Tag Archives: Jobs

It’s Jobs And The Economy Stupid

I’m not sure that Obama will be able to get from his time fighting inequality as a community organizer in the city of Chicago.  I’m not sure he knows HOW to get away from his time fighting inequality.

But America wants him to focus on fixing the economy and bringing more jobs:

Nearly every major poll indicates that the top issues for voters are jobs and the economy. Making the wealthy pay more in income taxes? Not so much, at least according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll.

An excerpt from Gallup:

“Creating good jobs, reducing corruption in the federal government, and reducing the federal budget deficit score highest when Americans rate 12 issues as priorities for the next president to address. Americans assign much less importance to increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and dealing with environmental concerns.”

In fact, higher taxes for the rich was given the lowest priority of the dozen issues, Gallup reports.

Respondents rated “extremely important” the following issues: “creating good jobs” (48 percent of respondents); “reducing corruption in the federal government” (45 percent); “reducing the federal budget deficit” (44 percent); “dealing with terrorism and other international threats” (42 percent).

After a number of other issues, it jumps down to “dealing with environmental concerns, such as global warming,” (21 percent). The same percentage — 21 percent — cited “increasing taxes on wealthy Americans” as an extremely important issue.

The poll would seem to indicate that the fairness arguments made by President Obama and his campaign aren’t top concerns for voters.

I think this is spot on for two reasons:

  1. People don’t think there is a fairness in taxation issue
  2. In so far as there is, no one really cares.  People compare their wealth to those around them and few see the excesses of the very wealthy.  But what they DO want is to regain some confidence in the job markets.

But that’s probably just me talking, not the folks who support our President:

What’s really striking about the poll results is that not only was this true of voters in the aggregate but of self-identified Obama voters, too.

Among Obama supporters, only 32 percent said raising taxes on the wealthy should be a top priority of the next president. That also put it dead last on the list of 12 issues among that demographic.

Well, maybe America HAS got it right.

Obamacare’s Taxes And The Impact On Jobs

Romney says that he knows why jobs come and why jobs go.  Obama doesn’t.

Barack Obama feels a sense of charity.  And he thinks that government should act on that charity.

Are there people who get sick or hurt and can’t afford their care?  Well, by golly, the government should step in and perform that charity.

But when he realizes that people respond in rational ways, he becomes confused and then angry.  “Why won’t people just DO the right thing?  Why won’t they accept the added burden of Barack’s charity and continue to hire?”

An Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer says it’s scrapping plans to open five new plants in the coming years because of a looming tax tied to President Obama’s health care overhaul law.

Cook Medical claims the tax on medical devices, set to take effect next year, will cost the company roughly $20 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities over the next five years.

“This is the equivalent of about a plant a year that we’re not going to be able to build,” a company spokesman told FoxNews.com.

He said the original plan was to build factories in “hard-pressed” Midwestern communities, each employing up to 300 people. But those factories cost roughly the same amount as the projected cost of the new tax.

“In reality, we’re not looking at the U.S. to build factories anymore as long as this tax is in place. We can’t, to be competitive,” he said.

This is why companies move jobs overseas.  The government forces the price of labor to the point that such labor isn’t competitive.

By the way, to answer the question above, “Why won’t they accept the added burden of Barack’s charity and continue to hire?”  I suspect that he would say that they are greedy.

March Jobs: Headline Oops

From my local news source, the AP announced:

Fourth straight month of strong US hiring expected

This was announced at 06:58 AM this morning.

Then, reality:

US economy adds 120K jobs, jobless rate at 8.2 pct

I sure do hope the economy continues to recover.  I say this knowing that it will buoy an Obama election effort, however, it’s time for the uncertainly in the nation’s economy to shift to robust growth.

With that said, I am not sure this current recovery will be either long lived or robust.

When They Say “The Do Nothing Congress” Remember They Are Talking About Democrats

The price of gas is goin’ nuts.  Jobs are only barely beginning to come back.  We need help in both arenas.  We need more and more stable sources of oil.  We need to reduce the amount of oil that we obtain from unstable sources and increase the amount of oil that we obtain from stable ones.

We need to rely on Canada, on Mexico.  We need to rely more on ourselves.

And when we can accomplish that with the added benefit of creating jobs, all the better.

But the DNC won’t allow it.

