Where Are the Jobs?
The Washington Post's "Mega-Jobs" section, ballyhooed all week in radio ads and placards, turns out to be a pathetic six pages of classifieds. Not a great indication of recovery. At his December jobs summit, the president said, "I want to hear from CEOs about what's holding back our business investment and how we can increase confidence and spur hiring." Since then, and most recently in his Saturday radio address, he has promised to focus relentlessly on jobs.
But he refuses to take a serious look at the burdens he and his administration are placing on job creation. American businesses already face the highest corporate tax rate in the OECD. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says her agency will seek to enact 90 rules and regulations this year to give more power to unions, and President Obama is appointing NLRB members who have said that that the NLRB could enact "card check" without congressional authorization. If Congress resists expensive "cap and trade" regulation, the EPA has announced that it can impose even costlier regulations on its own. The media blitz about state and local fiscal crises has employers worried that states will raise taxes and/or that the federal government will spend more to bail them out. The "health insurance excise tax" looks like a tax on hiring, especially for the biggest companies. Beyond any of these specific concerns is the general impact of uncertainty -- employers and investors don't know what might be coming down the pike, but none of the prospects look like making it cheaper or more profitable to hire new workers.
And in response to all this, the only idea President Obama and congressional Democrats put forward is to spend more money. There may be arguments for Keynesian stimulus. But it's hard to imagine that the economy will benefit from a deficit larger than the currently projected $1.5 trillion, which is already a trillion dollars more than any previous deficit except for 2009. If $3 trillion in deficits in two years hasn't stimulated the economy, it might be time to think about different strategies -- like lifting the burdens on entrepreneurship, investment, and job creation.
Cross-posted at Politico Arena.
