The Congressional Budget Office released a report that suggests almost 2.5 million workers might lose their jobs (or have their hours cut to part-time) in the next few years thanks to the implementation of Obamacare. The average American might see this as a worrisome report from the non-partisan CBO about the unintended consequence of government’s regulatory take-over of healthcare… But Harry Reid and other Democrat big-wigs are trying to spin this as a positive. The Democrat from Nevada even suggested that the individuals who are set to lose their job should be happy, because they are about to become “free agents” in the economy.
Of course, keep in mind that this is the same guy who suggested the US tax system was voluntary. (No… Seriously. I’ve posted the video at the end of this column. Of course, if you don’t have the tolerance to watch it, you can always pound your head against your desk for roughly 4 1/2 minutes to achieve the same sensation.) When asked for a reaction on the CBO report that projected millions of lost jobs because of Obamacare’s impact on labor incentives, the Democrat suggested that job loss is a liberating life-event:
“We have the CBO report, which rightfully says, that people shouldn’t have job lock. If they — we live in a country where there should be free agency. People can do what they want,” Reid told reporters. “And what they’re saying here is — and the fact checkers have already done this — the Republicans talk about losing millions of jobs simply isn’t true. It allows people to get out of a job they’re locked into, because of — they have healthcare in their job.”
Right… “Mr. Jones, we regret to inform you that we have to make some cuts in your department. You are now a “free agent”. Please clean out your desk by noon.” So… For all you that have experienced a lay-off: Now you can pay your own increasingly expensive healthcare without the added benefit of a full time job, or dependable paychecks. Great news! Especially when you consider that Healthcare.gov was developed in-part by Belarusian hackers (no… really though) and has proven to be plagued with inflated premium prices.
But the logically challenged Democrat from Nevada (seriously Nevada, when are you going to make Reid a “free agent”?) wasn’t the only one preparing to put a positive spin on bad news. In a scene basically created for a Mel Brooks comedy on politicking, Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, portrayed the report as a win for the average American family:
"What this report said is a rather obvious point, which is that as people have greater access to healthcare, there is going to be some two-parent families where someone says I’m going to work a little less because we can get healthcare and I’m going spend time raising my children… And on the overall impact on what it’s going to mean for jobs, well, I think that’s an incomplete number, because we know that with lower healthcare costs, we’re going to have more productivity, some experts predicting hundreds of thousands of more jobs due to that.”
Um… Have you looked at premium prices lately? They’ve gone up. Calling the monstrosity-that-is-Obamacare by its official name (the Affordable Care Act) is like referring to the IRS as the Personal Property Protection Bureau… As they levy your bank account.
So, which experts are suggesting thousands of jobs created because of Obamacare? Nancy Pelosi? Remember when the San Francisco Democrat suggested that healthcare reform would create up to four million jobs? (Although, in all fairness, even she looked kinda surprised by her comments. But that might have just been how she normally looks…)
The truth is that we, strangely, don’t seem to have seen this influx of Obamacare job creation. In fact, we still have 1.2 million fewer people working today than we did when the recession began. Labor participation rates are hitting 35 year lows. And of the jobs that were created most were part time… This means they are not wealth building positions, and they offer no benefits. (By the way, health insurance is a benefit.)
So… We have people with dropped coverage, part time work, and higher premiums (which they are forced by law to purchase) in addition to 2.5 million more “free agents” being added to the unemployment rolls in future years. Wow… Liberal economic theory is certainly unorthodox.
And maybe these spin masters believe what they’re pitching to the cameras and voters; maybe they really think this is good news. After all, 2.5 million more people dependent on government because they were involuntarily propelled into “free agency” status might mean good news for future Democrat candidates. But still, it takes a special kind of perverse mind to think that redistributing wealth from workers, and spending it on the unemployed “free agents”, somehow builds prosperity. Sperling and Reid seem to be suggesting that job destruction is a good thing if it is accompanied by more wealth redistribution from those “unlucky” enough to be “locked into” a wealth-building career.
There used to be a time in this nation when both parties understood that job creation was the key to prosperity. A better wage, increased household wealth, and dependable employment is far more instrumental in building prosperity than government-created-dependency. I mean, heck, insurance is always affordable if you make more money… And, oddly enough, people tend to make more money when they are finding full time employment in times of economic growth.
But, then again, maybe “free agency” isn’t so bad… There are a handful of congressional Democrats who might find themselves labeled “free agents” later this year. And just like the 2.5 million workers who will be losing their jobs in future years, they can thank Obamacare.
PS: Here’s Reid explaining that the US income tax is “voluntary”… For some reason we put government warnings on cigarettes and alcohol, but not on politicians. Go figure.
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