When health care costs, payroll taxes, and wrongful termination lawsuit risk rise while education levels fall, economists say that businesses will tend to substitute capital for labor…
(captured with a Motorola Droid 2 mobile phone that I’m testing out)
What was the context?
Phil — honest questions for you: What do payroll taxes and wrongful termination lawsuit risk have to do with the President? That is, what has he done in his partial term in office that has increased these costs? With regard to health care, I can only think that he simply failed to solve the problem. But that doesn’t mean he engineered it. Were health care costs peachy keen two and a half years ago?
I’ve been purposefully out of touch with American politics recently as it’s become impossible to find objective news anywhere, so forgive me if I’m just unenlightened.
Joe: It is a parking lot in San Diego. I imagine that there have been some enterprising souls hanging out there pretending to be in charge when in fact it is self-serve.
Neil: U.S. presidents get their names on eras regardless of their personal contribution. The “Jimmy Carter Malaise Years” almost certainly had far more to do with actions taken during President Johnson’s administration, e.g., expanding the Vietnam War, generating health care inflation via Medicare and Medicaid, etc. But it is simpler to tag those years of high inflation and unemployment with “Jimmy Carter” than to say “The inevitable consequence of stuff Johnson and Congress did 15 years earlier”.
What do payroll taxes have to do with the President? A lot! Payroll taxes, about 15 percent of the average person’s income, consist mostly of Social Security (wouldn’t exist had it not been for FDR), Medicare (created by Congress at the behest of Johnson; expanded to cover arbitrarily expensive prescription drugs by King Bush II).
What does our current malaise have to do with Obama? Perhaps not that much, but we still need a name for our current era. “Great Depression II” isn’t very catchy, so I’ll stick with “Obamaconomy” to summarize this period of downward mobility for Americans.
Please don’t forget the current President’s contributions to the creation and ongoing maintenance of the TARP-o-Sphere, a giant bio-dome meant to keep its TARP-onaut inhabitants living comfortably in early 2007 conditions while the rest of us pay for its upkeep while attempting to adapt to significantly harsher conditions here in the outlands.
Actually payroll taxes are going up under Obamacare (as are health care costs). They are also going to be applied to dividends, interest, and capital gains for some filers (read: the “rich”).
No, health care costs were not peachy in the dark ages of the previous administration. But, by Obama’s own admission, they will now be higher because of the health care plan he signed into law. Behold his mighty hand!
He may have little do with wrongful termination lawsuit risk, but then again his incessant empowering and promotion of unions and their agenda may well have increased that risk too.