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Government Regulations: Preventing Job Growth

Most likely since regulations “began”, there have been folks that feel we need more of ’em; we can’t sell rotten meat you know.  And there have folks that would have fewer of them; no one would buy rotten meat you know.  My position certainly falls nearer the “fewer are better” side of the ledger.

However, I will admit that there is a line.  Independent of what side of the “regulation debate” you come from, an earnest party to such a debate must realize that a couple of things:

  1. There is an extreme position.  On BOTH sides.  That is, there is an extreme amount OF regulation and an extreme LACK of regulation.
  2. There comes a point when one must admit he is approaching that line.

So, I get the point that taken to far, my position could become an extreme one, and unsustainable.  I happen to think that’s the “feature” of the way in which we build our laws; no one person gets to decide.  However, be that as it may, the point this morning isn’t to try and debate whether certain regulation is too much or too little, rather, it’s to point out the impact of regulations once applied.

Consider, for example, a recent letter from the EEOC, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, regarding the requirement of a high school diploma for employment:

The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.

Employers could run afoul of the ADA if their requirement of a high school diploma “‘screens out’ an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of ‘disability,’” the EEOC explained.

Independent of whether or not one agrees with this direction from the EEOC, that is, not being within the rights to require a high school diploma for employment, the fact remains unequivocal:

The “regulation” will result in fewer jobs.  Employers hiring for low skilled or entry level positions will be that much more leery of facing a discrimination lawsuit than they may otherwise have prior.  And THAT will result in some of them delaying or outright canceling of a job opening.

The result of very well intention and noble altruism is that the new law, rule or regulation will cause more harm to and discriminate against the very target population that it was meant to assist.  This is true in exactly the same way and measure as minimum wage laws harming the very people it attempts to help.

Tale of Two Senate Jobs Bills

There’s been a lot of talk about the lack of a jobs bill to come out of Washington.  In the campaign of 2010, the mantra of “jobs, jobs, jobs” was heard from The Coast of Carolina to the coast of California.  Of course, we know how that election worked out.

Horribly for the Democrats.

Since then, any legislation by the Republican House that doesn’t deal directly with “jobs, jobs, jobs” has been derided by the Left as some sort of betrayal to the people.

Wanna pass a bill that talks about abortion?  Wanna discuss legislation that speaks to immigration?  All impossible under the chorus of mockery from the Left claiming that the Republicans haven’t passed a single jobs bill.

The Speaker of the House disagrees that his chamber has been silent:

 House Republicans have worked throughout the year to implement the Pledge to America, our governing agenda focused on removing government barriers to private-sector job creation, and later this year built on the Pledge by putting forth an expanded jobs agenda, our Plan for America’s Job Creators.  Our new majority has passed more than a dozen pro-growth measures to address the jobs crisis. Aside from repeal of the 1099 reporting requirement in the health care law, however, none of the jobs measures passed by the House to date have been taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate.  

None have been taken up in the Senate.  More than a dozen bills.  None taken up in the Senate.

Zero.

Very hard to blame the Republicans for the Democrats refusal even to consider such bills.  Much ado has been made about the Republicans use of the filibuster, but let’s not forget that the Democrats control the Senate.  And as such, only bring up legislation that they want to consider; a built in filibuster.

However, even with all of that aside, last night was illustrative:

Thursday night, there were a couple Democratic defections on Obama’s jobs measure. And despite a veto threat from the White House, 10 Democrats voted for a GOP alternative.’

The Democrats brought up a jobs bill in the Senate.

It was defeated 50-50.

Then the Republicans brought up a jobs bill.  Every single Republican voted for it.  AND 10 Democrats joined ’em.

It was defeated, 57-43, due to Democrat obstruction.

I find it fascinating that the Republicans garnered more bi-partisan support for a jobs bill in a Democrat Senate than the Democrat President was able to muster.

A tale of two jobs bills indeed.

Taxes and Jobs

I posted this just about one year ago:

Students Demanding That We Tax The Rich

The great debate of the day is The Compromise™. Or rather, what we’re gonna do about taxes on the rich. Obama ran on it for two years beginning in 2006. Liberals believed; believed either that he WOULD let the Bush Tax Cuts expire or that he COULD let the Bush Tax Cuts expire.*

And he didn’t.

He neither could nor would. And the great debate rages.

