Politizoid - Nancy Pelosi - The Benefits of Unemployment

Nancy Pelosi explains why unemployment is good for the economy.

The Ignorance of Liberals cannot be overstated.

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CPAC 2013 - Senator Kelly Ayotte

In her CPAC speech Friday morning, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said that Obamacare is one of the "things that keep me up at night."

"Let me tell you about some of the things that keep me up at night," Ayotte said. "Too many Americans are out of work. Federal regulations are strangling businesses. Obamacare is increasing healthcare costs and stopping so many of those businesses from hiring."

She also took shots at Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama over taxes.

"We have a broken tax code, and the president and Senate Democrats, they just want to keep increasing taxes, making it harder and harder for our small businesses to hire and grow and put people to work in this country," Ayotte said.

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Daniel Greenfield - Getting Rich by Fighting for the Poor

Originally Published on the Sultan Knish blog

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Hugo Chavez's death was met with tributes from Iran, Bolivia, China and El Salvador. The Western left did not waste much time adding their withered roses to El Comandante's coffin. George Galloway called him another Spartacus. Jimmy Carter described him as a leader who fought for the "neglected and trampled". Michael Moore praised him for declaring that the oil belongs to the people.

Whether or not the oil belongs to the people is a matter of some debate considering how much of it seemed to end up in Chavez's pocket.

Chavez died with an estimated net worth of 2 billion dollars making him the 4th richest man in Venezuela and the 49th richest man in Latin America. For a while, Chavez weathered attacks from the media empire of Gustavo A. Cisneros, the richest man in Venezuela. Then before the 2004 election, their mutual friend Jimmy Carter brokered an agreement between them. Cisneros' media stopped criticizing Chavez and both men bent to the task of getting even richer.

While the Bolivarian Spartacus lined his pockets with oil money, Venezuela's middle-class was struggling to get by in a country where the private sector had imploded. Income increased on paper, but decreased in reality as inflation increases ate the difference. Around the same time that Comrade Hugo was launching the third phase of his Bolivarian Revolution, inflation had decreased household income 8.8 percent while consumer goods prices increased 27 percent.

On his deathbed, Hugo Chavez devalued his country's currency for the fifth time by 32 percent, after tripling the deficit during his previous term when the national debt had increased by 90 percent. From 2008 to 2011, Chavez's oil-rich government increased the debt by nearly 50 billion in a country of less than 30 million. That same year, The Economist speculated that Venezuela might go bankrupt.

Chavez had swollen the ranks of Venezuela's public employees to 2.5 million in a country where the 15-64 population numbered only 18 million. With 1 public employee to every 7 working adults, the entire mess was subsidized by oil exports and debt. When the price of oil fell, only debt was left.

Those public employees became Chavez's campaign staff with no choice but to vote for him or see their positions wiped out to keep the economy from crashing. And they won him one last election.

The dead tyrant leaves behind the lowest GDP growth rate and highest inflation rate in Latin America. He leaves behind an economy where more than half the population depends on government benefits or government jobs. He leaves behind a giant pile of debt for the people and 2 billion dollars in misappropriated oil money for his heirs.

But we don't need to look to a leftist banana republic south of the border to see how profitable fighting for the poor can be.

7 of the 10 richest counties in America are now in the Washington D.C. area. Arlington County alone added $6,000 to its average income in one year alone. D.C. and its bedroom communities got rich at twice the rate of the rest of the country and in the last election; Obama won 8 of the 10 richest counties in the country.

Washington D.C. is richer than Silicon Valley. Median income in the D.C. area has hit $84,523 despite the city itself having horrendous unemployment and poverty statistics. The top 5 percent in D.C. earns 60% more than the top 5 percent in other cities and 54 times what the bottom fifth earns in that same city.

This wealth of government money isn't a rising tide that lifts all boats. Income inequality in Washington D.C. is one of the worst in the nation. For families with children, the income inequality level in D.C. is double the average for the rest of the country.

But when you concentrate the wealth of the land in a single imperial city, then you end up with a sharp gap between the poor and the fighters for the poor. Mid-level jobs are disappearing, but high-level jobs continue to grow. Small businesses are going out of business, but lawyers and consultants are being hired at a breathtaking rate.

Washington D.C. has the highest concentration of lawyers in the country. 1 out of every 12 city residents is a lawyer. 1 in 25 of the country's lawyers lives in Washington D.C. In 2009, the Office of Personnel Management reported that there were 31,797 practicing lawyers in the Federal government earning an average salary of $127,500 a year. Or to put it another way, the taxpayers were spending double Hugo Chavez's 2 billion dollar net worth each year just to pay the lawyers.

