The Times on Sunday presented a pro-con discussion on Obamacare and the economy.

Democrat Rep. Jim McDermott of Seattle, in defending Obamacare, made some statements that cannot go without response. He is an 11-term member of the House of Representatives whose notable achievement is failure to complete a budget for 2011 with his party in control of the Congress and the presidency.

Rep. McDermott chooses to blame consumers for the economic miseries of today because, "they don't want to spend;" the Republicans, for "not writing a single jobs creating bill" in nine months; and private industry for sitting on $2 trillion in cash.

Not a word from Rep. McDermott concerning any — if there are any — bills he wrote in his 22 years in Congress that would create jobs.

In fact, Obamacare is probably the greatest deterrent to job creation and may be statistically blamed for the present job freeze.

What Rep. McDermott does point out, however, is what happened when the U.S. under President Franklin D. Roosevelt suddenly found out it could not afford the massive expenditures initiated by the president. That lesson is clear today and the Republicans are responding to what FDR taught us. We cannot spend our way out of a recession.

If Rep. McDermott is sincere in his desire to aid job creation, he should pressure his president to unravel the disaster that is the National Labor Relations Board; reverse unreasonable and expensive EPA rules; and seek measures that would permit employers to conduct their business without a staggering load of rules and regulations from government.

Obamacare creates 130 new government agencies and 16,000 new jobs for the IRS. If that is the job creation Rep. McDermott has in mind, I see no change in the current malaise in my lifetime.

Bruce Hallowell
Clarkesville