Just when you think you've heard it all, along comes 'job lock'. For the preceding five years rational adults have been subjected to notions so outrageous that they know no reasonable person will believe them, because as Thomas Sowell described them, they are merely fact free liberal rhetoric.
The infantile economic spin that Obamacare eliminating 2.5 million jobs is a good thing is the latest. After selling the American people on the idea you could add forty million uninsured people into the health care system, mandate every conceivable malady that offends a liberal to be covered, provide free contraception to all the Sandra Flukes of America, dictate inclusion of everyone with pre-existing conditions would result in health care Utopia.
Nancy Pelosi sold it as a jobs bill that would add four million jobs. President Obama sold it as nothing to see here because nothing changes for you except that your premiums would go down about $2,500 a year. After all, if you liked your health insurance, if you liked your doctor, you could keep them, period.
Of course they were lying, but got away with it. How? The media filled with deluded progressives had lock jaw. They didn't investigate, they did what they have done for the entire Obama administration, they regurgitate the talking points as truth.
Instead of Utopia Americans learned that it is a nightmare as 6.2 million lost their insurance and had to replace it with policies increased by as much as 250%. Tens of millions more will follow, but maybe not for some time.
President Obama is said to be considering extending the mandate for three years. For the sane and rational that is an obvious political ploy to delay the final massive economic destruction until past the current midterm election and the 2016 coronation of Hillbillary.
Once again we are served fact free rhetoric delivered by left wing talking heads and the media with lock jaw. Why the need to come up with another defense for the indefensible? The CBO reported that Obamacare would eliminate 2.5 million jobs because low income families would rather quit work than lose their subsidies.
Hence the Democrats became liberators for people with job lock, freeing them from the evil capitalist employer who wants to pay them more. By God, those people shouldn't be forced to take that pay raise and lose their subsidies!
Quit that job you're locked into, go home with your free government health care, and after you are finished walking to the mail box to pick up your daily entitlement check, hit the bong a few times, watch reruns of Laugh In, and you'll still have time to tuck your child in bed.
Fortunately, there is Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, who in the WSJ destroyed the latest liberal foolishness. Quoting the Professor and the WSJ:
Instead, liberals have turned to claiming that ObamaCare's missing workers will be a gift to society. Since employers aren't cutting jobs per se through layoffs or hourly take-backs, people are merely choosing rationally to supply less labor. Thanks to ObamaCare, we're told, Americans can finally quit the salt mines and blacking factories and retire early, or spend more time with the children, or become artists.
Mr. Mulligan reserves particular scorn for the economists making this "eliminated from the drudgery of labor market" argument, which he views as a form of trahison des clercs. "I don't know what their intentions are," he says, choosing his words carefully, "but it looks like they're trying to leverage the lack of economic education in their audience by making these sorts of points." [end quote]
Meanwhile the housing market is desperate for demand, you know people who have jobs and will accept a pay raise, who will actually qualify to purchase a home.
If Obamacare mandates are delayed three years, the ultimate result will be three more years of uncertainty for businesses, and the best we can expect is more of the same stagnant economy, job market, and housing market.
Would someone please ask Nancy Pelosi where the four million jobs are she said Obamacare would create, the housing market is looking for them.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of Fritz Pfister or identified sources, and not necessarily those of RE/MAX Professionals of Springfield, RE/MAX International, or The Capital Area Association of Realtors.