That was in 2009. The numbers have undoubtedly gotten much worse since.

That same year there were 383,000 federal civilian workers with six figure salaries. Multiply that and you get all the debt that Hugo Chavez dumped on Venezuela being dumped out in a single year on American taxpayers.

The number of Federal civilian employees is only slightly higher than in Chavez's utopian Socialist paradise, but average Federal employee salary clocks in at a mean $75,000. The closest private sector match to working for Uncle Sam, in a non-military position, is working for Microsoft.

Federal civilian employee wages and benefits run around $200 billion. The end of the pay freeze that wasn't really a pay freeze alone added $763,125,000 to the Federal budget. Or to put it another way, the cost of the Federal workforce in a single year is more than double Venezuela's entire national debt.

During Nixon's first year in office, $200 billion would have covered the entire Federal budget. Now it's just the paychecks. In the United States Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees welfare and food stamps, among other things, 1,461 of HHS' 64,750 employees earn over $155,000.

While the Obama Administration fires marines, it hires more civilian employees. 101 new Federal employees have been hired every day of Obama's first term in office. In 1962, there were more American military personnel than Federal civilian employees. The number of military personnel has dropped sharply, but the number of civilian employees is higher now than it was then. And their salaries have become much higher.

But the civilian employees are only part of the picture. The massive deficit spending has turned Washington D.C. into a treasure trove of government grants and stimulus plans on the favor train. The national debt grew by 6 trillion dollars in one term of Obama adding $50,521 in debt per household. That money was used to buy favors and support across the country.

While Obama ran on a platform of taking care of the poor, he was raiding the social safety net to buy support from a coalition of billionaires that paid him back with bundled contributions and SuperPACs. Green Energy tycoons got rich on loans and grants, while the middle class imploded. Billions in taxpayer money was traded for millions and hundreds of thousands in contributions in one of the dirtiest deals to take place outside an actual banana republic.

Like Chavez, Obama presides over a poorer country whose poor are convinced that he is the only thing standing between them and absolute poverty. Deficit spending and high debt has destroyed any potential for GDP growth leaving America looking like an oversized version of Venezuela.

The new America is not a booming economy, but a political power structure built on unsustainable spending. Like Chavez, Obama has created an impossible trap that leaves half the country dependent on him and leaves his opponents with no alternative but to propose some form of austerity. It is an economic kamikaze maneuver that invariably ends with economic or political destruction.

Obama, like Chavez, has made economic recovery structurally impossible, perpetuating poverty in order to profit politically from the national state of misery. Chavez died before the consequences of his economic policies caught up with Venezuela. Like Chavez, Obama won a contentious election, but he has no easy escape from the economic destruction coming up on the road ahead.

Daniel Greenfield

Visit Daniel's Blog Sultan Knish by clicking HERE

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger and columnist born in Israel and living in New York City. Daniel is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a contributing editor at Family Security Matters.

Daniel's original biweekly column appears at Front Page Magazine and his blog articles regularly appear at Family Security Matters, the Jewish Press, Times of Israel, Act for America and Right Side News, as well as daily at the Canada Free Press and a number of other outlets. Daniel has a column titled Western Front at Israel National News and his op eds have also appeared in the New York Sun, the Jewish Press and at FOX Nation.

Daniel was named one of the Jewish Press' Most Worthwhile Blogs from 2006-2011 and his writing has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, Melanie Philips, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Judith Klinghoffer, John Podhoretz, Jeff Jacoby and Michelle Malkin, among others.

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GBR - ObamaCare Causing Massive Layoffs

Companies plan massive layoffs as ObamaCare becomes reality.

The victory by Barack Obama on election night has resulted in a huge wave of firings and layoffs all over America.


A large number of businesses seem to have suddenly shifted into panic mode. The number of layoff announcements that we have seen in the last 48 hours has been absolutely shocking.

November 9, 2012

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The American Decline

Sometimes, we must see the future clearly to act boldly in the present.
Take a glimpse into the darkness of Obama's America in 2016.
High unemployment. Record high gas prices. The Middle East in chaos.
Religion on the run. Record debt levels. America downsized.
America downgraded.

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Rush Limbaugh - Cold Obama - Libya Deaths 'Not Optimal'

UK Daily Mail: 'If Four Americans Get Killed, it's Not OPTIMAL': Obama's Extraordinary Response to Comedy Central Question About Shifting Story After Benghazi Attack.

