FedUpUSA

Las Vegas, NV

President Obama is in Las Vegas, where he’s holding an invitation-only fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, among other closed-door events.

The president is welcome; he should be courteously received.

That said, it’s too bad the president isn’t planning to mingle with average Nevadans and visit our shopping centers incognito, to get a look at what his economic policies have really wrought — what a city with 14.1 percent (official, understated) unemployment looks like, under an administration whose main economic goals seem to be the punishment and prevention of capital formation and business growth.

The president might have gotten an earful, here at ground zero of the Great Recession.

While “Obamacare” doesn’t go into full effect for four more years, taxes to support it kick in this fall, starting with a 10 percent tanning salon tax (why?) and a “1099″ tax that’s projected to suck an additional $17 billion out of private businesses in the next decade by making them file “1099″ snitch forms for virtually everyone to whom they pay a few hundred dollars.

Is that likely to help Nevada’s economy rebound, President Obama? Won’t it drive even more business “under the table,” where workers have less protection, illegal aliens thrive and many continue to draw welfare while paying no taxes at all?

Speaking of illegals, your administration just sued our neighbor to the southeast, Arizona, for enacting a state law that instructs local police to help enforce federal immigration law — despite the fact the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that federal immigration law doesn’t intend “to preclude even harmonious state regulation.”

What’s the political message of this cynical lawsuit? That some 12 million illegals should feel safe continuing to occupy jobs that U.S. citizens have flocked to fill whenever they’ve had a chance, presumably. Just wait for the Democrats to grant you amnesty, invite in your extended family and send you all Democratic voter registration cards — as soon as the heat of November’s mid-term elections has passed — is that it?

Is that supposed to help Nevada’s unemployed and the local businesses they can no longer patronize?

What about “cap and trade” and your carbon tax, still promoted by you and your legislative ramrod, Sen. Reid, even after much of the basis for worrying about climate change has been shown to be a hoax?

Your administration admits this legislation will artificially drive up power bills and other energy costs. Mr. President, is that supposed to help cash-strapped Nevada firms create new jobs? If it causes air fares and gasoline prices to soar, will that help bring the tourists back to Las Vegas?

And a “VAT” or add-on national sales tax — is that next?

If the 2008 economic correction had been allowed to proceed without interference, mal-invested firms would have been forced to liquidate in bankruptcy. The buildings where new entrepreneurs might like to open would have passed into new hands, and could now be leased at far lower rates. Instead, many structures in Las Vegas now stand empty, owned by banks or by the FDIC or by “walking dead” owners who dare not rent out the premises at lower rates lest their overdue notes be called. It’s a weird economic limbo, and it’s not helping.

Why so many costly bailouts, Mr. President? Why so much bypassing of America’s fine bankruptcy courts? Was it because your union supporters objected to what might happen to their contracts, which helped sink firms like General Motors? Is that why you intervened to arrange for the government and the unions to take over that firm? How many other industries will now be taken over? We already know about health care. The banks, too?

And speaking of unions, is “card check” still in play? The prospect that workplaces could be unionized without a worker secret-ballot majority — that’s supposed to encourage local business investment and growth?

Meantime, the inflation caused by all this spending keeps prices and wages artificially high. Is that supposed to help?

Nevadans have a long tradition as hard-working frontier entrepreneurs. Nevadans would rather have a real, private-sector job than a handout. How many of your high-level appointees have any experience creating such jobs, Mr. President? Do you see that as a problem?

Las Vegas Review-Journal

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