Neal Asbury opened his nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America by noting that despite the unwillingness of the Obama administration to compromise on anything, “the train can get back on the track with some hard work ahead.”
Joining the show as a first time guest was Peter Morici, Professor, Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, whose recent essay “Budget Deal Will Push Up Unemployment” contends that the tax and spending package passed by the Senate and House provides little prospects of improvement, as the U.S. economy continues to suffer from insufficient demand and will continue growing at a subpar 2 percent a year.
“Preventing the fiscal cliff is only subtracting demand, while raising the price of capital. That means small businesses are less likely to hire, and will be hit by the uncertainty of rising taxes and healthcare costs,” said Morici, adding that “the economy must add more than 356,000 jobs each month for three years to lower unemployment to 6 percent and that is not likely with current policies. That would require growth in the range of 4 to 5 percent. Without better trade, energy and regulatory policies and lower health care costs and taxes on small businesses, that is simply not going to happen.”
He is greatly disappointed that the Republicans didn’t stand up to Obama. He believes that the GOP had the best chance in some time to gain the upper hand, but wavered and caved in. He characterized Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House, John Boehner as throwbacks to earlier eras.
“The GOP needs to stand behind a charismatic leader. They haven’t presented any good proposals that could be realistically adapted. Things like Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher system, for example, are silly and not very creative,” said Morici.
Neal and his co-host Dr. Rich Roffman continued the conversation on the fiscal cliff negotiations.
“The conservatives had a real chance to come out on top, but caved. Congress is dysfunctional and we can only hope that among this chaos, we can produce another strong conservative GOP leader like Ronald Reagan,” said Dr. Roffman.
“The unemployment rate is at 7.8 percent and the Democrats are doing cartwheels over this news, despite the fact that the numbers don’t reflect the millions of Americans who have stopped looking for jobs. We need to create some 350,000 jobs a month just to get the unemployment rate down to six percent,” contended Neal.
Dr. Roffman agreed, adding that the housing mess in this country has to be fixed and banks have to be able to lend money again if the economy is ever to improve.
“Our national debt rate is at $19 trillion, and we just added $3.3 trillion more in debt. Who is going to pay for this?” asked Dr. Roffman.
Neal suggested that if there was any good news coming out of the fiscal cliff negotiations it’s that the government retained the ability for consumers and small businesses, especially farmers, to be able to hand down an inheritance of up to $5 million without a tax penalty.
Joining the show as a return guest was Celia Bigelow, representing American Majority Action’s campus program.
“The GOP capitulated on the fiscal cliff negotiations, which will saddle young people with even more debt. They are forcing us to pay 40 cents out of every dollar earned to pay back debt, enslaving future generations of young people to work so that they can pay down this debt,” contended Bigelow.
She noted that the unemployment rate for young people 18-29 is at 11.5 percent and even higher among those 18-24 new college graduates.
“The media have essentially ignored young people. During the last election Romney wrote off visits to college campuses, despite the fact that Obama’s ratings among young people had plummeted. We need to reform our messaging and select a candidate like Ronald Reagan who fired up college campuses during his campaign. The Left is reaching young people, the Right is not,” concluded Bigelow.
Joining the show as a first time guest was Hope Hodge, who writes about military issues for the conservative “Human Events.”
“The fiscal cliff negotiations created two disasters: it treated the symptoms of the economy without touching the disease of tax cuts and debt; and it merely punted on the important issues of the debt ceiling and sequestration, postponing these decisions until March 1,” said Hodge.
Hodge noted that by its very nature, sequestration doesn’t differentiate
between good spending cuts and bad spending cuts, so despite the unwillingness by most politicians to avoid drastic military cuts, it will happen unless Republicans stand up to the President.
“Republicans are struggling to gain a voice. The White House is not giving in on any points. Republicans need to be changing the discussion from sequestration to addressing the cost of entitlements,” concluded Hodge.
Dr. Roffman and host Neal Asbury turned their attention to Al Gore’s recent sale of his Current TV network to Al Jazeera. Ironically, Gore chose Al Jazeera’s offer over Glenn Beck’s offer because he thought that Al Jazeera “shared his message.”
“Here we have Mr. Global Warming Environmentalist, Al Gore, selling his network to Al Jazeera—which is funded by Arab oil money petrodollars–his sworn enemy. And now with the closing of Current TV, all of his employees are out on the street,” said Dr. Roffman, adding that Gore pushed hard to sell his network prior to the end of the year so that he could avoid higher taxes.
“This is the same guy who advocates that the rich should pay their fair share, which apparently he feels doesn’t apply to him,” said Dr. Roffman.
Dr. Roffman next tackled the fiscal cliff, and in keeping with his emphasis on stopping cronyism, wondered why the House didn’t see the fiscal cliff agreement until three minutes before the vote.
“Maybe it’s because it offered big tax incentives to Obama’s Hollywood crowd; his pals in the railroad industry, like Warren Buffett; and green energy, his favorite receptacle for incentives. Cronyism continues to thrive in the Obama White House,” concluded Dr. Roffman.
Each week Neal Asbury’s Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America. Link to Made in America at http://www.nealasbrysmadeinamerica.com.
JAN
