The number of jobs created in June was 80,000. Economists say we need 160,000 just to stay even with population growth.

The president touts the numbers as positive, and the media go right along with him.

What they don’t tell you is for the month of June, the country also added 85,000 to the roles of Social Security Disability; very troubling numbers, to say the least. Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits can, and often does, disable a person to the point where they can live on the government dole for the rest of their lives.

The amount of welfare recipients has increased to over 70 percent in the last three years. We were told a trillion dollars of stimulus money would create shovel-ready jobs and not allow the unemployment rate to go above 8 percent from the 6.0 percent it was in 2008.

It has not been below 8 percent since Barack Obama and his minions say the Bush tax rates got us into this mess. If that’s so, then why did he praise the two-year extension of them in 2010? Now he says that he wants to extend them for another year, but not for anyone making more than $250,000 per year.

Remember, the top 10 percent of wage earners pay 70 percent of all income taxes, according to the IRS and the tax policy center. Forty-nine percent of the population pays no income taxes. Why can’t all pay some instead of some paying all? The free ride must stop.

Scott LaPlante
Sidney