Research

President Ronald Reagan once joked, “The 10 most dangerous words in the English language are, ‘Hi, I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.’”  Well, in today’s Wall Street Journal, Obama Commerce Secretary Gary Locke does his best attempt to deliver those 10 words with a straight face with “Don’t Believe The Writedown Hype:”

President Obama began his campaign to reform the American health-care system focused on three goals: protecting Americans' choice of doctors and health plans, assuring quality and affordable health care for all Americans, and reducing costs for families and businesses.

The new comprehensive health-care legislation meets these goals, and will significantly benefit American businesses by slowing and eventually reversing the tide of crippling premium increases washing over our nation's employers.

The reality is, unfortunately, that Sec. Locke’s words are rightly delivered on April Fools’ Day, because they are an attempt to fool the American people into believing that the Obama-Pelosi health care experiment will actually help American businesses create jobs.  As we have thoroughly documented, nothing could be further from the truth.  Here are some of the facts Sec. Locke doesn’t want you to know:

• Their government-run health care spending is paid for with a half-trillion in new taxes. Much of that is directly at the expense of economic growth, with a new tax on investment and savings and increased taxes on high-earners, many of whom are small business owners.
• Their new business regulations will make it very difficult for a company to expand, because it will have to provide health insurance for their employees or pay a $2,000 tax per employee if its payroll goes above 50. And that includes part-time workers or seasonal workers, which reduces workplace flexibility.
• Specific industries are also targeted, with big new taxes on the medical device industry, drug companies, insurance companies—even the tanning industry!

Sec. Locke isn’t the only one making this flawed argument today. President Obama is in Massachusetts and Maine today, trying to pitch this pro-business message while raising millions for the DNC. Anyone who read the local papers won’t buy it, as you can see in our Research Briefings “Anti-Job Maine-iac” and “Campaign Fever: April Fools’ Gold.”