The Journal & Courier has an editorial that is understandable, but, I think, a little wishy-washy. It concludes:
So the task before Congress and the president is to find revenue that can be diverted to job creation or devise incentives to entice businesses to hire more workers.
Driving taxpayers deeper in debt, however, should be avoided, given the nation’s current financial commitments.
I’ll pretend to be a historian and sociologist for a moment. The received wisdom is that World War II got us out of the Great Depression. I think it did so because the existential threat of the Nazis and the Empire of Japan allowed us to forget our misgivings about deficit spending and let the government spend itself silly. After all, nobody ever wonders whether the good folks of Nanking stiffed their creditors after the Imperial Japanese Army came rolling through.
And, it’s not as if all of our spending during the World War II period was targeted at creating jobs. We were quite literally taking our investment of labor and money, turned into bombs and ammunition, and setting it on fire. But, the war got things moving again. The trick – and it is a trick – is that when the war stopped, we were able to stop spending as much. I think we need to spend in a way that puts as many people to work as possible and puts money in as many pockets as possible (e.g., writing a gazillion dollar check to a couple of bankers isn’t going to trickle down and do much good).
The editorial doesn’t offer any meaningful suggestions as to which government programs are supposed to be cut or reduced in favor of “job creation” spending such that enough money goes in a direction that gets the economy humming. I think this approach would probably fall under the heading “too little, too late.”
. There’s a significant cultural disdain directed toward Obama,so Republicans can get solid media support for anything that makes him look bad.Wall street types jump on anything,and so do the culture conservatives,who just dont want anybody ‘like Obama’ calling the shots.
My disappointment is that I wish Obama were the liberal activist he is being protrayed ! And when is the liberal media ever going to wield the influence they are accused of ? Even Rahm E. is tired of Obama’s failed ‘idealism’.
Cut taxes for the rich so they don’t suffer undue loss and then wait for the Wal-Mart retail workers types to go back to work and start feeding from the bottom up, that hungry profit machine again..That’s still ‘the free market solution’ even when we have this so-called ‘failed liberal administration’ which hasnt accomplished much ‘liberal stuff’ yet.
I really don’t see how the government can create a sustainable job. The government gets money from taxes, taxes come from people’s wages. If people’s wages come from the government, we end up in a feedback loop that causes our debt to continue to increase. Government created jobs is a ponzi scheme.
I’m NOT a “free market cures all” guy. However, I think the best thing that the lawmakers can do it just make sure there are decent ground rules to prevent abuse and allow the companies to succeed and fail.
Stupid question on the deficit:
Why can’t Congress just demand that every department cut their costs by 40%? Allow each group to decide what the best way to do that is. Everything, from social security to defense?
If we don’t do it ourselves now, 40% will sound like an easy number later.
Ive figured out that cutting expense,wheter in the private sector or in government,invariably means getting rid of salary,and salary is people.
So I may be wrong,but I think government never actually is cut.That is, it’s expected to keep doing everything theyve been doing,but with fewer people are working it takes longer. The obvious exception would be more efficient electronic record keeping ands co-ordination to avoid duplication. So Obama was rgith to have emdica
I think rolling back the recent minimum wage increase would help employment on the low end, and let more people get into ‘starter jobs’.
I’m curious how none of the mainstream articles I’ve seen on youth unemployment rates mention minimum wage as even a possible factor – is this some kind of ‘third rail’, now?
IMHO, the two preceding comments have an idea in common. Once the government authorizes an expenditure, handout, benefit, minimum salary or entitlement, it is nearly impossible to take it back.
This is one reason why I didn’t understand why Congress did not do more to help lower the ever-increasing cost of health care before we made such a drastic entitlement. Many ideas have been put forth on this idea (tort-reform being one of them), but they were all ignored.
The elephant in the room, so to speak, is that in todays day and age everybody seems to simply accept the notion that it is the governments job to create jobs.
It’s not.
I don’t know. Government is a tool. Sometimes, it’s the right tool for creating jobs — or at least the only tool available. When the system is humming along, it’s an inferior tool; but when the tool box has been locked up without a key, it might be what you need to bust the lock and get to the good tools.
“. . . but when the tool box has been locked up without a key, it might be what you need to bust the lock and get to the good tools.”
In the immortal words of the Sundance Kid, “Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”
Hah!