King Barack says: Don,t You Fat Cats Complain About MY Obamacare

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Obama Tells Companies Never To Complain About ObamaCare, Shame On Him

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BY JOHN MERLINE

02/11/2015 05:46 PM ET

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In an interview with a web-based news site called Buzzfeed, President Obama was asked to comment on news that Staples has been warning part-time workers not to clock in more than 25 hours a week because of ObamaCare.

Obama launched into a tirade.

"I haven't looked at Staples stock lately or what the compensation of the CEO is, but I suspect that they could well afford to treat their workers favorably and give them some basic financial security," he said.

Let's leave aside the fact that Staples is providing workers some basic financial security -- in the form of a paycheck.

The issue is how Staples will cope with the high costs of the ObamaCare employer mandate, which went into effect this year. Any worker who puts in more than 30 hours a week is now considered full time, and companies like Staples face a $3,000 fine for each of these former part-timers if they don't offer them "affordable" insurance.

According to Obama, these companies should just suck it up and never, ever complain in public.

"When I hear large corporations that make billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers' wages, shame on them," he said.

But even state and local governments -- which can raise taxes to cover increased costs -- are making the exact same decision as Staples in the face of the hugely expensive employer mandate.

In fact, IBD for some time now has been tracking businesses and government agencies that have publicly blamed ObamaCare for cutbacks in worker hours or jobs.

In Obama's world, government can force companies to raise worker wages, provide paid time off, offer generous health insurance, and other mandated benefits, and they can just pull the extra money out of a hat to pay for it all.

Obama displayed the same level of ignorance about how businesses operate in an earlier interview with Vox.com.

Defending his proposal to increase sharply the capital gains tax, Obama claimed "there's no evidence that would hurt the incentives of folks at Google or Microsoft or Uber not to invent what they invent or not to provide services they provide. It just means that instead of $20 billion, maybe they've got $18, right?"

The problem with high capital gains tax rates, however, is that they distort investment decisions by locking money in established firms to avoid the tax hit while discouraging investment in start-ups, thereby starving capital needed to finance the next Google, Microsoft or Uber.

That's why capital gains tax hikes consistently produce far less revenue than expected, and why cutting the tax rate generates more.

President Obama hasn't spent a single day in the private sector, and has never balanced a budget. Yet he feels qualified to lecture businesses on how they should spend their money.

Follow John Merline on Twitter: @IBD_JMerline.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/021115-738967-obama-scolds-staples-for-telling-its-workers-about-obamacare.htm#ixzz3RYsRNCcn
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