Where Will the Jobs Come From?
First came TARP, which set aside $700 billion to bail out Wall Street and other financial institutions. Next came the stimulus package, which allocated $787 billion for various programs primarily intended to stem job losses in the short term. Yet of the well over $1 trillion in federal funds, only a drop in the bucket has gone directly to what experts agree is the best source for job creation - our country's small businesses. Even the government concedes that small businesses account for 60 to 80 percent of new jobs and generate about $1 trillion in economic activity, or 40 percent of our GDP. Small businesses are more nimble and innovative than large corporations, and as a result are much more likely to develop the breakthrough ideas we need for global competitiveness. Our employment future rests on the shoulders of the small employer and we should be investing with them.
The problem is, on our current path towards larger federal deficits, higher consumer debt and government ownership of private assets, small businesses and entrepreneurs will face significant obstacles to continue its role as the creator of jobs - high taxes, high interest rates, a weak dollar and overbearing, or as some argue, unfair competition.
If this continues, jobs growth will be directionally negative as growing federal deficits will stifle broad based economic growth and capital investment. In addition, companies will be cautious and reluctant, even if they believe forecasts of an improving economy, to rehire laid off employees, and many of our traditional big employers will continue to face increased global competition, which will put even more adverse pressure on employment.
It is my view that we need to do three things:
First, restore financial discipline. We have been dealt a very weak hand by the financial market meltdown, bail outs and recession. We can't act like it's a strong one. We have to spend carefully on critically important government programs (like education) and investments that actually create sustainable jobs. As a country, we are borrowing at record levels from the developing world and using the money to stimulate consumer spending, not for long-term job creation. In the not too distant future, the developing world will want its money back for use in its own economies, and our repayment will be extraordinarily painful absent a healthy economy with an employed and productive workforce. We have to reverse spending trends that are not job creating.
Second, encourage private sector investment. We must provide tax incentives and other programs designed to encourage investment in our next generation businesses in order to give them the initial boost they need to get traction in new markets. These companies will create competitive and sustainable jobs. Tax incentives don't always mean lower taxes; they can mean higher taxes, for example, on things such as traditional energy sources in order to give new alternative energy sources a chance to grow and succeed.
Finally, ensure proven government programs are maximized. The government has taken a step in the right direction with the some of the changes made to the Small Business Administration program, but much more is needed. The government should dramatically increase loans to small businesses, which have been left behind in the credit market recovery; it should provide services to small business that go beyond loans and range from business consulting to basic financial literacy; and it should have targeted funding programs to foster investment in critically important industries, such as green technology, health care cost containment, alternative energy, and workplace and educational training. We have to remember that our next generation infrastructure is not just roads and bridges, but technology and intellectual capital. This will be money well spent, or money well lent.
To be an employed nation we have to return to our roots and embrace, encourage and reward entrepreneurs and small businesses. Small businesses will not only create most of our jobs but also will continue to embody our nation's forward leaning spirit, our relentless pursuit of innovation, and our burning desire to move forward and improve the station of our citizens. The government and big companies will neither create all the jobs we need nor will they create all the jobs we want.
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Time is REALLY ripe to enact a WPA program---partner people whose unemployment benefits are running out with INNOVATIVE start-ups and infra-structure projects and we just MIGHT see some of this "change" we've been promised.
The GOP objects to THAT??? Chances are they wouldn't be able to get elected as dog-catchers after that!
too bad we cant bring all our manufacturers back to the continental USA.
all those businesses encouraged and allowed to outsource our jobs, beginning with ronnie reagan's administration.
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bring back levi strauss, all the textile mills, heavy industry like steel and manufacturing, we could begin to make our own furniture, clothing and all those proudly "made in the USA" goods which are now being made in what used to be "third world" countries.
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since dear old ronnie's time, union membership has decreased and the middle class was all but destroyed.
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i really dont know anyone who wouldn't rather invest in goods made "here" and know it was putting Americans back to work...... talk about an economic stimulus plan!
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I do not agree. We need a WPA type of program pronto. Small business can take care of itself as it always had.
John K. Delaney says we should encourage small business. I couldn't agree more. I don't know how to measure small business sucess, but I would bet it's plunging, dropping like a lead ballon. Like a dead baby.
If you consider that our economic policies are set by international banks, everything starts to make sense. Our economy is just a number so the banksters can collect on their giant casino bets. You have to look at things upside down for it to make sense.
How about we just get the federal government to end all corporate welfare programs? Let's start with H-1B. And then let's secure the borders to end the free flow of cheap labor. And then let's scrap all the "free trade" agreements. We need "fair trade".