UK Daily Mail: 'My Son is Not Very Optimal - He Is Very Dead': Mother of Diplomat Killed in Benghazi Attack Slams Obama's Comment on Raid.

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Crystal Wright - Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Admits Obama’s Blackness Trumps His Failed Record

The Congressional Black Caucus was formed in 1971 to advocate on behalf of black Americans and hold lawmakers and the President of the United States accountable for policies adversely impacting blacks. The CBC is often referred to as the “conscience of the Congress.”

Considering the caucus’ history, it’s shocking CBC Chairman Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver admitted to the Root the CBC has been reluctant to criticize President Obama because he’s black. Never mind black unemployment under Obama for the past three years has been nearly double the national average and hit a record high of 16% in 2011. Black unemployment hasn’t been that high since 1984. I guess Cleaver also isn’t concerned black wealth has also plummeted under Obama. According to Pew Research Center, the average black family’s wealth is about $5,600 compared with $113,000 for whites.

According to Cleaver, “pride” about the president’s blackness trumps any concerns over current 14% black unemployment for members of the CBC. Cleaver said “if we had a white president we'd be marching around the White House.”

As the CBC celebrates their annual
Legislative Conference this week in DC, it’s more than insulting that Rep. Cleaver can chuckle about the CBC giving Obama a pass on accountability for his failed agenda with blacks and all Americans. Cleaver’s glib reaction is particularly disturbing when you consider in 1970 the Democratic Select Committee, which later became the CBC, was outraged by President Richard Nixon’s refusal to meet with them. Nixon’s snub appeared to be the impetus for group’s name change a year later.

In 1971, the CBC boycotted Nixon’s State of the Union because he refused to meet with them and sent him a list of 60 policy recommendations, the link to which has been conspicuously removed from the CBC website. At least a year ago or two ago it was there. Perhaps Cleaver removed it because he didn’t want people asking why the CBC isn’t treating Obama with the same outrage.

After all, Obama refused to meet with the CBC until a full year in office even though 95% of blacks voted for him in 2008. That doesn’t seem to be the appropriate way to thank your most loyal voting bloc. Adding insult to injury, Obama spoke at last year’s CBC’s annual legislative conference and told blacks they were lazy and needed to look for jobs.

"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin.”

Cleaver joked with the Root when asked what he would do if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2008 and the jobless numbers for blacks were this bad. “As much as I love Sen. Clinton I would have been all over her on 14 percent unemployment for African Americans. I would have said, "My sister, I love you, but this has got to go."

Apparently being America’s first black president has its benefits. It means the raging high unemployment and diminished wealth for blacks under Obama’s presidency ain't nothing but a thing to members of the CBC. The conscience of the Congress seems to have lost its way and sold his soul down the river in the name of giving deference to a brother named Barack Obama.

Crystal Wright

Crystal Wright is a black conservative woman living in Washington, D.C. Some would say she is a triple minority: woman, black and a Republican living in a Democrat dominated city. She’s contemplating moving back to her home state of Virginia, where her vote would count for something. By day, Crystal is a communications consultant and editor and publisher of the new website, conservativeblackchick.com. Crystal earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Georgetown University and holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Wright is the principal owner of the Baker Wright Group, LLC , a full service public relations firm, specializing in communications counseling, media relations, message development, media training and crisis communications. The firm’s approach is straight forward counseling: an unvarnished approach to public relations.

Visit Crystal's Website by clicking HERE

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Kevin McCullough - 88 Million Reasons for the Cardboard Box

After two weeks of non-stop convention-ing, the nation finally has all the data it needs to understand the truth about what this election should be based on.

After two weeks of people advocating for big-government, bottom-up philosophies vs. free market, small businesses, and ideas of how to grow our economy out of this mess, the halls have died down.

The delegates have returned home.

God has been voted down. The unborn child has been prayed for at the conclusion of both conventions. Assertions of freedom of choice have been made on everything from sex to guns. Distinct ideas have been put forth about economic improvement as well as America's role in the world, and one side has even carefully examined the number of times the other specifically mentioned the nation's military.

Now we enter the season--especially for you swing-staters--when your evenings will be barraged by the never-ending onslaught of ads that are designed to convince you to vote on something other than your basic reality. Then come the debates--where both sides will claim victory.

The assault of swing state ads will continue, and the outcome of all of this will be: little of it mattered.

The truth is that four years ago America the corporation hired a new employee to relocate to Washington and to run the largest corporation in the world. In doing so, he inherited significant challenges, but he also inherited the largest workforce our corporation had ever given an incoming executive. He would also inherit the largest amount of resources any CEO has ever been given. He has--by our good grace--the most amount of flexibility, power, and decision making freedom of any executive in the land.

