RUSH: Now, yesterday the economic growth rate of the country was reported at one-tenth of 1%, and I made the point that if it weren’t for Obamacare, our growth rate would have been negative. I got some e-mails last night, “Rush, there’s nothing good about Obamacare. Why were you praising Obamacare’s rate of economic growth?” I wasn’t.
I’m glad, actually, I got the questions because I made the assumption that people would know what I was talking about. It’s not good. When government spending becomes more and more of the total economy, that isn’t good, and that’s what this means. The real economy — the actual real economy that does not involve government spending — is shrinking.
The gross domestic product is simply a total of economic activity. The government has always had a percentage of that, usually around 18%. With Obama and then Bush before him, we’re up over 20%, and I think approaching higher. Off the top of my head, it may be getting to 21% of the economy is government. That’s horrible. That’s bad.
Because government doesn’t have any money until they take it from somebody first, or print it out of whole cloth. So my point was that the real economy is in the toilet. And if it weren’t been for increased government spending as a share of gross domestic product, the growth rate would have been negative. Now, here’s the problem with that, though.
From Reuters: “Obamacare Puts a Floor Under US Economy First Time.” They’re reporting it as a great thing, you see? “As the US economy teetered on the brink of contraction in the first quarter, one thing stood out. Health care spending increased at its fastest pace in more than three decades. That surge is attributed to the implementation of [Obama’s] health care law,” and they go on to praise how wonderful all this is.
And again, that’s what’s wrong!
This is total BS.
It’s not good, just like the e-mails I got last night from people. It’s not good. All of this government spending, all of this growing governments spending, all this Obamacare, it’s not good. But here you have Reuters saying (translating), “See how wonderful Obamacare is? Why, it’s even helping grow the economy!”
No, it’s not.
It’s destroying the economy.
It’s putting a ceiling on the economy.
Obamacare and other government spending is putting a ceiling on the economy and limiting how much it can grow. But Reuters’ headline says, “Obamacare Puts a Floor Under US Economy,” treating this as a totally wonderful, great thing. It’s an abomination, and this is how low-information voters gets good news about Obamacare, when it’s nothing good.
This is absolutely a horrible statistic for people who want to improve their standard of living, for people who want to make more money, for people who want to get better jobs. This is horrible news that the real economy where people work, where people improve their standard of living, is shrinking. But that gets reported as good news in the Drive-By Media. It’s an outrage, actually, and it’s insulting.