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We don’t need more of same

Applications for unemployment benefits were up during the first week of September. Retail sales slumped in August. Manufacturing was down in many areas of the country.

Despite the White House’s touting of statistics chosen very selectively in an attempt to show the U.S. economy is recovering well from the “Great Recession,” it just isn’t true.

A report by the Harvard Business School last week lays the blame squarely on government.

Among factors cited by the Harvard economists were the tax code, the health care system, public schools and too much government regulation. Even as President Barack Obama brags about what his administration has done, most of its actions have been counterproductive.

Harvard analysts also blamed “paralysis in the U.S. political system” for holding the economy back.

In truth, failure by the government to take productive action can be blamed on Obama. Using executive orders, he issues mandates such as those on energy that hurt the economy. When conservatives in Congress suggest positive action, he and liberal lawmakers block it.

It is too late to do anything about the Obama administration, of course. But the Harvard report should raise red flags in front of voters – because Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promises not just more of the same, but an acceleration of job-killing behavior by government. She wants to put more coal miners out of work and close more coal-fired power plants. She pledges more limits on gas production. She wants more, not less, Obamacare. She promises higher taxes, not lower ones.

Clinton, in other words, is just what the doctor did not order.

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