. That is due mostly to continued losses of employer-provided health insurance in the weakened economy.

The median — or midpoint — household income was $49,445, down 2.3 percent from 2009.

What could the president do to get America working again? He could encourage the development of domestic energy resources, drop the moratorium on offshore drilling, drop most of the regulations that are stifling business, lower the capital gains and corporate income tax, rescind Obamacare, and stop calling for higher taxes on people making $200,000 or more. All of these would remove the wet blanket of uncertainty that shrouds business and encourage them to hire workers, borrow money to expand, and prime the pump of economic growth.

Congressman Paul Ryan explains:

Mr. Obama won't do any of this, of course, because he's ideologically committed to high taxes and high spending. Thus the economy will stagnate until he's finally out of office and someone is elected who will provide the leadership to undo the damage that the last five years have wrought on our economy, our society, and our families.