By Nathan Mehrens
The sky was supposed to fall.
In February, CBS was just one of many outlets publishing economic warnings about the impact of cutting the federal government creating a fear campaign about the impact of the automatic sequester cuts.
CBS quoted, among others, the private forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers which estimated that “sequestration would cost roughly 700,000 jobs (including reductions in armed forces)” and add a quarter of a point to the unemployment rate.
The group concluded that, “The higher unemployment would linger for several years.”
Today’s unemployment report is clear proof that these doomsayers who predicted that the federal government spending cuts would harm economic growth were spectacularly wrong.
The report shows that the private sector gained 202,000 jobs, with large upward revisions of job gains for the prior two months. Most significantly, taxpayer funded government employment continues to fall.
This is further affirmation that the size and scope of government has been a drag on economic growth.
Economists who are entrenched in the belief that government spending drives private sector economic growth continue to ignore multiple credible economic studies that show high government debt harms economic growth.
These studies show that when a nation’s debt hits a tipping point of between 80-90 percent of its Gross Domestic Product, the economy of that nation founders.
Right now, even after what big government apologists decry as draconian and unnecessary federal budget cuts, our nation’s debt to GDP is at 104 percent, up almost 40 percent since Obama took office.
The damage done by Obama’s $14 trillion four year spending spree is not easily fixed.
It is unacceptable that after all the promises, deficit spending, and massive Federal Reserve money printing, that 16.9 million Americans are currently either unemployed or underemployed.
The perverse fact is that the cost of the very social welfare programs that Obama has expanded under the banner of compassion have played a major role in stunting the private sector job creation that would free people from government dependency.
These 16.9 million who have been left on the sidelines of economic recovery need Congress to act aggressively to continue cutting the size and scope of the federal government.
A first step is to defund those agencies that are adding to the misery by implementing job killing regulations that threaten job creation.
The President has told Congress that he intends to implement his environmental and economic agenda using regulators like the EPA and the Departments of Labor, Interior and Health & Human Services.
Congress has a moral responsibility to those 16.9 million Americans who want a full time job to take care of their responsibilities and cannot find one.
Congress must meet this responsibility head on by using its power of the purse to stalemate the Obama regulatory machine, so America can once again prosper.
Nathan Mehrens is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
