The question that belies the new administration’s infinite number of programs is whether each additional initiative adds followers or deletes them.

Will the gain of union support for the attempt at the card check legislation be more than offset by the loss of business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs? Will the quasi nationalization of the major auto companies gain or lose support? Will his stand on the Middle East gain or lose followers? Will his huge deficits attract or detract supporters?

Obama won with 52.9 % of the vote, and that was running against a very unpopular party tied to a very unpopular war with a disastrous economic collapse just months before the election. Many supported the new president, hoping he would govern more to the center than he ran.

There are liberals who are disappointed that he has not been as aggressive in winding down the war as they hoped, that he has not fully endorsed gay marriage as much as they wished. And there are independents whose support dwindles with each new program.

The danger of so many and such ambitious programs is that each one will erode a little support and the total will turn his support upside down.

Yet even this erosion may be moot if the Republicans cannot articulate a clear alternative and present a leader that can effectively deliver the message. Recycling Newt and Sarah will not work.

While the Republicans still seem lost in the wilderness, every new program Obama announces may be costing him support. With such an ambitious agenda he may sow the seeds of his demise- one cut at a time.

Obama has already announced plans to increase the maximum tax rate to 40% for those who make over $250k. He has also proposed elimination of the ceiling on social security taxes and now the health care bill adds a tax on employers who do not provide health insurance. If you combine this basket of tax hikes with the hikes in taxes from states like California and New York  to avoid their own meltdown and you have a substantial change in the taxes levied on small business owners.  Add  substantially higher minimum wages, enacted long ago but now taking effect in the most severe recession in decades, and higher proposed capital gains taxes. And then consider the vast uncertainty of the Rube Goldberg system called Cap and Trade and the impact of some version of the strongly pro union card check bill will have on business thinking.

You have to be an economic moron not to understand that this will sharply curtail economic growth, investment and hiring. Any of these changes would have an impact, but the collection of such disincentives has a staggering impact on the decisions of small businesses.

Those who are able will shut down and just retire early even if they have to reduce their lifestyle to do so. I hear this from small business people consistently.  With the last kids off to college they speak of selling their business and moving to their beach house.

These same business people see their risk reward opportunity to be so poor now that they would rather sit on their money in low yield money funds that risk it in expansion only to see 70% of it taxed away IF they are successful. That is why there is over 3.5 TRILLION dollars sitting in money market funds.

Many will adjust to the new looter mentality and do the best that they can. I am sure that lawyers and accounting advisors will seek and finds loopholes and other non productive means to protect private wealth. Those who are sophisticated enough will seek foreign opportunities.

Unless this direction is changed unemployment will soar and economic growth will stagnate for a long time.

We have committed $900 million dollars to Palestinians and $200 million is on its way.   One could argue that this is chicken feed compared to the aid given to Israel. Even as the committed Zionist I am I do not have a problem with helping the downtrodden even if they are Palestinians, but I do have a few questions?

Would it be too much to ask that we require a few conditions; specifically:

1.  Recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

2. Rejection of terrorism without the ‘moral equivalency’ double talk. This includes the rocket attacks.

3. Stop teaching Antisemitism and the destruction of Israel in the Palestinian schools and mosques.

Would it also be too much to expect the Arab world with their oil revenues to help out a bit too?

Paul Krugman referred to the period between 1930 and 1980 as the Great Compression, referring to a flattening of the incomes from the very rich and the very poor of the Gilded Age and the growing income inequality from the Reagan era onward.

In “the Conscience of a Liberal” he credits this compression to FDR’ New Deal and its higher taxes on the wealthy and on the rise of unions in the American workplace.
He further notes that the higher wages and benefits had no negative consequence for the auto and steel industries. While that seems foolish in light of GM and Chrysler being bankrupts wards of the government it is correct for the period between 1930 and 1980.

But that economic environment was also very different. The stock market crash like our recent collapse brought the rich down much faster and further than the poor. And while the unions were able to bargain better conditions and wages they were bolstered by the wartime demand stimulation and more so because all of American industry’s overseas competition was destroyed by the war.

The growth of global completion changed everything as we tended to import low wage jobs and export high wage jobs, increasing the wage spread. The growth of the technology sector added to the spread.

Like the Crash of 1929 we are seeing a replay of a flattening of incomes but it should not be compared to a period stimulated by war and protected by the destruction of its trading partners.

There has been outrageous bonuses and pay on the high end, but the market will likely correct it without government interference.

Higher taxes and union pressure should not be expected to yield the same result as it did in very different time. Without the protections enjoyed during the Great Compression it would have just been call a longer Greater Depression.

The card check bill which would have allowed unions to win the right to represent without an election is being modified in hopes of gaining passage. Originally the bill eliminated the secret ballot, allowing the union a victory by just collecting enough signatures on the petition for election.

Currently the petition simply allows the workers to vote, and gives the company an opportunity to counter promises and claims made by the union. Acts of intimidation and bribery are strictly forbidden and strictly enforced.

Even noted Democratic liberal George McGovern has spoken against the elimination of the secret ballot, considering this a sacrosanct insurance AGAINST intimidation. Supporters seem willing to lose the card check provision to assure passage, but there are two other provisions that are also destructive.

The first requires much shorter unionization campaigns. This would allow the unions an infinite amount of time to address workers on their side, but strictly limit the amount of time the company would have to counter or address their concerns. How are the workers be served by rushing the campaign? Why should they be restricted from hearing counter arguments of the unions?

The second provision would require binding arbitration if the two parties do not reach an agreement within 60 days. This gives the government authority to set wages and benefits in private companies.

The remaining requirements, especially binding arbitration, would be a real job killer in small business. Few entrepreneurs would tolerate such intrusion; they would outsource whatever they could, reduce employees wherever possible, or shut down and retire early if able. This would provide another incentive to manufacture overseas.

This bill is still a job killer and political payoff for union support.