Obamacare is up and running and beating expectations, but you wouldn’t know if you listened to Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachman. Before it got past it’s first hurdle of signing up the expected amount of people Michelle and company were crying Obamacare Death Panels would kill people and that people weren’t going to buy into it at all. Ah, but that didn’t happen. People signed up by the droves and when all the numbers are counted in the 20 some states that had the good sense to do the exchanges there is likely to be between 20 and 30 million people now covered that weren’t covered last year.

Ah and what happened to the Death Panel dirges from Michelle and gang? They suddenly quit shouting that tired old bromide that wasn’t in the least true. Now they are crying Obamacare is a job killer! A new tact. When Obama signed the Affordable Health Care Act into law in 2010 that was the first month of a job growth that has lasted now for 49 months and created over 5 million new jobs. Those are facts not Michelle Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, Paul Ryan made up stories. You can fact check that and find that it is real and true. Try fact checking Death Panels and see what you get.

I know since I am a progressive I must not know what I am talking about but let’s look at facts that can be verified, during the 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency the economy tanked and over 600,000 private sector jobs were lost. That’s an indisputable fact. Whose the job killer here? Please show me some facts you guys and gals out there that claim we lefties spew forth without the benefit of facts. Ah, what’s that you say you can’t? Why did I know that to be true? Because you all get most of your facts from web sites that present half-truths and out right falsehoods as facts and if you try to verify you can’t because there is no real facts to back up the claims.

Job growth has been slow under Obama, but under Dubya it was non existent. Romney, Ryan and Rush railed against the bailout of the auto industry when Obama stepped up and got congress to do the right thing. Now the American auto industry is competing well against the foreign market. The three major American automakers are opening new plants and hiring more workers for their current plants. Job killer how is that a job killer?

And don’t get me started on the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is supported by over 73% of the American public, even Republicans by a 54% margin supports it and thinks it is something that needs to be. After President Obama signed the executive order requiring companies contracting with the government to pay workers a minimum wage of $10.10 per hour state after state is following suit. City after city is following suit and taking steps to raise the minimum wage. Is that a job killer? All the empirical evidence from past minimum wage increases say no.

And minimum wage workers are not mostly teenagers and college students, in fact the statistics show that most minimum wage workers are well into their 30’s far past high school age and college age. Most are workers who are struggling to put food on their tables so they can feed their families. And to dis them as not trying hard enough is to not know or care how they got in the situation they are now in.

When wages have been stagnating for over 30 years and when the economy crashes as it did in 2008 that simply means that a lot of workers got caught in the crunch and lost jobs that were paying them a fair and living wage. Jobs that aren’t coming back at the same rate as they disappeared. These workers aren’t lazy or greedy or shiftless they are caught in situations not of their choosing and not of their doing. Anyone who thinks that should look up to heaven and say there but for the grace of God go I.

Blaming low wage and minimum wage workers for a economy created by Wall Street high flyers who were greedy and careless is patently wrong and stupid. And to say if the minimum wage is raised it will hurt small businesses does not fit with the facts. In the past when the minimum wage has been increased small businesses have benefited and grown. Minimum wage increases puts millions upon millions of dollars back into the economy because minimum wage workers buy things they need and couldn’t purchase before. That’s a benefit to small businesses much more than it is to large ones.

And here’s another fact from us lefties. I love that word, especially since I am right-handed. Small businesses almost always increase sales when the minimum wage is raised. And the boost to the economy creates more opportunities for new start-ups in small businesses. In a growing economy where more people have more purchasing power more goods are needed and that spells job creation and gives impetus to individuals to start their own small business. Duh!

Job Killer? Obamacare isn’t a job killer and neither is raising the minimum wage they are ways that people who are mired in the throes of poverty to get a helping hand and a new start so that they can raise themselves out of poverty and help rebuild the Middle Class that Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachman have tried so hard to do away with!

Bob Bearden