Best Explanation for The Ongoing Recession

. . . Comes from Victor Davis Hanson, of course. Please indulge an extended quote, because it crystallizes what we have been saying about the poisonous growth of the federal government.

In the last 30 months, the Obama administration has created a psychological landscape that finally just seemed, whether fairly or not, too hostile to most employers to risk new hiring and buying. Each act, in and of itself, was irrelevant. Together they are proving catastrophic and doing the near impossible of turning a brief recovery into another recession.

Here is the lament I heard: the near $5 trillion in borrowing in just three years, the radical growth in the size of the federal government and its regulatory zeal, ObamaCare, the Boeing plant closure threat, the green jobs sweet-heart deals and Van Jones-like “Millions of Green Jobs” nonsense, the vast expansion in food stamps and unemployment pay-outs, the reversal of the Chrysler creditors, politically driven interference in the car industry, the failed efforts to get card check and cap and trade, the moratoria on new drilling in the Gulf, the general antipathy to new fossil fuel exploitation coupled with new finds of vast new reserves, the new financial regulations, an aggressive EPA oblivious to the effects of its advocacy on jobs, the threatened close-down of energy plants, the support for idling thousands of acres of irrigated farmland due to environmental regulations, the constant talk of higher taxes, the needlessly provocative rhetoric of “fat cat”, “millionaires and billionaires,” “corporate jet owners,” etc. juxtaposed, in hypocritical fashion, to Martha’s Vineyard, Costa del Sol, and Vail First Family getaways — all of these isolated strains finally are becoming a harrowing opera to business people.

While big businesses are as capable as leftists of using government to their own personal advantage, the flood of regulation and the promise of more to come is crushing entrepreneurial spirit. No wonder businesses are sitting on piles of cash and not investing and hiring. Of course, this very sensible policy is coming under attack by the left. Here is Lorena Gonzales, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, in today's U-T, complaining that businesses won't hire because the policies she supported have been enacted into law; another "blame the victim" moment from the left.

The irony, of course, is that these corporations need consumers to spend our money. And, to do that, we need these corporations to spend their money hiring people. If they won’t spend on us, we can’t spend on them. It’s the classic chicken and egg. And right now, they are chickening out on the economy.

Irony? You criticize people and threaten them long enough, and they start to believe you. Then you complain that they are paranoid? It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.

I think KT would call this a John Galt moment. Hard not to agree.

Meanwhile, the President's chances for re-election continue to fall, dropping below 50% for the first time this August, and sitting at 48.9% as of this writing. My only concern is that the odds of defeating the President will peak too soon.