Business Leaders: Obama Agenda Bad for Economy

Distressing new economic headlines just keep coming. Unemployment claims reached a nine-month high in early August. Existing home sales tumbled by 27 percent from June to July, representing the largest one-month drop ever recorded. Sales of new homes reached the lowest levels recorded since 1963. The stock market is down 11 percent, and new GDP numbers are dismal. The Wall Street Journal described these sobering developments as "signs that the economy is losing momentum." The Associated Press agreed, calling the housing numbers "the latest sign that the economic recovery is fading."

The American people do not need the latest statistics to tell us that economic conditions are challenging. The daily reality of lay offs, fruitless job searches, lost savings and home foreclosures provides ample and distressing testimony that the Obama administration's claims of "Recovery Summer" are painfully out of touch.

Unfortunately, economists are observing an increasing array of indicators that suggest conditions may not improve any time soon. Declines in manufacturing activity, consumer purchases and capital investment all demonstrate an economic climate in which employers simply find it too risky to invest in the new equipment -- or new employees -- needed to spur recovery.

Leaders of some of the nation's largest companies do not mince words when asked to explain the reasons behind the paralyzed job market. In remarks last week, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said of President Obama's economic team: "I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs." Lamenting the blizzard of new taxes and regulations with which the administration has blanketed businesses, Otellini stated, "every business in America has a list of more variables than I've ever seen in my career. I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States."

Loews Corp. CEO Jim Tisch expressed similar concerns, telling reporters that "business has very little confidence in what’s been going on" regarding job-killing policies like the health care takeover, new financial regulations and the offshore drilling moratorium. Otellini and Tisch are just the latest in a growing number of business leaders stepping forward to publicly criticize the president's agenda.

Every available economic indicator supports the conclusion stated explicitly by one leading employer after another: President Obama's economic policies are not working. In fact, his liberal agenda is actually hurting the chances for economic recovery. The $787 billion stimulus package that President Obama promised would turn the economy around has done nothing of the sort. In fact, renewed warnings of a double-dip recession sound more and more convincing. It is imperative that President Obama and the Democratic majority heed conservative calls to cut spending and stop tax increases before the dire predictions become reality.

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