As Jobless Rate Surpasses 10 Percent, Obama Pushes Health Insurance Reform

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that the national unemployment rate jumped from 9.8 percent in September to 10.2 percent in October, its highest level in 26 years.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, remains absurdly dismissive of these figures and continues to push his health care reform legislation. And why not? After all, he has a job. What does he care? The economy and job security may very well be the taxpayers' top priorities, but reforming health insurance and getting re-elected are his top priorities. And since he is the president, health insurance reform will continue to be the topic of discussion ... and so, instead of picturing the jobless numbers as jobs lost, the president and his administration will view them simply as lost policy holders.

The president is now on a Quixotic quest to fulfill a campaign promise, even if he has to break many others campaign promises along the way. The irony, of course, is that the whole reason he is pursuing health care reform so relentlessly and ignoring the unemployment situation so fastidiously is to secure his own job.

It is likely the economic stimulus package passed by Democrats in February spurred the reported growth spurts in the temporary employment sector and the motor vehicle industry, just as it also artificially raised the GDP last month. But it's important to remember that in January 2008, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the economy would begin to recover on its own in the second half of 2009, and  in that scenario -- which did not include a stimulus package -- unemployment would only have reached 9 percent by the end of the year.  To borrow an analogy from Ron Paul, the stimulus package puts a Band-Aid on the bubble, but all that does is allow the bubble to grow bigger. When there are no more Band-Aids and the bubble finally bursts, many will rue the day the stimulus package was even mentioned.

One of the major components negatively affecting economic growth in the US is the housing market, an area the president still has not addressed. Many conservatives suspect his plan is to let the housing market continue to suffer until the end of 2011, so that when he does get around to implementing legislative reforms, they would be in full swing by the time his re-election rolls around in 2012. It's not such a preposterous idea; this is, after all, how he and his fellow Democrats structured the so-called "emergency" stimulus package.

Members of the House should be congratulated for one thing, however. Thursday, they passed a simple, but enormously important piece of legislation. The bill, which passed 403-12, would not only extend the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of November, it also included a measure that would provide a $6,500 tax credit to existing home owners looking to move. Conservatives have been clamoring for this credit for months, contending it would provide a much-needed boost to families adversely affected by the economy and who may be looking to downsize to avoid foreclosure. The legislation now moves to the Senate, and if it passes the new portion would take effect on Dec. 1.

Although Obama and Congressional Democrats bear a majority of the blame for exacerbating economic turmoil and for failing to make the jobless rate a top priority, Republicans are not completely absolved. Obviously, they couldn't have prevented passage of the wasteful stimulus package in February, but rather than going tit-for-tat with the president on health insurance reform since then, they could have concentrated their efforts on crafting legislation similar to the one just mentioned in an effort to improve the economy and stabilize the job market.

As it is, many conservative Democrats and Republicans are reassessing their priorities in the wake of Tuesday's election, and hopefully, they'll shift their attention back to improving the economy -- something they should have been working on all along.

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