Unemployment drops, spending hits all time high

By Owen E Richason IV
Updated Feb 05, 10

Feb 5, 10:20 AM EST

Washington, DC—Bloomberg News is reporting that the national unemployment rate (U-3) fell from 10 percent down to 9.7 percent and while the U-6 rate (the measure of those unemployed, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work) fell from 17.3 percent to 16.5 percent according to the latest figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, federal spending sharply rose, with a proposed budget to increase outlays by $67.5 billion from 2011 to 2015. A raise in the national debt ceiling has also been passed by Congress, bringing the federal debt limit to $1.9 trillion or $6,500 per citizen, the largest debt carried in American history.

Following the debt limit increase, the Wall Street Journal is reporting Moody’s Investor Service has warned the United State’s AAA rating makes foreign debt investors nervous, possibly causing a future downgrade to AA rating.

Adding to unease about the strategy for climbing out of the recession is a growing government payroll, climbing from 2 million to 2.15 million employees through the 2010 calendar year. Most increases will occur on the bureaucracy side, totaling 153,000 new workers, increasing from 1,277,000 to 1,430,000.

As federal spending rises, polling falls. Real Clear Politics’ average for the direction of the country shows that 58.4 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and only 35.6 percent believe it is on the right track.

A war on terror by any other name continues on

Call it what you wish, but the enemy remains...

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23 year-old Nigerian national, bored a plane with no baggage, after paying cash for a one way ticket; once over US soil, he attempted to detonate a bomb. Did the system work, did the system fail? Volleying political talking points and the never-ending blame game will go on for some time, at least until the next big Page 1 headline.

We here at this publication are reminded of the Bush administration’s warning that our vigilance has to been ever present, right 100% of the time while the enemy only has to get it right once. Surely in a world of our size, there will be “cracks”, there will be “wrinkles”, there will be lapses in security – to think otherwise is naïve.

But this piece isn’t about assigning blame or calling for the flogging of the head of homeland security, it is about the instance itself and the reality behind it.

Since the Iraq invasion in 2003, critics of the liberation called it an occupation and throughout the 2008 presidential election, those on the same side purported that America had damaged its status in the world, should we step-back (or down) we would raise our stature again. When Mr. Obama became president, he moved to close GITMO, the phrase War on Terror was removed from the present administration’s vernacular, target dates have been set for withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and “torture” has been banned.

Yet on Christmas Day 2009, a young radicalized Muslim did not care about GITMO’s impending closure, nor did he care about plans to leave Iraq and Afghanistan, nor did he care how the president pronounces “Pakistan” or “Taliban”, he only cared to hate, to try and murder hundreds of people.

We are aware the president cannot stop terrorist acts with his bare hands, nor can he stop them with words, only a well equipped intelligence community and cutting-edge military.

-- Killswitch Politick

Click here to subscribe

Click here to contact