Obama gets far too much credit for thinking too deeply about anything at all.  I think Pelosi and Reid should get most of the “credit”...

Nor do I blame Mr Obama for the first round of job losses arising in late 2007 and early ‘08 as businesses began to understand the implications of the Democrat takeover of Congress following the 2006 mid-terms. We certainly began to “be careful” in anticipation of rising taxes and expanding regulations coming from a Democrat Congress.

Both 2007 and 2008 were record years for us, but we started cutting expenses aggressively—particularly labor—in anticipation of worse to come. We conserved cash and retired debt at an accelerated pace and part of that free cash flow came from reduced employee hours.

After the ‘08 elections it became far worse. The problem is no longer mere caution, but total confusion. We don’t even know how much of our putative profit we’ll be able to keep. As a said yesterday—but it bears repetition:

If the current government is going to hit my business with a 9% tax on wages and salaries unless I purchase health coverage for them that would come to almost 13% ... guess what? I’m going to make that number as absolutely small as I possibly can. I paid a health tax on wages and salaries for years with my business in Canada. Down a rat hole. It’s one big reason I left.

Between parabolic deficits, health care nationalization (which it most definitely is), exploding energy taxes, and giving the same union thugs who beat up a crippled black conservative in Saint Louis the right to arrive at my employees homes and give them the “free choice” of joining the union, my business and hundreds of thousands of others are in the crosshairs of radical leftists who truly believe that the results of our efforts, vision, and service are theirs to distribute.

If you think the economy is bad now ... give the present crew in power another term in 2010. That’s when we’ll see current unemployment numbers double. Businesses will fold things up as rapidly as possible. It simply is not worth the risk and the incredibly hard work, only to have somebody else claim a preponderant share of your profits in order to build their own little political kingdoms.

Right now ... government is the source of the ‘jobs’ problem. We can deal with balky consumers. What business cannot survive is an extended period of governance by clueless and grasping politicians.

The standard political drama has three characters: the victim, the villain, and the hero. Politicians always present themselves as the hero. For the last ten months, especially, we business owners—of whatever magnitude—have been set forth as the villains in the Democrats’ political drama.

Until that ends ... you can forget about jobs.