The Cincinnati Enquirer - President's Policies a Drag on Economy

Op-Ed

By Senator Rob Portman

Rob Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, is the junior senator from Ohio and a possible vice presidential candidate.

This week, 13 million Americans won't go to work -- not because they're on vacation, but because they can't find jobs.

As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to put in place policies to get people back to work. In fact, in a speech exactly three years ago Saturday, he pledged he would "get this economy back on its feet," saying about the economy, "Give it to me."

Well, America did give him the ability to get the economy back on its feet. And three years later, as the president visits Cincinnati to ask for four more years, let's have a look at the results.

Unemployment is over 8 percent, and has been for over three years, the longest period since the Great Depression. And it's actually considerably higher than that because so many Americans are so discouraged, they've stopped looking for work.

Families in Ohio and around the country are earning less, and their homes are worth less.

We just learned American manufacturing actually declined last month for the first time in three years.

Consumer confidence this month dropped to its lowest point this year: These are troubling signs of a struggling economy where working families can't get ahead.

It didn't have to be this way.

Since President Obama was sworn in, we've known that the greatest challenge before us as a nation is an economy that's just not producing enough jobs. But instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government. His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

Under President Obama, government spending and borrowing have increased to levels we've never seen before. On his watch, the national debt has grown to a record $16 trillion -- making it larger than our entire economy.

On Friday, The Enquirer reported that the deficit this year will once again be over $1 trillion, which means that all of President Obama's budgets have resulted in trillion-dollar deficits. And his proposed budget for the next 10 years continues down this path, adding another $10 trillion of debt.

Recall that the president and his economic team promised that spending almost $1 trillion of taxpayer money in a so-called stimulus plan would get unemployment down to 5.6 percent by today. Instead, it's 46 percent higher, meaning his policy was a failure by his own standards.

His unaffordable health care spending law will grow government by $2.6 trillion, and do something he promised he would never do: hit millions of middle-class Americans with a massive tax increase.

All these policies have made it harder, not easier, to create jobs in America.

And now, President Obama seems to be doubling down.

Today, instead of lifting the burden on job creators, the president has come to Cincinnati to once again call for a massive tax increase on nearly 1 million small businesses that employ tens of millions of Americans. President Obama says this tax hike is about fairness. Yet under his plan, many of these small businesses would pay higher tax rates than Fortune 500 companies. How fair is that?

The good news is there's a better way forward.

The way to an American economic comeback, the way to help those out of work today find a paycheck, is to make it easier to create jobs by unleashing the power of the American worker and the American entrepreneurial spirit.

Let's reform our complex, outdated tax code by eliminating loopholes, lowering rates, and rewarding hard work, innovation, investment and job creation.

Let's lift the regulatory burdens that small businesses say are the single greatest threat from Washington today.

Let's tap into the exciting potential of homegrown American energy -- including shale oil and gas here in Ohio.

And let's make the tough choices needed to prevent the record federal debt and deficits from smothering economic growth and job creation.

There's no denying the challenges America faces today are real and serious. But I know we can solve them with the right policies and the right leadership.

For all our troubles, Americans are still the hardest-working, most innovative people on the face of the earth.

The government-knows-best approach of the past few years has given us the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression. It's time to turn things around and restore America's greatness by harnessing the power of free people and free enterprise.

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