Get the Hell Out of My Way

Here’s today’s dose of economic bad news — and things looked so rosy just last week:

U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will widen to $1.5 trillion next year, reflecting a “deeper recession” than previously expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said.

The American economy is an amazing beast. No matter how much crap we pile on top of it, it keeps managing spectacular feats of growth and productivity. I have no doubt it can do so again, and soon. Very soon.

But when you’ve got a Congress starving the private sector of capital with a spending orgy to make President Bush (43) and his crony Republican Congress blush… when you’ve got a cap & tax bill made half into law which threatens to double household energy costs, and when you’ve got a President determined to squash the health and insurance industries (and damn near stamp out small business in the process), then the economy simply can’t recover.

And of course, I haven’t even mentioned the threat of financial regulation over-tightening, which has Wall Street nervous like a fifty dollar hooker waiting for her lab results.

Even if we started to reign in spending, and cap & tax goes down in the Senate, and health reform is defeated, the economy still won’t start generating jobs until all the uncertainty has lifted. In the meantime, everybody is afraid to make a move.

Want to return to growth? Then stop this President and his Congress.