He told us in a one-on-one interview shortly after taking the position that if he failed in three years, he'd only stay four.

But like so many executives that get used to the digs, after his performance has failed in nearly every area we needed him to bring corrective change to, he has come to us in his review period and said, "Hey... I could've done a lot worse." This isn't a very convincing explanation of his time with our company, and as the board of directors, we're about to fire him.

The interesting thing about our board--which makes it slightly different than other corporations--is that you do not have to be an active employee of the company to get a vote.

In fact we'd prefer to have a much leaner employee base. It is clear that our bottom line can not afford it, and yet this executive recklessly went out and expanded the number of employees we pay by a greater percentage than the private sector employees he was hired to help. The problem is, much of our payroll doesn't even go to actual... employees.

We're paying people because they have back aches, or they're over a certain age, and we're even paying people for 99 weeks after they cease having a job elsewhere--whether they are looking for work or not.

Morale is low. Pitifully low. Our executive has not inspired, given direction, motivated, or enabled his team to set new goals, develop new ideas, or innovate new products. In fact, he has placed powerful penalties in the way of people who would do those things by starting private sector corporations of their own. Therefore, it is of little surprise that we have the lowest formation of new corporations since World War II.

Worse yet, our executive has been openly deceptive and dishonest in his reports back to us: his board of directors.

He claims that he has inspired the creation of 4.5 million new jobs, but to do so ignores the number of people that have lost so much hope--after getting their 99 week check from our corporation--that they have still been unable to find new employers. His real job creation rate is closer to 2.7 million by the most accurate--and optimistic--accounting. But deception did not end there.

The day after our executive gave us his last argument for why he should get to keep his job he would claim to have created 96,000 more jobs. But we would learn upon closer inspection that 368,000+ gave up looking for work altogether, and instead of counting them as jobless individuals, our executive stopped counting them at all, altered his numbers, and tried to tell us that fewer people were out of work.

The pattern of dishonesty and deception would be reason enough for termination.

But complete incompetence on every important factor related to the health of our corporate initiative is what screams out for an immediate change of course.

Sadly, more than 88,000,000 people are jobless. But again, our CEO's numbers, in all of the reports he gives us, never reflect this horrible reality.

So we know that he implemented the plans of direction that he honestly believed would turn things around, but we as his employer, board, and stockholders could not disagree more with the idea of continuing those plans any further. Even if we support him individually, none of us can argue that he's done his job well.

We should tell him, "You will find a cardboard box, or a few, outside your office on November 7. Take from then until January 20th or so to pack up, but please leave the place as clean and neat as you found it. Our new applicant has some good experience on all the things we feel you've missed the mark on, and we'd like him to get to work right away."

At least, this would be the reality if any one of us had the same record he did for the last three years.

Kevin McCullough

Kevin McCullough is the nationally syndicated host of "The Kevin McCullough Show" weekdays (7-9am EST) & "Baldwin/McCullough Radio" Saturdays (9-11pm EST) on 289 stations & Sirius/XM . His newest best-selling hardcover from Thomas Nelson Publishers, "No He Can't: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change" is in stores now.

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Charles Payne - President Bypasses Unemployment News - Sluggish Recovery

FBN's Charles Payne sits down with FNC's Brian Kilmeade to discuss the human face of US jobless "recovery". It's so much worse than the media talks about, why 8.1% is a disaster?

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Bill Whittle - That Looks Bad

Ladies and Gentlemen, Bill Whittle is proud to present just a few of the 1001 REASONS TO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA. At least, he thinks he is. Hang on a sec -- there might be a misprint in there somewhere...

Click HERE to see 1001 reasons to vote against Obama.

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Steve Green - Unemployment Dropped in Every State that Elected a GOP Governor in 2010

Unemployed? Hear why you definitely need to vote Republican, and stop listening to Debbie Wasserman Schultz's assertion of job creation. Did Obama outsource jobs to Finland and China? Will ObamaCare cost over three times as much as promised? Will your only job opportunity in the Obama economy be as an agent for the IRS? Find out the answers on this Week in Blogs.

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DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz is "PLEASED" with 8.2% Unemployment

FNC's John Roberts sits down with DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) to discuss the recent unemployment report released last Friday. One has to wonder which planet of reality she is on when she responds to these questions. Simply amazing!

