The Patriot Post® · A Recovery or a Mirage?

The economic news seems to be that of a nation on the upswing. The stock market is near historic highs, headline unemployment has receded below 6% and economic growth was strong in the second quarter. So why do Americans still feel we haven’t turned the corner?

In a speech at Northwestern University, Barack Obama touted economic successes as evidence that his policies are working. He cited progress such as increased energy extraction that’s made America the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas, a declining rate of increase in health care costs and shrinking deficits (how could deficits not shrink after he bloated them?). Make no mistake, however, these successes are despite his efforts.

Moreover, these limited and qualified successes are outweighed by a number of other factors. If you think the stock market is doing well, imagine its fate without the quantitative easing that has been in effect for several years. Will the additional trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve pumped into the monetary system help the middle class if the money simply cycles between a limited number of parties?

The drop in unemployment below 6% was achieved not by the 248,000 jobs added (in truth, a rather good number) but by the 315,000 people who left the labor force. Those 315,000 people are now essentially a drain on the economy, even if not necessarily by choice, and risk slipping out of their middle-class existence.

And while the oil and natural gas boom has been successful at creating good, well-paying jobs, the administration still blocks drilling on public lands, insists on supporting “clean energy” boondoggles such as Solyndra or Fisker, and seeks to kill the coal industry with regulations. Even job-creating projects like the Keystone XL pipeline are held up by pandering to environmental groups who cheered the death knell for our coal industry.

In short, America is rapidly becoming a nation of “haves” and “have-nots,” even as Obama promised to address this inequality during his tenure. A Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances found that between 2010 and 2013, median income rose 2% for the top 10% of wage-earners but declined 5.5% among the bottom two-fifths. Increasing stock prices have helped investors who managed to keep their nest eggs intact – a group that tends toward the higher end of the income scale – but the battered middle class that had to sell off its investments to stay afloat isn’t getting much help from that Wall Street surge. Instead, that bottom 40% feels the effects of rising health insurance premiums and deductibles created by ObamaCare, higher food prices created in part by a foolish reliance on corn-based ethanol, and increased energy costs despite the natural gas boom because coal-burning power plants are rapidly becoming an endangered species.

Meanwhile, another ticket to success is becoming a thing of the past. Over the last half-dozen years, the number of companies ceasing operations actually outpaced the number of start-ups, though the creation of new business entities is only continuing a long-term decline over the last three decades. As those large operators at the top consolidate their market share and position, they increasingly rely on government to create policy and regulation assuring their supremacy. After all, while the next Google could have the potential to jump-start progress, it’s not in the best interests of the current version to have a leaner and hungrier competitor.

Yet Barack Obama wants to double down on these policies while bringing in millions of people through an amnesty guarantee for those crossing a porous southern border. While Obama talks about manufacturing jobs where “[y]ou’re not just punching in and pounding rivets anymore; you’re coding computers and you’re guiding robots [and] mastering 3D printing,” he’s encouraging and facilitating the influx of workers who have none of these skills and use educational resources just to bring themselves up to bare literacy. Of course, we’re also supposed to “invest” in their education, which means more money out of the threadbare pockets of the middle class.

It’s worth remembering the American economic system was unmatched for generations and it pulled the entire world up in the last century. At its beginning, we rode horses and buggies and only dreamed of flight; by its end we had conquered the moon and had instantaneous communication to every corner of the globe, all led by America. Now we succumb to Capitol Hill regulations on the wattage in our light bulbs.

Yet all these trivial pastimes only occur because our middle class is breaking down from the stress of survival in today’s economy. And as we drift along at 2% annual growth with untold trillions of unfunded liabilities, it’s hard to tell if even the prescriptions we’ve relied upon before to shake us out of our economic doldrums would work this time – not that any of them will be tried before 2017.

After all, as Obama said in his weekly address, he was right all along. He declared that much of our hard-earned economic progress is because of “decisions made by my administration.” We could point to those decisions, but it wouldn’t be to highlight progress.