This article (about the President’s recent jobs bill) at the Huffington Post has juxtaposed congressional Republicans’ and Democrats’ views on jobs perfectly! The battle lines, it seems, are drawn as follows:
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Boehner says, “Now it’s time for both parties to work together and find common ground on removing government barriers to private-sector job growth.”
(Get the government out of the way.)
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House Democratic leaders “accused Republicans of standing in the way of job creation.”
The CEO of a liberal group says,”It’s long past time for Congress to take the steps necessary to get our economy working by helping to create the good paying jobs that Americans depend on to support their families and their communities.”
(The government is the only way; get the Republicans out of the way.)
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So, who’s really in the way?
Democrats seem to assign strange motives to all the people who should be creating jobs but aren’t. They call the Republicans in Congress obstructionist, but despite all that obstruction, we have not really been spared the government’s help. Has the help helped? Economists said that jobs would lag behind other economic growth, but eventually even President Obama got impatient. He said the following in an address to the Chamber of Commerce in February of 2011:
“So if I’ve got one message, my message is now is the time to invest in America. Now is the time to invest in America. Today, American companies have nearly $2 trillion sitting on their balance sheets. And I know that many of you have told me that you’re waiting for demand to rise before you get off the sidelines and expand, and that with millions of Americans out of work, demand has risen more slowly than any of us would like. We’re in this together, but many of your own economists and salespeople are now forecasting a healthy increase in demand. So I just want to encourage you to get in the game.”
That set the tone of the debate for the next few months. A lot of ordinary folks made arguments like this: “$2 trillion can hire 40 million people at a salary of $50,000. I say we tell the corporations to start hiring.” Corporations are just sitting on cash! Why can’t we just make them spend it on us?
What do business have to say for themselves? I think you should read, in its entirety, this article by a fantastic professor of law. In this instance, he is writing from the perspective of a liberal academic, though on the whole I’d say Stephen Carter defies categorization. (I think all law professors aspire to that.) In case you don’t feel like reading all of it, I’m copying its highlights below:
The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why he refuses to hire anybody. His business is successful, he says, as the 737 cruises smoothly eastward. Demand for his product is up. But he still won’t hire.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they will cost me tomorrow?”
He’s referring not to wages, but to regulation: He has no way of telling what new rules will go into effect when. His business, although it covers several states, operates on low margins. He can’t afford to take the chance of losing what little profit there is to the next round of regulatory changes.
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‘‘I don’t understand,” he continues, “why Washington won’t just get out of our way and let us hire.”
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I ask him what, precisely, he thinks is the proper role of government as it relates to business.
“Invisible,” he says. “I know there are things the government has to do. But they need to find a way to do them without people like me having to bump into a new regulation every time we turn a corner.” He reflects for a moment, then finds the analogy he seeks. “Government should act like my assistant, not my boss.”
I’ve heard the business sector express similar concerns over and over again these past months.
The Obama administration and Democrats keep insisting they’re the ones who want us to have jobs. It’s no mystery where the jobs are. The business sector has been very candid. But they’re being ignored. Re-visit the battle lines above. Remember the key question:
Who’s in the way?
The guy we’re trying to encourage to hire says, “I don’t understand why Washington won’t just get out of our way and let us hire.”
I don’t understand, either.