Where is Democrat Support for Obama's Jobs Bill? - Granite Grok

Where is Democrat Support for Obama’s Jobs Bill?

Three weeks ago President Obama told Congress and the American people  it was essential to “pass this jobs plan right away“.  Since then he has  crisscrossed the country promoting his plan and suggesting that Republicans don’t want to create American jobs.  That is a lie.
       
Out of about 250 Congressional Democrats only Senator Reid has  sponsored the President’s jobs bill, no Congressman has sponsored it.  After publicly calling for a quick vote on the jobs bill, Senator Reid has quietly  delayed the vote.  Apparently many Democrats oppose the President’s bill.

The President’s jobs bill is just more of the same.  President Obama says he needs money for infrastructure repairs, but the $870 billion stimulus package was supposed to do these.  Do you have any idea what can be done with $870 billion?  At about $1,000,000 per mile you could repair almost one million miles of American roads (almost all the paved roads in the country!).  Using wikipedia numbers, you could build the whole interstate highway system, TWICE!  Or, you could repair every structurally deficient bridge ($50B) plus address other serious bridge concerns ($91B) plus repair over 600,000 miles of American roads.  If President Obama won’t address the critical infrastructure problems with $870 billion, why believe he will do it with $455 billion more?          

Apparently much of the $870 billion went elsewhere (some TBD).  Some encouraged bloated state spending, creating over-spending problems like we had in New Hampshire.  Some went to protect the investments of Obama supporters in companies like Solyndra that can’t prosper without subsidies.  Several similar “investments” have just been rushed through under the deadline, I wonder how many more rich people these will subsidize at taxpayer expense?  The important question is what did we get for $870 billion?  There appears to be little of lasting value, but the $870B debt is forever.       

Unless American companies can offer better, cheaper, or otherwise more desirable goods or services, they lose business to foreign competitors.  The more business we lose to foreign competitors, the more good paying American jobs go away.       

Unfortunately since WWII the American government has been creating conditions that make American companies less competitive, causing the loss of millions of good American jobs.  These conditions include taxation,  regulation, regulatory delays, labor requirements, litigation exposures, etc.    President Obama has not only aggressively increased the burden of these on American business, but he has created great uncertainty about the impact of future changes.  For example, what business can hire when the cost of Obamacare regulations, which are still being written, are unpredictable?   (Maybe $500, $5000, $15,000 or more per employee?)    

And, with trillion dollar deficits, the amount of money available for seed capital is limited, this stymies Americas biggest job creators, small businesses.  

If President Obama really wanted to create jobs, his jobs bill would address the things that actually kill jobs: oppressive regulations, high taxation, uncertainty, and enormous deficits that soak up investment money.  

We should reduce our corporate tax rate which is one of the highest in the world.  (Even eliminating all corporate taxes ($300B) this year would cost less than the President’s jobs bill ($455B).)  Perhaps more importantly, we must reduce the stranglehold that the EPA, OSHA, NLRB, DoE, DoA, and a myriad of other agencies have on American businesses.  Regulations cost more than $1.7 trillion annually making American businesses less competitive and driving jobs overseas.  Rather than borrowing more money for the President’s plan, real spending cuts would help free up seed money  for job creating investments.    

A real jobs plan would create an environment that encourages investment in America, but the President’s job plan doesn’t do this.  The President’s plan empowers the administration to pick winners and losers, which government does poorly, and to dispense money to political supporters.  The President apparently believes he can convince the gullible, the economically ignorant,  the envious, and of course the beneficiaries that his plan, despite previous experience, would be beneficial.    
       
The President’s plan will just waste more taxpayer money, destroy more jobs, weaken our country, and make the lives of current and future Americans poorer and more difficult.  The President’s plan deserves the poor reception it is getting from many Congressional Democrats.  Many Democrats, Republicans and Independents recognize this plan for what it is, a desperate attempt by a failing President to save the only job that matters to him, his own job.   
         
Don Ewing
Meredith 

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