That sound you hear is the White House’s credibility bubble bursting. CBS reported last week that 74 percent of Americans believe the Obama stimulus either damaged the economy or had no effect.

The wisdom of the crowd turns out to be true.

The White House boasts that the $862 billion Stimulus is performing like a well-oiled machine, ensuring that 3.5 million jobs have been “created or saved” because of it. At $246, 285.71 per job, that’s a hefty claim were it true. Since February of 2009 the U.S. economy lost a net 2.35 million jobs.

What is true is that the administration’s confidence-crushing economic policies are, according to National Federation of Independent Business Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg, “scaring us to death”. What’s happened here is that a White House sorely lacking in private-sector experience has, for almost two years now, been broadcasting a clear message: “Business: beware.”

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Last week, Democrats in Congress rammed through a wildly unpopular healthcare bill before heading out of town to celebrate the accomplishment. As it turns out, not all Americans are celebrating.

In the few short days since, a growing wave of U.S. employers have come forward to denounce the massive new costs, hidden problems and bureaucratic hurdles contained in the recently passed healthcare legislation—costs that will choke off job creation and be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on a wide array of goods and services.

Under one deeply misguided provision in Speaker Pelosi’s health overhaul legislation, for example, companies will face a costly new tax on prescription drug benefits they provide to retired workers. Those benefits ensure high quality drug coverage for retired seniors and spare the taxpayer the full cost of covering these individuals under the Medicare program. Due to the healthcare bill, though, employers will now face massive new costs, while retirees stand to lose their prescription drug coverage.

The legislation hits Illinois particularly hard.

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Failing to purchase “acceptable health insurance coverage” could result in a fine punishable “up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” Those are direct quotes from a letter of analysis done by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a non-partisan analysis committee in Congress.  While that policy may not be one of Nancy Pelosi’s main talking points about her healthcare takeover legislation, it is an undoubtedly destructive portion of her healthcare bill, part of the reason it passed with only two votes to spare.

For months now, we’ve heard about the merits of Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare overhaul. To hear it from Democrats, the healthcare overhaul would be all things to all people, forever solving America’s healthcare woes. So if the Speaker’s plan is so fantastic, why do Democrats need to criminalize Americans to coax them into this plan?

Americans struggle enough already with a historically weak economy, high taxes and the looming burden of having to pay off an enormous federal debt. In Illinois, unemployment is already 10.5%, and Chicago-area residents just endured property tax increases to the tune of 20% in some areas. With this sort of abuse to their bank accounts, the last thing folks need is more taxes – but Pelosi’s plan shovels them on.

The Pelosi healthcare overhaul is a mandate lockdown.

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