Clinton line points to Romney

“It’s the economy,” a phrase made famous by Bill Clinton when running for president. He was right then, and he is right now.

According to the government’s latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report, there are 23.2 million Americans unemployed. That is a whopping 15 percent unemployment of the U.S. labor force of 155.1 million workers. That number includes 12.1 million short-term, 8.6 million partial (involuntary part-time) and 2.5 million long-term (discouraged) workers. Involuntary part-time unemployment increased 600,000 in August alone, an ominous sign for 2012.

All this unemployment despite a 60 percent increase in our national debt in the last four years to $16 trillion total owed to China and others.

With small-business workers providing the bulk of national payroll taxes to run the government, it is alarming that according to the latest Hartford Financial study, 66 percent of business owners are pessimistic when it comes to the national economy in 2013. Almost 70 percent of those 2,000 respondents say they do not plan to hire workers in 2013, mostly because of high costs and regulations.

We need to get small businesses hiring again.

Time is short, so I am voting for Mitt Romney for president, and for other fiscal conservatives.

Dennis Horlacher

Spokane