Actually, the United States has the most progressive tax rates of the OECD nations (spreadsheet). And it’s not even close.
Since there are so many more middle-income earners than high-income earners and there’s little progressivity in the tax rates, the burden falls on the middle-income earners.
Meanwhile, a coal mine in Ohio just shut down due to environmental regulations:
A theoretical model says Obama has created or saved X number of jobs. But in the real world where we can see his policies empirically, we find that he’s actually intentionally killed a lot of jobs.
Seriously? Isn’t that how things work here? The OP makes an assertion, and you respond to it. If you disagree, you offer evidence to the contrary. I see you’ve done that now. I’m not a mind-reader, you know.
My wife tells me that sometimes I am too subtle. On Facebook, I’ve noticed that fairly often people whose position I am opposing or mocking “like” my posts.
For instance, after seeing a spate of “let’s support Chick Fil A posts”, I grabbed a pic of Beaker (the Muppet) and captioned it “Don’t meep with Beaker.” People on both sides of the issue liked it.
I didn’t think anyone could miss the sarcasm of the post you referenced, though.
It is, of course, simplistic in the extreme to call this “Obama’s” economy. He predicted that by the end of 4 years many in the electorate would forget what a mess he inherited, and so it is. Given the opposition he’s faced, I think he’s done well. Several items in the OP have no place being there, such as gasoline prices. Would anyone in the forum care to make the case that Obama (or Bush) directly sets or influences gasoline prices at the pump?
In principal, I agree with you. But he can lead and he can bully. My issue with the President is lack of leadership. The President is not the boss of everyone (and therefore, arguments along the line of “if everyone would just do what he wants, we’ll be fine” are silly - if that’s the only way the president can lead, then he needs to join the Army). I realize that since 2011 he has had an unfriendly Congress (and even without the Republican veto in the Senate, his own party ain’t exactly got his back). No excuse. Lead. Was he dealt a lousy hand? Absolutely. Get over it.
I believe his administration believed this would all just work itself out the way it always had in the past. And if it had, this would be a laugher. But it didn’t.
The only ideas I hear are we just need to spend some more money (which sounds suspiciously like the prescription for education). So if you ain’t got any ideas, let’s try the next guy.
Normally you don’t see an administration actively obstructing job creation. The story I linked to out of Ohio is not unique.
Prioritizing the environment over job growth is a defensible policy, so long as that is actually your policy and you are honest about that policy. Either the president doesn’t understand the tradeoffs involved in his policies, or he’s lying about jobs being his #1 priority.
Your link places blame on Obama for something referred to as the “war on coal” or on the “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for causing a downturn in coal demand.” Since there are no specific details offered, I’m not sure how to gauge the accuracy of these statements. But assuming for the sake of argument that they are true, this doesn’t necessarily contradict Obama’s priority of job creation. What’s that logical fallacy called, the excluded middle or something? It is possible to want to create jobs – and surely you don’t think Obama is against this, right? – and at the same time be concerned about the environment.
The story you linked to is, IMO, bullshit. Coal mining is hurting because we (meaning the US) found a whole bunch of natural gas. That operation closed because one of their major sub-contracters went bankrupt, at least as I understand it. That Robert Murray would decide to blame it on Obama and the EPA is neither surprising nor compelling.