The Congressional Budget Office’s just-released economic forecast for 2013 is dispiriting, to say the least. The GDP is expected to grow by only 1.4%, the unemployment rate will “stay near” 8%, the deficit will reach $845 billion, and ObamaCare will cost 7 million their health insurance.
The CBO says things will improve after that, but after three years of being told by the government and its media that “prosperity is just around the corner,” you’ll just have to pardon my cynicism. The media, however, will talk only about how much better the CBO says things will get, because that’s what Obama would want them to do.
What these numbers really mean is that millions of Americans are about to face yet another year of chronic joblessness and economic hardship — which just didn’t have to happen. Reagan inherited an economy in much worse shape than the one Obama inherited. But Reagan’s tax and regulatory policies got out of the way of the economy, and as a result, the engine of American ingenuity was unleashed and the economy exploded. Millions of jobs were created, millions were lifted out of poverty into the middle class, and poverty decreased.
Obama, however, decided he knew better than history and did the exact opposite of what Reagan did. New taxes, ObamaCare, untold numbers of regulations, and an overall Narrative that toxified success, individualism, and the pursuit of prosperity.
And just look at us now.
After four years of Obamanomics and heading into five, poverty is up, the GDP is in negative territory, incomes are falling, and the deficit, according to the non-partisan GAO, is unsustainable.
And yet, just this Sunday, there was Obama on “60 Minutes” intentionally crippling the economy with more uncertainty with talk of new tax increases.
But it’s a beautiful thing to be Obama, because none of this matters. Facts don’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter. Not when you have a media that calls economic failure a “recovery,” blames a drop in GDP on a lack of government largesse, and tells us that an increase in the unemployment rate is positive news.
To protect Obama, the media ignore the poor and worship the Dow. To protect Obama, the media ignore the jobless and obsess over any shiny cultural distraction The Master throws its way. To protect Obama, the media come together in unison to assure us up is down, right is wrong, and failure is success.
Well, it looks as though the media’s going to have an awful lot of water to carry next year, and that the White House will have to invent another year’s worth of culturally divisive distractions in order to help them carry it.
Make no mistake: they will pull it off, and while doing so, won’t lose a minute’s worth of sleep. The poor and those living on the margins are not victims to the Left. They are sacrifices to The Cause.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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