According to Michael Barone, Obama deserves all of the blame for May's pathetic news on jobs and unemployment, in part because of the speech he gave at George Washington University on April 13th.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.
And then there is the political posturing. On April 13, Barack Obama delivered a ballyhooed speech at George Washington University. The man who conservatives as well as liberal pundits told us was a combination of Edmund Burke and Reinhold Niebuhr was widely expected to present a serious plan to address the budget deficits and entitlement spending.
Instead, the man who can call on talented career professionals at the Office of Management and Budget to produce detailed blueprints gave us something in the nature of a few numbers scrawled on a paper napkin.
The man depicted as pragmatic and free of ideological cant indulged in cheap political rhetoric, accusing Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who was in the audience, of pushing old ladies in wheelchairs down the hill and starving autistic children.
The signal was clear. Obama had already ignored his own deficit reduction commission in preparing his annual budget, which was later rejected 97-0 in the Senate. Now he was signaling that the time for governing was over and that he was entering campaign mode 19 months before the November 2012 election.
People took notice, especially those people who decide whether to hire or not.
I think there's not much doubt that Obama's promises of higher taxes and regulation have discouraged hiring and contributed to the bleak economic outlook. His George Washington speech also confirmed the perception that politics will play a prominent role in Obama's handling of the economy. But something bigger happened in late April to dampen job creation.
The Obama administration is doing more than just talk down the economy. Speeches have their effects, but the Obama administration has gone beyond speeches and is actively preventing job creation. The other thing that happened in late April is the unfair labor practices lawsuit launched by the administration's National Labor Relations Board against Boeing.
After Boeing committed $750 million to the construction of an assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, the Obama administration stepped in to prevent the company from using it.
The National Labor Relations Board is seeking a court order that in effect would require Boeing Co. to move its second 787 assembly line to Washington state.
The second line is being built in North Charleston.
The federal agency is alleging in a lawsuit that Boeing engaged in unfair labor practices when it decided in 2009 to build a new $750 million plant at Charleston International Airport rather than assigning the work to its existing unionized 787 factory in Everett, Wash.
Boeing said it will "vigorously contest" the complaint.
Workers at the North Charleston plant, which is scheduled to open this summer, are not represented by a union.
NLRB wants an order requiring Boeing to “operate the second line of 787 Dreamliner aircraft assembly production in the state of Washington, utilizing supply lines” in the Seattle and Portland, Ore., areas.
The new assembly plant was expected to add up to 3,800 new jobs to the South Carolina economy over the next seven years. If the Obama administration gets its way that's not going to happen. Obama's NLRB is fighting Boeing because those new jobs in North Charleston would not be union jobs, and the Democratic party relies on union dues for support.
So imagine yourself as a corporate decision maker. You've just watched Boeing negotiate a sweet deal on taxes and incentives with South Carolina, then sink hundreds of millions to build a plant, and now it may all be for nothing. Do you think now is the time to expand?