Well … talk about starting out your Monday with some good news.  Our wonderful tax cheat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has a bit of a warning for Americans … it’s about our economy, and it isn’t something you want to hear.  Talking about the economy on “Meet the Press” yesterday Geithner said that it will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.  “It’s going to feel very hard; harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.”

Well isn’t that just dandy!  Thanks for sharing Timmy!

Geithner also had at his fingertips all of the reasons why we just can’t seem to get an economic recovery going here.  Well, there’s gas prices, of course – and then there’s all that nasty weather we been experiencing.  Pretty much the same nonsense Obama has been spouting. 

Can we play a simple game of connect-the-dots here?  Really … I promise not to tax your minds too heavily this early on a Monday.  Here come the dots:

• For the economy to improve we need jobs.  We need more people working, producing wealth and paying taxes.
• Over 50% of all private sector jobs are with small businesses.
• Over 80% of all new jobs are created by small businesses.
• Small businesses report their income on someone’s personal income tax return.
• A successful small business will report income of over $250,000 a year.
• Obama wants to raise taxes on all people reporting over $250,000 in income.
• Final dot:  Obama is insisting on raising taxes on the very people we are depending on to create jobs and lead us to economic growth. 

Now if you connect those dots you will see that they point straight down … and that’s not the way we want our economy to go. 

Here’s a little factoid about our unemployment levels.  The recession began 38 months ago.  In all previous recessions since WWII employment has risen by an average of 3.7% over that 38-month period; that’s 3.7% above the employment level at the beginning of the recession.  Under Obama employment is now 5% below what it was at the start of the recession.  That’s a swing of almost 9%.  But remember --- it’s all Bush’s fault, and if it’s not Bush’s fault it’s because of the weather and gas prices.  And of course Obama’s moves to pretty much halt all exploration and expanded production on domestic oil sources hasn’t had a thing to do with gas prices. 

But wait a minute!  Leading Democrats seem to have a different point of view.  In the month of June, our economy added just 18,000 jobs.  This is the same month (June 2011) when Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said: ““We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery …”  If Obama owns this supposed economic turnaround, does that mean he also owns this economic slump?  Just to keep up with population growth, our economy needs to be adding 125,000 jobs per month.  If he wants to bring down the unemployment rate, we have to add twice that many jobs – 500,000.  In June, Obama’s economy added just 18,000.  As Newt Gingrich said on Sunday’s “Fox & Friends,” this is the Obama depression.

Even the most politically obtuse Americans have to be figuring this thing out by now.