OPINION:
This past week, House Republicans unveiled their “Pledge to America.” In his weekly address, President Obama compared this new GOP plan to the same old “worn-out ideas” from “a disastrous decade we can’t afford to relive.”
With the new norm for unemployment now at 10 percent, economic growth rates at decade lows of 1.5 percent or lower and trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, what escapes the president and his party is the fact that the past now looks brighter than the future.
If we are ever going to turn around this economy, it is obvious what we need to do. We need to eliminate the tax disincentives, mandates and uncertainties that prohibit companies from hiring. We need to establish fiscal discipline to calm U.S. and global financial markets. We also need to roll back the bailouts, stimulus spending and health care reform and let free markets reign once again. Mr. Obama can play his part in stimulating Wall Street and the U.S. economy tomorrow if he so chooses - by announcing he will not seek a second term in 2012.
JEFF JORGENSEN
Treynor, Iowa
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