The Road To 17.5%

Yes, Virginia, there IS a "sweet spot" in the realm of combined-size-of-government (federal, state, and local) - seven fortieths of annual GDP:

17.5%.  Given that the last time government hoovered up that little I was a toddler battling the mumps to which my mother helpfully exposed me so I wouldn't get them later and possibly be rendered sterile, it doesn't sound like much.  But even in this economy that would be a grand total of around $2.5 TRILLION, or about $1.7 trillion at the federal level.  If it "just seems like" that ought to be plenty of lucre to suck out of the private sector at gunpoint and flush down the public midden hole, congratulations, you have sound and healthy fiscal instincts.  Ones far superior to the ones of the tyrannical louts who've upped that ante to nearly SIX trillion bucks altogether.

Now maybe it's just me, but it "just seems like" there's some sort of connection between that and the following:

***Consumer confidence collapsed in June:

Americans, worried about jobs and the sluggish economic recovery, are having a relapse in confidence, causing a widely watched index to tumble in June and raising concerns about consumer spending in the critical months ahead.

Critical for whom, d'ya think?  Hmmmmm....

The Conference Board, a private research group based in New York, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped almost ten points to 52.9, down from the revised 62.7 in May. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had been expecting the reading to dip slightly to 62.8.

June’s reading marked the biggest drop since February, when the index fell ten points. The index had risen for three straight months since then.

Both components of the index — one that measures how consumers feel now about the economy, the other that assesses their outlook over the next six months — dropped. The Present Situation Index decreased to 25.5 in June from 29.8 in May. The Expectations Index declined to 71.2 from 84.6.

Gee, now why would anybody be pessimistic about the Obamaconomy?

***Oh, look, here's a(nother) reason - apocalyptic levels of nuclear debt:

The national debt will reach 62% of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of this year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Wednesday.

The budget office said the debt will reach its highest percentage of GDP since the end of World War II. The jump is driven by lower tax revenues and higher federal spending in the recent recession.

Any commonsensical person would look at that finding and conclude that what needs to be done is to (1) gut federal spending, (2) privatize Social Security and Medicare to get out from under the looming actuarial entitlements doomsday - and repeal ObamaCare utterly, completely, and comprehensively, (3) cut taxes, particularly on incomes and capital, (4) deregulate across the board, up to and including eliminating vast swaths of the federal bureaucratic superstructure.  The first two would address the latter problem, and the latter two would address the former.  Spend MUCH less and boost revenues by freeing the private sector from the hobnailed boot Red Barry is grinding into its neck.  It's proven (See the Reagan Golden Age that preceded it), it's 100% successful, it's constitutional, it's American.

But it's also heretical to the new American state religion of Marxism-Alinskyism.  Which is why you'll never see any of the above come out of, or be signed into law by, the Li'l President.  Which is why the capital that could have been fueling a genuine recovery over a year ago still sits on the sidelines, languishing in mothballs and awaiting Obamunist confiscation.  Which is why unemployment remains "stubbornly" high, and why consumer confidence is limper than Hugh Hefner, who no longer remembers what a hardon is, much less what one is like.

And that is why Barry O's Hogzilla spin has descended all the way down to this:

Actually, the REAL unemployment rate is 16.5%, champ.  Which may help explain an "unexpected" change of heart on the part of our old, dear friends down at the infamous Ex/Im Bank:

The U.S. Export-Import Bank backed down Wednesday from an environmental-protection stand that threatened to cost hundreds of U.S. jobs.

The federal export-credit agency said Wednesday its board will reconsider a decision last week against providing loan guarantees to help finance the purchase of U.S. coal-mining equipment by Reliance Power Ltd of India. The Ex-Im Bank had denied that support on the ground that the equipment was to be used to feed a new coal-fired power plant that will create carbon-dioxide emissions.

In a letter to Reliance Wednesday, the bank invited the company to reapply for the guarantees. The bank said it now would take into account Reliance’s plans to build two solar-powered electricity plants in India and their potential to offset environmental damage from the coal project.

Did Ex/Im relent because their following The One's job-eradicating anti-energy policies would destroy some 1,400 American jobs?  Nope.  Was it because the aforevidded speech in Racine, Wisconsin, the home state of Bucyrus International, the employer of those aforementioned 1,400 American workers, was already going to be a disaster without making the connection between Obamanomics and "Great Depression II" even more glaring?  Getting warmer.  Was it (also) because Ex/Im's initial decision was going to be the final stakes through the hearts of Wisconsin's Donk governor and one of its Donk senators in November?  Bingo.

But even then, warns Ensign Ed, this is probably just a stay of execution.  A reprieve that will not be extended to Lucifer's congressional legions or, eventually, himself, as long as he, and they, remain "stubbornly" and "expectedly" wedded to greed-laced, moral-supremacist, tyrannical povertymongering.