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Michelle Fields - Sean Hannity - The Great American Panel

FNC's Sean Hannity hosts the panel with Michelle Fields -- Daily Caller Reporter; Dr. Michael Burgess (R) -- Texas Congressman/Author of 'Doctor in the House"; and Bob Beckel -- co-host of 'The Five'; weigh in to discuss "Crony Capitalism" taking place in congress as bills are introduced and affect stock prices. Also discussed: Obamacare, Welfare Spending, Food Stamps, and Unemployment.

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David Limbaugh on the Sean Hannity Program - The Great Destroyer

Author David Limbaugh sits down with FNC's Sean Hannity to discuss his latest book "The Great Destroyer". Certain to be a 'best seller', this book critically examines President Obama's Administration and his War on America.

June 4, 2012

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Laura Ingraham - The President's Economic Vision

Author/ National Radio Talk Show host, Laura Ingraham filling in for Bill O'Reilly, offers commentary on the President's Economic Vision. A spirited discussion ensues between Michelle Fields -- Daily Caller Reporter, and Steve Murphy -- Democratic Consultant/Former Obama Media Advisor as they weigh in on the vital facts surrounding this hot issue topic.

June 8, 2012

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Eric Cantor Reacts to May 2012 Employment Report

Reaction is coming in from the 69,000 jobs created in May and it's not good. We need 200,000 or more jobs created per month in order to keep up with population growth. The labor force participation rate increased in May because 600,000 people re-entered the labor force. The number of unemployed also shot up. This is clearly related to the recent college graduates. The people we are leaning on to pay for our out of control entitlement expenses cannot find employment.

May 2012 Jobs report

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Lurita Doan - Obama’s Pro-Growth Illusion

Barack Obama claims to be pro-growth. So does Greece, Spain, and almost everyone else. Why? Because admitting preference for the alternative—crushing, heavy-handed government interference that kills initiative and destroys wealth—is not attractive to any citizen of any country.

The problem lies in the meaning of “pro-growth”. As an unabashed capitalist, and as a supporter of free markets, I believe “pro-growth” means less government interference and more individual accountability where private sector businesses create the jobs and government pretty much stays out of the equation. But it's increasingly clear that our president has a much different idea and defines “pro-growth” far differently.

Of course, Barack Obama often says he is “pro-growth”—but the question to ask is: growth of what?

After three years in office, it seems rather clear that Obama believes in the growth of government. At the core of all of his policies is a belief that government can allocate resources more efficiently than can the private sector.

According to Obama, only the government can make wise “investments”. According to Obama’s view, private money and private investors are simply not as capable or as wise as is government in choosing the kinds of investments that will lead to growth and job expansion.

Not too surprisingly, Obama’s strange definition of “growth” is actually a call for a growth of government, growth of debt, growth of bureaucracy, growth of taxes and growth of government regulations. Barack Obama simply believes that taxpayers should be required (or compelled) to send more money to Washington where the political class can then decide how best to “invest” the money.

The “growth” that Barack Obama seeks, ultimately, is growth in government’s control over the lives of all Americans. As we have already learned from three years of watching our president try to apply this tragic economic theory, we have seen our economy stagnate as entrepreneurs and small businesses get squeezed. The only “growth” in Obama’s economy has been the growth of economically harmful and dangerous trends.

Obama has overseen a growth in the price of gas at the pump, growth in the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, growth in unemployment, growth in the number of people receiving and the amount of dollars allocated to entitlements, growth in the number of Czars designed to evade oversight from congress, even growth in the number of foreclosures.

In general, after three and a half years of the Obama administration’s “pro-growth” efforts, Americans are poorer and more dependent on the federal government.

Is this really what Americans are endorsing when they hear the term “pro-growth”? This is certainly not what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Under Obama federal spending has grown from $1 trillion dollars in 2008 to almost $4 trillion dollars in just three years, without any growth in the economy, without any reduction in unemployment and without any significant improvement in the quality of life or opportunities for the future of Americans.

Under Obama, the public debt has grown to the point where it exceeds our nation’s annual GDP. Nowhere and at no time has this kind of equation ever been a recipe for economic growth.

LUnder Obama, the number of regulations affecting all aspects of American lives has grown. In 2011, the Obama administration put into place over 2000 different rules, statues or regulations affecting everything from the environment to the kinds of paper used for filing federal reports.

Under Obama, the number of czars has increased, even as the number of senate-confirmed leaders has dwindled. Coinciding with the increase in czars comes an increase in the bureaucracy, and an increase in the staff to support the czars, all paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Under Obama there has been growth in the number of unemployed, with minorities and teens hit the hardest.

