This week the House of Representatives passed a bill instructively titled "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." Neither platitudes nor hypocrisy are new in Washington, but the "job-killing" rhetoric has reached overkill. In recent weeks, the "job-killing" bromide has been tacked to the front of government spending, stimulus, tax hikes, deficits, and government regulation. Thoughtful discourse has given way to meaningless and misleading talking points, with many policymakers simply ignoring economic theory and analysis. The irony is that many of the conservatives raving about "job-killing" legislation have repeatedly stood in the way of job-saving economic stimulus and instead proposed spending cuts that would result in steep job loss.
For all its misuse, the job-killing rhetoric underscores a very real anxiety felt by the American people: that there aren't enough jobs. If unemployment were down around 5%, the "job-killing" accusations would hold little traction. Instead, employment remains 5.2% below pre-recession levels, and the unemployment rate has been stuck above 9% for twenty months.
So what were the "job killers" that got us here? Look to the financial crisis and the Great Recession, which lowered private-sector employment by 8.5 million, peak to trough. Better oversight of Wall Street could have averted much of the economic pain inflicted, but that didn't prevent many of the "job-killing" firebrands from opposing financial reform legislation that will hopefully prevent more devastating financial meltdowns. Patchy financial regulation risks recessions and job loss.
To stop the economic free fall, Congress enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Recovery Act was first opposed and then decried a failure by conservatives, but the only failure was their inability to look at objective analysis. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the Recovery Act increased employment by up to 3.6 million jobs and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 2.0 percentage points by the third quarter of 2010. Alternatively, economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi estimate that without the aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus used to combat the downturn, payroll employment would have been roughly 8.5 million jobs less than it was in 2010, and the economy could have slumped into depression. These stimulus policies saved millions of jobs, and accelerated job creation would not have been possible without widening the budget deficit. In times of depressed economic activity, deficit-financed fiscal stimulus unequivocally saves and creates jobs.
For all the talk about "job-killing" legislation, it's conservative policymaker's own economic proposals that would cost millions of jobs and jeopardize the economic recovery.
This week's symbolic vote for repealing health care reform belies any genuine concern about job creation. Health care reform is expected to slow the growth of insurance premiums and employers' benefit costs, making it easier for managers to hire new employees. Research by David Cutler and Neeraj Sood shows that slowing health care cost growth by the amount expected from health care reform will actually boost employment by 250,000 to 400,000 jobs a year. Separately, CBO estimates that repealing health care reform would add $230 billion to deficits over the next decade; larger savings on the order of half a percentage point of GDP would be forgone in the following decade. Speaker Boehner recently brushed aside this politically inconvenient budget assessment, remarking that the CBO is "entitled to their own opinion," demonstrating a total disregard for objective analysis. Health care reform is not a job killer, and expanding insurance coverage to 32 million Americans will unquestionably be a life saver.
Another symbolic cornerstone of conservative economic policy is the pledge to cut back discretionary spending by roughly $100 billion (exempting favored agencies such as the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security). Draconian cuts to the non-security discretionary budget (on the order of 22% for next fiscal year) would result in upwards of a million job loss and counteract much of the expected economic boost from the recent tax compromise. Slashing public investments in transportation, education, and basic scientific research will irrefutably decrease employment and erode long-term economic competitiveness.
Aside from the perennial calls for tax cuts for the wealthy, there is little appetite for actual job creation measures among conservative legislators. Trickle-down, supply-side snake oil was tried and failed; the Bush-era tax cuts presided over the worst post-war economic expansion in terms of economic growth, investment, employment, wages and salaries, and labor participation. The tax compromise--which extended the Bush tax cuts and some provisions of the Recovery Act--will turn the dial on employment in the right direction, but revised forecasts still show years of high unemployment and that more stimulus is needed. As for job-killing tax hikes, the biggest threat posed to employment was when Senate Republicans filibustered permanent middle-class tax relief.
On the other hand, we have seen conservatives attempt to rescind unobligated Recovery Act funds, scuttle continuation of unemployment insurance, and block funds to keep teachers in the classroom. Like proposals to slash the nonsecurity discretionary budget, these actions would weaken the economic recovery and put more Americans out of work.
Slapping the label "job-killer" onto a piece of legislation won't ease the crisis in the labor market. Any policymaker who cares about putting Americans back to work would support the Recovery Act, push for more fiscal stimulus, and defend public investments in the nonsecurity discretionary budget. It's time to turn the legislative agenda from obstructionist theatrics to proactive job creation.
