Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

stimulus

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11 Nasty Trends That Will Test America’s Resilience

Still, five years into the Obama presidency, the economy is grossly underperforming. Contrary to the dominant media narrative, it’s not bad luck or the financial crisis to blame, but bad policies — from the $860 billion “stimulus” that didn’t stimulate to the Dodd-Frank financial reform that killed lending.

Last year was a challenging one for entrepreneurs and other productive Americans. No fewer than 13 new taxes were put into place. Big government now consumes one of every four dollars of our GDP and is getting bigger.

Entering 2014, we face problems, including taxes and spending, that neither the White House nor Congress is addressing. In the following charts, we look at a few of the more alarming and intractable ones.

Read More At Investor’s Business Daily.

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Fed to Continue Quantitative Easing

There’s still no end in sight for the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program — known as quantitative easing — after the central bank met this week and decided to continue buying $85 billion in bonds each month.

In a statement released after the conclusion of its policy meeting, the Fed pointed to fiscal policy (aka government spending cuts, the shutdown and debt ceiling debate) as “restraining economic growth.”

While the Fed continued to characterize the overall economy as expanding at a “moderate pace” — the same as at its prior meeting — it did downgrade its assessment of the housing market slightly.

“The housing sector slowed somewhat in recent months,” the statement said.

The central bank has been buying $85 billion in bonds every month since September 2012, and has said it will continue to do so until the job market improves “substantially.” The program is now nearing $1 trillion in total, yet that goal remains elusive.

Sure, the unemployment rate, at 7.2 percent is slightly lower than it was, but so too is the country’s labor participation rate. Only 63 percent of Americans ages 16 and over either have a job or are looking for one — the lowest level since 1978.

Meanwhile, hiring is stuck in slow motion, averaging 185,000 new jobs added in each of the last 12 months. Overall, not much has changed in the job market since last year.

Read more.

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Fed Warns of Risks From Ending Stimulus

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday said the economy must show signs of sustained improvement before the central bank will curtail its long-running monetary stimulus program.

Bernanke offered no timeline as to when the Fed would begin reducing purchases of mortgage-backed assets, saying any decisions would be based on incoming economic data, with a keen eye on improvements in the labor market.

“We are looking at whether or not we have seen real and sustainable progress in the labor market outlook,” Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday.

“I hope to provide more information going forward, and that we can exit over time in a way that is consistent with our policy objectives,” he said.

The Fed is currently engaged in its third round of “quantitative easing” and intends to buy $85 billion in government and mortgage bonds until there is substantial improvement in the labor market.

Since December, the central bank has said it would hold short-term interest rates near zero until the unemployment rate drops below 6.5 percent — it now stands at 7.5 percent — or inflation climbs above 2 percent. Rates have been near zero since late 2008.

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