Under Obama, the regulations affecting small businesses has created an environment of uncertainty and increased cost which discourages, rather than encourages, job creation.

Under Obama, Americans have seen an increase in the frequency of fear-mongering and race-baiting as a Democrat political strategy, designed to intimidate anyone who questions or criticizes Democrats’ flawed policies.

There has been growth under Obama—it’s just the wrong kind of growth. Lots of fine sounding rhetoric that fosters the illusion of growth. One thing seems clear--while we all seem to be speaking the same language the meaning varies greatly between what Obama says and what Americans understand.

When Barack Obama talks about his “pro-growth” agenda, Americans should start to ask just exactly what Obama hopes to “grow”.

Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Lurita Doan - Public Relations - A Public Fraud in Federal Agencies

President Obama may lack chops in many areas—job creation, growing the economy, managing the cost of fuel and food—but, he is a master at political strategy and excels in the art of misdirection.

Obama has used controversies such as the birth-control/insurance mandate in February to divert attention away from a Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report which showed that there are approximately 16 million unemployed Americans, 30% of whom have been unemployed for over two years. And, Obama’s recent defense of his so-called energy policy seems intended to distract Americans from the fact that gas prices are rising even as the economy groans under the Administration’s spending spree causing $1.3 trillion dollars annually in deficits along with a ballooning of the public debt to $15.5 trillion dollars.

It is nothing short of breathtaking that Team Obama continues to pile on more debt, continues the false promises to supporters that continued government subsidies and entitlements can be maintained, and delays any honest reform. And most startling of all, as our nation moves ever closer to a Greece-style default, Barack Obama employs his considerable political skills to masquerade his disastrous economic policies to try and fool American voters.

Americans might be used to politicians spinning reality to help them get re-elected, but we have rarely seen as sophisticated a public relations campaign as that which has now mobilized the full federal government.

Many Americans may be unaware that federal agencies have robust public relations departments comprised of both career federal employees and supplemented by one or more outside public relations’ firms. These PR employees and contractors do more than just manage federal agencies’ websites, they also orchestrate elaborate public relations’ strategies designed to highlight political appointees’ supposed accomplishments and promote the illusion of positive advances in the Obama Administration’s plans.

Taxpayer costs exceed $1 billion. Worse yet, Team Obama seems intent on pouring even more taxpayer resources into official government propaganda.

Consider that even in an era of supposedly tight federal spending levels, and even with Congressional pressure growing to eliminate wasteful and redundant programs, business is good within the world of government’s Public Affairs.

Federal agencies have been hiring even more Public Affairs and media experts, even as they face hiring freezes in other departments. Within many Federal Agencies, expensive “buy-out” policies are being implemented to reduce the bloated bureaucracy. Yet, within the Public Affairs’ divisions of the federal government, the hiring goes on and on.

Ever wonder why government agencies are spending so much on advertising and public affairs?

Public Affairs officers have been elevated to senior positions within federal agencies. Agencies are spending billions of dollars on advertising, telling other agencies and “spinning” Americans on their “good news stories”, and what a great job they are doing with the taxpayer dollars.

Government trade magazines feature large, online and in-print advertisements from federal agencies, and, in return, those trade magazines and newspapers feature puff pieces on agency executives.

Federal agencies are also mandated to sell their goods and services to one another. Yet, many agencies spend millions of dollars, annually, in conferences, in commercial publications and in promotional materials and tschotkes to market one another.

Of course, these agencies also spend millions of dollars to market the “successes” of the agencies’ leaders, often paving the way for prestigious, revolving-door, jobs after leaving office, such as the recent Jake Siewert (counselor and former press secretary) transition from Obama Administration official to Goldman Sachs executive.

Never before has a president marshaled so many public relations pieces in an orchestrated propaganda campaign, seemingly designed solely to effect his reelection. The public funds which the Obama Administration is spending on public relations is a misuse of taxpayer money and congress ought to get tough with the Administration.

Of course, these expenditures are not easily identified since they show up in a variety of places under various line items in an agency’s budget. These expenditures tend to be buried in the PC&B (Payroll, Compensation and Benefits) budget lines, or are buried in other “contractor” costs and ODC (Other Direct Costs) lines in the agencies’ budgets.

A carefully worded request from congress, itemizing queries for costs for web site development, website “presence”, online “subscription” services and contractor paid “promotional” costs and conference fees would also reveal that the widespread PR efforts of the Obama Administration runs into the billions of dollars.