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Ever think of taking off the gloves?
Increasing unemployment is supposed to create a desperate work force that will work harder, longer hours for less pay. Listening to the rhetoric emanating from corporate offices should convince anyone that’s where we are at. The added value employers get from their workers would in more normal times be shared with customers as lower prices, in the spirit of competition. But that’s not happening! The extra value is showing up either on the corporate bottom line or is going to its executive corps in the form of bonuses.
This is a no-win strategy inasmuch as most of America’s consumer base is made up of workers who in effect have had their ability to participate in the economy either diminished or completely destroyed.
They are a bit like farmers who toss their seeds into the fields and wait for a bumper crop but are too busy to till or irrigate their fields, much less manage pests. Is it any wonder that all they have to offer us is a harvest of weeds?
One is through regulation and tax policy- if the goal is for private sector to invest in capital and labor, there needs to be an economic incentive to spend/invest rather than hoard. Hence, tax cuts for the wealthy coupled with policy and loopholes that allow outsourcing is 'job killing. we should incentivize job creation on a meaningful scale through credits and corporate tax reform.
The other way government creates jobs is through spending. an enormous amount of spending goes to the private for profit and nonprofit sectors. the purpose of this spending isnt just for job creation. it is to pay for social and public goods- health care, housing, environmental quality and public health (clean air and clean drinking water), public safety, etc.). when done correctly, this spending results in improving our social and physical infrastructure and results in jobs.
since Obama's inaugurations, my company's workforce has increased by 15%. most work to provide tech assistance to low income rural communities have safe drinking water. other hires relate to housing counseling to provide free foreclosure counseling and on homelessness prevention and diversion. and this is just one example.
in terms of health care , it is a fact that the health care industry is one of the only sectors showing major private sector job growth. a coincidence? i think not.
Sure you get phony jobs in the short run; but "re-distributing" and printing money is NOT a long-term source of growth or jobs, and you know it.
REAL jobs come from individuals in the private sector; creating new products, goods and services that people will buy, and getting revenues to cover expenses.
Your "safe drinking water" jobs last as long as the government's hands in my middle schooler's national credit card pockets lasts to fund it; but the government has to pay for it by sucking off the blood of the private sector.
You may have a sweet niche piggy-backing off the government parasite; but that's NOT a prescription for the economy as a whole to grow; but rather, to shrink as it has the past two years.
When governments take on the job creation role, they must take money from elsewhere (or borrow it) to pay for that employment. For the past several decades this has occurred with the non productive employment approaching 33% of the total workforce, a number that is arguably too high to support in terms of salaries and benefits.
The near term result is likely to be increasing employment in the private sector and increasing unemployment in the public sector.
We need to address this issue and start to manage it.
Our risk of death or injury by something other than terrorism is SO much higher yet the media constantly makes a huge deal out of terrorism...generating support for creating new, expensive, and ever more powerful and wide-reaching programs and agencies, and funding agencies and companies that have no other reason for existing. In those historically tried and true words..."follow the money".
For example, airplane events involving death/injury are "flashy" and make great news. In the REAL-world, they contribute exceedingly little to death and injury. Yet what makes headlines and has resulted in massive new spending and "intrusive" programs? We need ask ourselves why that is.
No security programs will ever be 100% effective regardless how much power or money is given them.
I believe the sad thing is that the Patriot Act's ultimate anti-terrorism objectives could largely be legally and Constitutionally achieved by simply using and enforcing prior existing (and vetted) laws...at much lower cost and with at least the same degree of effectiveness.
What if you declined to carry health insurance and you and your family are seriously injured in an automobile accident? Who do you suppose will pay for your medical costs? Most likely the government will. If that happens to you, what do you think is fair? Shouldn't you pay a little more in taxes than I, who carry health insurance, pay? Think about it? It's the only fair thing to do!
If the educated and politicans are worth the big bucks why do we even have a recession-recover?
Polls were taken and the public believes the biggest problem is jobs and lack of money.
So why do they bother with abortion and such?
Since they want to represent the corporations and special interest-they should get their votes and dollars from them. Not the taxpayers.
http://www.thenation.com/article/157511/end-new-deal-liberalism
Victory for the insurance/drug/medical complex. They could not continue reaming America with out the fearful, perpetually befuddled and inflexible conservative base.
Wow.
http://www.aei.org/docLib/Government-Housing-Policies-Financial-Crisis-Pinto-102110.pdf