U.S. Economic Slowdown Due to Obama’s Spending?

Germany and the UK are seeing economic growth outpace America’s… their growth is in the private sector while in the U.S. it’s the government… could it be that “stimulus” drives by Democrats which have added more than $1 trillion to the debt could be responsible?

Dig beneath the headline and the contrast between the United States and Britain looks even sharper. Nearly all the growth in the British economy came from the private sector, led by construction and services.

Friday’s U.S. GDP report is likely to show a hefty contribution from government spending and a slowdown in consumer spending.

In the United States, the second half of the year looks weaker because government spending programs are winding down, businesses have already replenished inventories and a tax credit that boosted housing demand expired.

That’s what “stimulus” does… it creates a feeding frenzy of activity for a very short period of time and once that “free” money is used up, things get worse because the taxpayer dollars created false demand and allowed local governments the luxury of not making any tough choices as to which wasteful programs to cut.

When we look at Germany we find that in June Chancellor Angela Merkel introduced an austerity plan (which was vigorously opposed by Big Union and Left Wing politicians).  Not surprisingly, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner thought that cutting back on government spending was the wrong move.  German unemployment has fallen for 11 straight months while in the U.S. it has stayed at historically high levels.  Some of Merkel’s plans even included firing 10,000 government workers while in the U.S. the government is hiring like crazy to staff all those new positions created by Obama’s Big Government programs.

Not only is Germany cutting government spending but they are doing so without raising taxes:

None of the savings are to be financed by an increase in the value-added tax, sales tax or any other taxes, said Guido Westerwelle, foreign minister and leader of the pro-business Free Democratic Party. His party, which is committed to a major tax reform and tax cuts, fought tooth and nail during the negotiations to prevent any tax increases.

Contrast these positions with the high probability that Democrats will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in January, along with re-introduction of the Death Tax.  Democrats recently failed to pass the Cap and Trade tax although there is talk of the creation of a Value Added Tax, or VAT, to take money away from consumers to fund the Big Government Democrats are hoping to create.

The contrast between the U.S. and Europe could not be greater.  Failed economies in Greece and Spain have created austerity plans as their spend happy Liberal politicians bankrupted those nations, and in the UK the newly elected Conservative government is trying to cut the NHS (Obamakare UK) by $45 to $60 billion per year.

Essentially, the Conservative government is trying to wipe away layer upon layer of government bureaucracy:

“The current architecture of the health system has developed piecemeal, involves duplication and is unwieldy. Liberating the N.H.S., and putting power in the hands of patients and clinicians, means we will be able to effect a radical simplification, and remove layers of management.”

Unfortunately, this also means that healthcare will be rationed as there is no money to pay for it:

Some of the most common operations — including hip replacements and cataract surgery — will be rationed as part of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government promises that front-line services would be protected.

The UK plan includes things which most people would find barbaric including closing nursing homes and forcing terminally ill patients to “manage their own care” on evenings and weekends.

There is no money to pay for it all.

The NHS has been around since 1948 and as costs have continued to climb, the treasury has been sucked dry.

What do Democrats in the U.S. say will happen in our country?  Here’s Harry Reid speaking to Liberal bloggers in Las Vegas:

“We’re going to have a public option.  It’s just a question of when.”

Funny how Europe is cutting the size of government, the UK is scaling down their version of Obamakare and seeing economic growth while in the U.S. Democrats are raising taxes, increasing spending, and hiring new employees and our economy is not growing stronger.

Could these things be related?