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The President’s Jobs Speech

Last night the President gave a speech.  In it, he described what his plan to help our economy is.  In my opinion, he needed to accomplish several critical items.

  • The speech would HAVE to represent something new.

The nation has grown weary of the same language and same ideas that this administration has pout forth to date.  What Obama is sellin’, no one is buyin’.  No one believes that spending more and more money that we don’t have on programs like roads-bridges, schools and hospitals is the answer to our nation’s problems.  I think that we knew this back when.  Back when Obama first recommended this strategy.  We simultaneously knew AND hoped.  It’s why none of us are very surprised that we are today where we were 3 years ago.

  • The speech would HAVE to create the feeling that the administration was willing to compromise with the Republicans.

Since the day he’s taken office, think “The Office Of The President Elect” bullshit, Obama has made it clear that he will do it his way.  He’s commented that “I won” during negotiations.  His actions, and quite frankly his naiveté, have demonstrated that if he only uses more words and passion, he’ll succeed in swaying his opposition.  Personally I suspect that this is what him positions of prestige in the worlds in which he has lived.  In the Halls of Ivy I feel that rhetoric and Grand Ideals are the coin of the realm.  Not actions and results.

Thoughts, not measurable metrics, are what these men trade on.

  • The speech would HAVE to energize America and Americans.

It didn’t.  It was a yawner.  Everything from the “Pass it Right Away” nonsense to the worn out “pay their fair share” nonsense, the feeling was an overwhelming, “been there, done that” take away.  This didn’t move the soul.  This speech didn’t reach into the heavens and grab you just right there.  This speech was more of a lecture.  Something that you wanted to be over, not hear more of.

For the first time, Obama’s skill in oration failed him.  If I didn’t know better, it was as if even he didn’t believe it.

Rather than be any of these things, it was none of them.  He didn’t present anything new, bi-partisan or energizing.  You could have taken random 35 second clips from any of his other speeches, strung ’em together for 34 minutes and done just as well – even better.  At least during those speeches, Obama himself believed what he was saying.

The facts are this:

  1. Government trades in power.  No government can invest appropriately because too many people owe other people money and favors.  True free acts of investment can not be made.
  2. Government doesn’t earn anything.  If the government would like to invest in segment A of the economy, it must first confiscate from segment B of the economy.  And it sucks at even that.  It’s less than a 1 – 1 shift.
  3. The wealthy pay more than their “fair share”.  The wealthy pay more of a share of the tax than they earn as a share of the income.  In fact, there are net “earners” of the Federal Income Tax system.
  4. We already allocate money for roads and bridges.  We tax such things as we think are necessary to care for repairs and new build outs.  Why we need to allocate NEW money for the is beyond me.
  5. It is not the role of the Federal Government to build schools.  THAT is the role of the individual school boards.

This speech failed.  It failed to provide new ideas, failed to provide any hope of bi-partisan agreement and it failed to energize even the giver of the speech.

I’ll leave you with this detail.  Obama implored lawmakers to “pass it right away”.  Yet he couldn’t be bothered to present anyone with the bill itself, saying only that he would deliver something a week from Monday.

Indeed.

Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better…

Wait – wait.  That’s not how that goes.  Not at all.

However, for this purpose, it provides an interesting illustration.

For example, consider two bills:

One:

Raleigh, N.C. — Businesses, cities and counties in North Carolina are going to have to start checking the immigration status of new hires.

Gov. Beverly Perdue on Thursday signed into law a bill directing employers to use the federal government’s E-Verify system to prevent illegal immigrants from landing jobs. The legislation makes exceptions for companies that employ fewer than 25 people or which use seasonal workers.

Then, the other:

Two:

Gov. Bev Perdue has vetoed a controversial proposal to require voters to show photo ID at the polls.

Her statement:

“The right to choose our leaders is among the most precious freedoms we have – both as Americans and North Carolinians. North Carolinians who are eligible to vote have a constitutionally guaranteed right to cast their ballots, and no one should put up obstacles to citizens exercising that right.

Get that?

If you are a business and wanna  hire someone, you have to check and verify valid ID and legal status.

If you are a government and wanna protect the right that thousands have died to protect – not so ‘effin much.

The way of the Leftist ya’ll, the way of the Leftist.

The Logical End

I am shamelessly lifting this AWESOME cartoon from Mr. Mitchell, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.