West`s Weekly Wrap-Up May 7

West`s Weekly Wrap-Up May 7

Here are some simple, yet disturbing factoids:
- We have the lowest workforce participation rate in the past 31 years, right at 64%.
- If  the underemployed and those who have dropped out of the workforce are included, unemployment in America is close to 14.5%.
- We have the longest running rate of unemployment at or above 8% since the Great Depression.
 - At this time in President Ronald Reagan’s first term he produced 363,000 jobs per month (April 1984) as opposed to President Barack Obama’s dismal 115,000 (April 2012).   
- GDP growth is an abysmal 2.2% in the previous quarter (Jan-Mar 2012), coming off  2011 GDP quarterly numbers of 0.4%, 1.0%, 1.3%, and 3.0%. President Reagan’s economy was clipping along at 6% GDP at this same time.

- According to President Obama’s economic advisors, the stimulus bill was supposed to have resulted in unemployment at 6% at this time.
 
- We now have the highest corporate/business tax rate in the world, 39.6%.

- According to a survey from the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), only 8% of small businesses are looking to grow and expand in the next year.
-  In three and a half years President Obama has incurred more debt, over $5 trillion, than all presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined.  The President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget would increase the debt by another $10 trillion. What’s more, 47% of our debt is held by foreign nations, 28% by China. The Federal Reserve holds the greatest percentage of our debt.  This is horrible monetary policy.
- Since inauguration day in 2009, gasoline prices in America have gone from $1.84 to $3.89, close to a 112% increase.

West calls a spade a spade. 

Where is the rest of Congress?