This is the same hooey they been feeding us for years. I hate to say it but we need a return to a more austere and less free school system with emphasis on practice, work and rote. Most young people today don;t know how to work. Our schools are producing inferior adults. Its just that simple. Look at Blajoyvich. He researched it, he read Freakonomics. He knew the big difference between the rich and the poor were books and so he started a revolutionary program where a book would be sent to underpriveleged children, one a year something like that. The cost was a pittance. We all know how that worked out.
Can't we all get jobs like NEIL BUSH chartering air planes to take Americans Business owners over seas to search for a place to move their businesses ???
Neil Bush used U.S.Taxpayer money thru the Commerce Department to charter air panes for week long junkets around Asia with the plane full of American Business Owners. Then the Department of Commerce help pay for the Businesses to move Equipment and jobs training for the Forgien Workers with grants.
Can't we all get Department of Commerce Grants like Neil Bush ?????
I would like to see more small buisness get started like it use to be. Small buisness use to be the heart of america and we need to support the small buisness man/woman and encourage this ownership of your own buisness. We have our cleaners, flowershops, shoeshops, confectionerys, fishmarkets, barbershops, ect... these are the ones who also help keep people employed. Some think that if we don't have the rich then we will fail, I differ on that statement. Small buisness if we have enough of them and enough of the things people want in them could prosper and spread all over this country and we could come back full force. People are gonna always go the barber, they will always need to buy shoes, they will always order flowers, we need to give incentives for and to small buisness owners. Just my view.
Who is this "we" you keep talking about. "We" are serfs under corporate rule. Our corporate masters own our government. You should be talking about changes "they" could make. The only option open to "We" the people is revolution.
Hi!
Why can't we change the law so that a car-buyer can put the interest that he/she pays on the income tax form? Do you think that it might stimulate people to buy autos? Remember when we could do that? Then Ronald Regean came into office and he took that away from us. I remember what he said. He wanted people to buy boats and he'd give boat-buyers a tax break! Anybody remember that one? How many of you out there can afford to buy a boat, a house, and a car too? Only rich people can afford those big 3 at the same time.
Peace!
In this terrible depression financial and tax incentives are for naught without protections against predatory competition from our dangerous monopolistic corporations and outside mercantelism. Fair competition is a start in the right direction. But simply encouraging small businesses is grasping at straws in the present circumstances and conditions.
Ah, more pump priming for the next bubble.
How many of these hastily financed small business will pay low wages and provide no benefits? How many will fail to pay back the taxpayer?
GENERATE MILLIONS OF NEW JOBS!
A Human Investment Tax Credit (HITC) program can create up to 6 million jobs and launch perhaps 4 million entrepreneurs.
Download it free at: www.aesopinstitute.org
The 1977 job tax credit program included a few of these incentives and generated almost one million jobs - 20% of the jobs created that year!
Congress should consider the suggested 2009 HITC program without delay!
For another path to millions of jobs see: 5 Steps to Revive the Auto Industry and the Economy - on the same website.
It outlines new technology that opens surprising paths to cars that need no fossil fuel or recharge. Advanced versions could turn parked cars into power plants, able to wirelessly sell power to the local utility.
The technology is not yet in the textbooks and will be greeted with extreme skepticism and disbelief.
However, independent laboratory validation of one remarkable breakthrough has taken place at Rowan University. It produced far more heat than can readily be explained by existing science, clearly suggesting a new source of energy is involved. The experiments should rapidly be repeated at national laboratories and other universities.
The Rowan validation indicates new technology will allow a barrel of water to replace 200 barrels of oil!
Radically new technologies will change much of what is currently believed about energy.
Who will not buy such electric cars or hybrids fueled by a gallon of water each thousand miles?
The real question is: How best to accelerate the process?
The strength of a society can better be judged by the strength of its middle class - is what they used to teach. New Rules: it doesn't matter than there are no jobs, the middle class can now join the lower class. Just so long as certain bankers and Wall Street con men make money.
As long as we continue to measure R.O.I.'s in dollars only, a true recovery hasn't got a chance. Investors and lending institutions are not interested in businesses that offer 'intangibles' to local communities - like increased pedestrian traffic to town centers, activities for families and youth, summer jobs for teens, or part-time work for seniors....small family run restaurants or ice cream shops, candy stores, make-your-own pottery shops, hobby or garden stores will never quality for loans....they don't produce enough 'profit'. But they are the lifeblood of small town centers....and they have almost completely 'dried up' and disappeared from our nation's streets.
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