I have the feeling the President really isn’t being completely forthright with this statement:
“We are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work,” Obama said.
There are a couple reasons I say that.
First, he hasn’t really put anyone back to work. The “jobs saved or created” numbers his administration has been touting as a result of the Stimulus bill are either wildly wrong or clearly fraudulent. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is two percent over his own economic teams’ worst forecast and may end up hitting 12 percent before we’re done. Meanwhile, the economy is repelling jobs like an oliphaunt throws off Rohirrim horsemen.
Second, the President has heard ideas to get jobs back into the economy, but he’s ignored them. Indeed, his twin goals to pass government-controlled health care and cap and trade legislation pretty much guarantee that small businesses (you know, the real job engines) won’t be hiring people anytime in the near future. Businessmen have no real idea at all how much each new employee they hire today will cost them tomorrow. The money that could be putting people to work has been scared out of the job market. Instead of freeing small business money for hiring and raises, the President and his Democratic keystone Kops in Congress have been consistently vilifying the people who drive the American employment market.
If Barack Obama was truly serious about turning the economy around, he’d spend every free minute getting the education in free market economies that he should have gotten when he was younger but didn’t because he never spent any real time earning a paycheck. I suggest he send one of his minions out to pick up this Thomas Sowell book
(via Don Irvine at AIM)
UPDATE: Should we just call them “jobs invented or dreamed-up”? (via @seanhackbarth)
Tags: Economics, President Barack Obama