A recent news report analyzed the stupendous effort the Obama presidential campaign is investing in online marketing efforts utilizing personal data collected via internet sites and mobile devices. But, when combined with the phenomenal growth in the ‘spin” people and resources employed in federal agencies, it becomes clear that Obama is managing, below the surface of public attention, to mobilize enormous assets within the federal government to support his campaign re-election strategy.

It is also important to remember that Team Obama is not bound, as other businesses are, by the same “truth in advertising” laws, designed to protect consumers. Nor is Team Obama required to “substantiate its claims”. So, instead they spend lots of time in self-serving puffery, telling Americans how wonderful the Obama Administration is and what a great job they are doing.

How much better for all of us if Obama would spend time tackling the real and pressing problems of the day—unemployment, rising deficits, rising energy prices, reduced trade and reduced manufacturing growth.

The sad part of all of this is that, given the choice, the Obama Administration has shown they would rather spend their time (along with a healthy dose of taxpayer money) spinning the story rather than solving the problems that Obama was elected to solve.

Obama has told us he has studied Abraham Lincoln and is familiar with Lincoln’s wisdom that “you can fool some of the people, all of the time”. Pity that the president’s Lincoln scholarship ended prematurely and he did understand the rest of Lincoln’s wisdom, that “You can’t fool all the people all the time”.

Barack Obama clearly thinks he can.

Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Austin Hill - Change, Change, Change - The Obama Transformation is Here

“We are five days away,” the future President famously said in October of 2008, “from fundamentally transforming the United States of America…”

So how does Barack Obama’s “fundamental transformation” look to you now?

If the world seems chaotic to you, you’re not alone. President Obama promised “change” during his first campaign for the presidency, and in less than one full term he’s delivered.

American foreign policy, historically devoted to protecting American interests and championing liberty, is now focused on “outreach” to people who want to destroy us. But the “transformation” has not just impacted America’s place in the world.

Your private world – your day-to-day environment and the cultural norms that order that environment – is changing as well (so is mine). And while it’s difficult to measure people’s changing attitudes, there is clear evidence that Americans are increasingly developing a negative attitude towards work, productivity, and success.

Depending on what poll you’re reading, roughly half of the American population agrees with President Obama’s assumption that “rich” Americans need to be taxed at a higher rate. Concerns about undermining people’s incentive to achieve just don’t matter to many of us – making “somebody else” pay makes a lot of us feel better.

There also seems to be a change in Americans’ attitudes towards working. And while there are far too many of us who are earnestly trying to find work and cannot, there nonetheless appears to be growing numbers of us for whom working is just not a priority.

The reality of Americans choosing to not work – or, at a minimum, choosing to work less – would seem to be a very intentional consequence of President Obama’s agenda. Indeed, it has long been the belief of the President’s science adviser John P. Holdren that the world would be a better place environmentally if “Americans worked, produced, and earned less.”

This may seem counter-intuitive, yet the numbers don’t lie. As the unemployment rate has recently dropped a bit, so also has the “labor force participation rate” – the statistic that represents the ratio between the labor force itself, and the overall population. Assuming that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is telling the truth, participation in the labor force has dropped to a 30 year low, as roughly 1.2 million Americans recently chose to exit the labor market.

It’s difficult to deny that the decline in the number of people who want to work correlates with the President’s agenda. At the very least, one has to admit that this change corresponds on the timeline with Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Yet within his first three years as our President, we’ve seen the amount of direct federal payments to individual households – both direct payments for specific usages, and for “unrestricted” usages – skyrocket by more than $600 billion. One might argue that these direct payments rose out of necessity because of the recession, although President Obama has slated for another $500 billion worth of annual increases in direct payments between now and 2016. If the trend continues, within the next four years direct payments will account for two-thirds of all annual federal government spending.

But wait, there’s more. A record forty-nine percent of all American homes have somebody living in them who is receiving some sort of federal benefit. And reliance on food stamps has expanded forty-five percent during the Obama presidency, thanks in no small part to the President’s insistence that the expansion of food stamp funding be included in his “economic stimulus bill.”

So has the expansion of “federal assistance” brought about “fundamental transformation?” President Obama insists that it creates a sense of “fairness” in our society. Yet it’s difficult to argue that it doesn’t create at least some incentive to cease being productive.

And then there’s President Obama’s signature “healthcare reform law.” Nearly two years ago the Congressional Budget Office warned that with all the robust entitlements that the law promises, it would most certainly impact the labor market.

Speaking at a little-noted event at the University of Southern California in October of 2010, C.B.O. Director Doug Elmendorf noted that, outside the healthcare sector of our economy, the greatest impact of the Obamacare agenda would be with people’s interest in working.

