Economic Outlook for 2010

While the ever mounting huge debt that the federal government is piling up is the most serious long term problem, the job market is the most serious problem facing us now. The economy has shed 7,156,000 jobs in 2008 and 2009. On top of that, another 125,000 people enter the job market each month. So the economy needs to create another 125,000 jobs each month just to keep unemployment steady. What can we expect from the economy in job creation once it recovers? The average number of jobs created in 2004-2006 was just under 187,000 a month. Since 125,000 are needed just to keep up, that only leaves 62,000 jobs a month to start making a dent in those 7,156,000 jobs lost. At that rate, it would take over nine years just to get back where we started at the beginning of 2008.

While the preliminary figures for November 2009 show only 11,000 jobs lost, that is still a far cry from the 125,000 jobs created per month just to keep up. Not only was the income from all those jobs lost not available to circulate through the economy, but the taxes on those wages and the sales taxes on what those wages bought was lost as well. As a result, most governments at all levels are running deeply in the red. In particular, the social security and Medicare taxes on those wages were lost so that payments out exceeded the taxes in for the first time in history.

This of course exacerbates the the long term debt problem. How are we ever going to pay off the $12,157,000,000,000 debt at the federal level alone? You can go to www.usdebtclock.org and watch in real time how fast the debt is piling up. It also shows official unemployment at 15,412,125 and actual unemployment is estimated at 26,470,024. You will be truly shocked. That same web site shows that each person is on the hook for $39,437 apiece to pay off this debt. Since the per capita income in the United States is $27,466, each of us would have to work 17.23 months and give every dime to the federal government to pay off the debt. Since we have to have food, clothing and shelter, how long would it really take?

The point of all of these dry statistics is that the economic outlook for 2010 and years to come totally sucks. So what do we do about this dire situation? Just plain common sense tells you that the federal government should not only not commit to any new expenditures and but start cutting the existing ones as well. That would seem to indicate that a new system of national health care would be a non-starter. So why then is it even being considered let alone being jammed down our throats against the majority's will? Apparently all 60 Democrat Senators are so busy with their social engineering that economic facts are totally lost on them.

Most of us are not very happy with the Republican Party either since it has not taken any serious steps to control spending when it was in power. Still since every last Republican Senator voted against the health care bill, that says that they at least have some economic sense. What choice do we have but to vote in more Republicans? The problem with that is that it will take a year for us to do that and in the meantime, we are going down the tubes as a country. What we need to do to cut back on this fiscal insanity is to replace one of those 60 Democrat Senators with a Republican right away and not a year from now.

It just so happens that we have a chance to do that on January 19th. All we have to do is do whatever it takes to get Scott Brown elected in the special election in Massachusetts. While only voters in Massachusetts can do that, we can help them do what is needed by doing whatever it takes to get Scott Brown elected no matter wherever we live. Please go to www.brownforussenator.com and donate your time and money to help our country avoid insolvency. After looking at the figures above how can we justify not helping Scott?