So today President Obama gave a “preview” of his jobs speech that will take place on Thursday. Speaking to a rowdy group of union members in Detriot, who had just minutes before cheered Jimmy Hoffa for saying that they should “take the sons of bitches out” when referring to the Tea Party, the President gave more a shoddy review of his last three years than any preview at all.
Here is what he threw out there:
- Throw money into infrastructure. Which is what the stimulus was supposed to do. It should be noted that he did not use the term shovel ready
- Extend the payroll tax cut that was reached in the deal to extend the economy-saving Bush tax cuts of the 2001 recession. Somehow this should create more jobs because, well, its been doing such a good job for the last 10 months. Did I mention we had zero jobs created in August?
- Pass more free trade agreements with foreign countries so that we can sell out goods overseas. This is actually a good idea, however I always find it funny that the Democrats use this idea. By passing free trade agreements we also open our shores up to cheaper foreign goods and create more opportunities for outsourcing for cheaper manufacturing costs. The union members all cheered for it, but I can only imagine that it was because they do not understand it.
- Finally, his last idea is to stand up for collective bargaining. Because we all know that creates jobs…
I guess this means we can all just watch football and skip the repeat speech on Thursday night?
re #2: Why do I get the feeling that you don't have a similar opinion of Bush's tax cuts? Got any evidence of their efficacy? The hypocrisy of you Bircher/baggers is a constant source of amusement.
Sure Bill, the Bush tax cuts helped to pull us out of the 2001 recession because they were put in place for a long enough period of time to provide certainty to the marketplace and to investors who were then able to direct their capital to what they felt were smart investments, and thus created jobs by growing businesses.
Fast forward to today, no one knows whether the current tax rates are going to be extended or hiked. They know what the President wants, they know what the GOP wants, but they don't know who will win out. By only extending the tax cuts for a year or two at a time while the markets look on at the deteriorating political climate in Washington, our leaders are sending nothing but uncertainty to those investors. The lower tax rates cannot be effective if job creators think that they are just going to go up again! That is just short term Keyensian stimulus that does not work, its no better than a big spending stimulus package!
Similarly, a 2% cut in the payroll tax will do nothing to create jobs, not only because the part of the payroll tax paid by employees is not a factor in job creation, but also because it is too small and too temporary to matter.