Furthermore, Mr. Elmendorf stated that, in some cases, Americans would simply choose to no longer work, because their needs for healthcare will be provided by the enhanced Medicaid funding entailed in the Obamacare law.

Proclivities to make somebody else pay, and a declining interest in working – indeed America is being transformed. Will voters choose more of it this November, or will we choose to get back to being Americans?

Austin Hill

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Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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Austin Hill - Obama, "Fairness", and Your Right to Not Work

I’m askin’ that the script be flipped…”

The young woman at the audience microphone seemed to have some familiarity with Democrat President John F Kennedy’s admonition to “ask what you can do for your country.” But she had a different idea in mind.

“..I’m askin’ what the country can do for me, and the people in this room,” she shouted, as the crowd erupted in uproarious cheers and chants.

It was August of 2011. Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California was hosting a town hall meeting and “job fair” in the L.A. suburb of Inglewood – a town where the unemployment rate is estimated to hover around 30%.

The Congresswoman was deflecting her constiuents’ anger away from herself and floating the idea that, while it’s great to have a black President, Barack Obama nonetheless was not doing enough to “create jobs” for black Americans.

That was last summer. Since then, the unemployment rate has dropped a bit and some American companies have done some hiring.

But look more closely at the unemployment numbers, and another reality emerges. After three years in the White House, President Barack Obama has indeed “flipped the script” in America and now millions of us are simply choosing to NOT work.

The reality of Americans choosing to not work – or, at a minimum, choosing to work less – would seem to be a very intentional consequence of President Obama’s agenda. Indeed, it has long been the belief of the President’s science adviser John P. Holdren that the world would be a better place if “Americans worked, produced, and earned less.”

This may seem counter-intuitive, yet the numbers don’t lie. As the unemployment rate has recently dropped a bit, so also has the “labor force participation rate” – the statistic that represents the ratio between the labor force itself, and the overall population. Assuming that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is telling the truth, participation in the labor force has dropped to a 30 year low, as roughly 1.2 million Americans recently chose to exit the labor market.

It’s difficult to deny that the decline in the number of people who want to work correlates with the President’s agenda. At the very least, one has to admit that this change corresponds on the timeline with Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Yet within his first three years as our President, we’ve seen the amount of direct federal payments to individual households – both direct payments for specific usages, and for “unrestricted” usages – skyrocket by more than $600 billion. One might argue that these direct payments rose out of necessity because of the recession, although President Obama has slated for another $500 billion worth of annual increases in direct payments between now and 2016. If the trend continues, within the next four years direct payments will account for two-thirds of all annual federal government spending.

But wait, there’s more. A record forty-nine percent of all American homes have somebody living in them who is receiving some sort of federal benefit. And reliance on food stamps has expanded forty-five percent during the Obama presidency, thanks in no small part to the President’s insistence that the expansion of food stamp funding be included in his “economic stimulus bill.”

So what does the expansion of “federal assistance” do to us? President Obama insists that it creates a sense of “fairness” in our society. Yet it’s difficult to argue that it doesn’t create at least some incentive to cease being productive.

And then there’s President Obama’s signature “healthcare reform” law – “Obamacare” if you will. Nearly two years ago the Congressional Budget Office warned that with all the robust entitlements that the law promises, it would most certainly impact the labor market.

Speaking at a little-noted event at the University of Southern California in October of 2010, C.B.O. Director Doug Elmendorf noted that, outside the healthcare sector of our economy, the greatest impact of the Obamacare agenda would be with people’s interest in working.

Furthermore, Mr. Elmendorf stated that, in some cases, Americans would simply choose to no longer work, because their needs for healthcare will be provided by the enhanced Medicaid funding entailed in the Obamacare law.

As Journalist Matt Cover observed at CNSNews.com after the conference (he was one of few journalists that actually reported on this event), this assessment of Obamacare by Mr. Elmendorf coincided with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s remarks in May of that year, when she claimed that Obamacare would allow “artists” to “quit their day job” and pursue their art, free from the constraints of having to provide for one’s self, because the government would now take care of artists’ healthcare needs.

And now here we are, less than nine months away from another presidential election. After roughly four years of recessionary conditions where millions of us have worried about remaining employed, today it appears that increasing numbers of us have simply lost interest in employment altogether.

Has the script been flipped? That would seem to be the case. What we don’t know is what Americans want for the future – will we choose a land of opportunity, or a President that enables us to not work?

Austin Hill

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Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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