Norquist: Obama Stimulus Hampers Recovery

While the Obama administration blames the weak economic recovery and sluggish hiring on the financial crisis, the administration’s own stimulus program represents the culprit, says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

“Obama’s stimulus, multiple jobs bills, and massive new regulations on financial markets, housing, health care, credit cards, and energy have created chaos in America’s labor market,” Norquist and John Lott write for Politico.

The pair reccently co-authored the book, “Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future.”

The stimulus spending has simply taken money out of some Americans’ pockets to put it into others, the duo say.

“Spending almost $1 trillion on various stimulus projects means moving around a lot of resources and jobs,” they write. “The new regulations are having a similar effect. And people don’t instantly move from one job to another. All these interventions temporarily increased unemployment and delayed the recovery.”

While the White House has adopted any number of explanations for the economy’s torpor, it has never addressed the key question, Norquist and Lott say. “Why did countries that didn’t follow Keynesian policies, such as Canada and Germany, fare so much better than the U.S.?”