Charlie Gasparino
Things are finally looking up for the U.S. economy:
A growing pool of evidence points to much higher economic growth and even higher stock prices next year. The causes go well beyond low interest rates, higher capital levels at banks or even the latest pickup in retail sales.
It's always risky to predict economic gains with the community-organizer-in-chief still in the White House and businesses grappling with his "signature achievement," ObamaCare. The new Congress also could fail to live up to vows to cut spending -- cuts we need if the markets and the economy are to improve beyond current predictions.
But if incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and his allies do half of what they're promising, even a pessimist like myself has to concede that the positive signs for the economy and the markets clearly outweigh the negatives for the economy and the markets in 2011. Consider:
No tax hikes: Obamanomics was predicated in large part on raising taxes on the "rich," affluent, even if most of those taxpayers aren't so affluent (consider a family of four earning $250,000 in New York City) and are small businesses who hire a lot of people and investors who put money to work in the markets.
Obama's shrinking job security: In cutting the tax deal, the president vowed to raise taxes rates on families earning $250,000 and above in two years, just when he's set to seek re-election. In other words, with polls showing the country shifting to the right on economic matters -- less spending and fewer taxes -- Obama in 2012 is going to stick to his higher-taxes guns, as well as defending his heath-care boondoggle, the largest expansion in government in decades.
ObamaCare unraveling: Businesses across the country are celebrating Monday's ruling from a federal judge that a key aspect of the health-care law is unconstitutional.
Spending cuts ahead: Even if Paul Ryan turns out to be full of it, and the Tea Partiers immediately "go native" in Washington, the bond markets will all but force big spending cuts next year.